Preposterous accents in films

[Steven]

I said Tom Hardy in Locke. LOCKE. LOCKE. LOOOOOOOOCKE.

The worst is that in that film he's called Ivan Locke, pronounced `Eye-van', when a Welsh bloke would be called Ifan and pronounce it 'E-van'.

[Catalogue Trousers]

Dieter Laser in The Human Centipede.

'H-watt-errrrr?'

[Shit Good Nose]

The worst is that in that film he's called Ivan Locke, pronounced `Eye-van', when a Welsh bloke would be called Ifan and pronounce it 'E-van'.

Incorrect - Ivan has variants Iwan, Ioan and, as you say, Ifan (and, sometimes, it's a hard F, so - IFFan).  Ivan ("Eye-van") itself is a perfectly acceptable Welsh pronunciation.  I should know - I'm from Welsh stock (although I'm not Welsh myself) and my grandfather on my dad's side was an Eye-van (Ivan Lewis, you know boy [although I didn't, cos he died long before I was born]), from Newport.


I actually think his valleys accent isn't that bad, not even as bad as Hardy thinks it is in retrospect.  Plus he had a well publicised bad cold throughout the whole shoot as well, which probs made it a bit harder still.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Kevin Spacey's accent in Ordinary Decent Criminal is all over the shop; I assume The General had a Dublin accent but you wouldn't have guessed.

[Keebleman]

Brando's accent in Mutiny on the Bounty is notorious, rightly so.  Welles in Lady from Shanghai is almost as bad.

Tommy Wiseau of course.  That it's his real voice is no excuse.

Talking of excuses, Tom Hardy blaming a cold for his accent in Locke is pathetic.  Even if true, they could have looped the dialogue once he was feeling less poorly.

And his accent in the film is rubbish.  I grew up in Caerphilly so know all too well the Valleys accent.

[Cuellar]

Except when he is playing an Italian in Gladiator, when his English accent is pretty good

Point of order, but I've seen this come up before and it niggles me far in excess of its importance, isn't his character Spanish?

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

With him retiring, it seems appropriate to mention Daniel Day Lewis and whatever the hell his accent was in There Will Be Blood. I haven't seen Lincoln, but he sounded bizarre on the adverts for that, too.

Talking of excuses, Tom Hardy blaming a cold for his accent in Locke is pathetic.  Even if true, they could have looped the dialogue once he was feeling less poorly.

And his accent in the film is rubbish.  I grew up in Caerphilly so know all too well the Valleys accent.

Why is the character even Welsh in the first place? What does that bring to the film?

Point of order, but I've seen this come up before and it niggles me far in excess of its importance, isn't his character Spanish?

phantom_power's point still stands but, yes, he is.

[MiddleRabbit]

Point of order, but I've seen this come up before and it niggles me far in excess of its importance, isn't his character Spanish?

As he's referred to as 'Spaniard' all the way through it, you'd have thought so, wouldn't you?

I feel similarly irked, which is odd because I don't even like it much.

[Cuellar]

As he's referred to as 'Spaniard' all the way through it, you'd have thought so, wouldn't you?

I feel similarly irked, which is odd because I don't even like it much.

Oh yeah I'd forgotten about that.

Yeah me neither - I shouldn't give a shit about this, but I do.

[SteveDave]

Why is the character even Welsh in the first place? What does that bring to the film?

Nothing. I bet it was Tom Hardy's idea to do it Welsh. As an actor.

EDIT- Har! Wikipedia tells me this "Bill Milner as Sean Locke"

[greenman]

I did quite like his general over pronunciation though, gave a bit more energy to talking on the phone for 90 mins.

[zomgmouse]

Bloody James Bloody Coburn as an Australian in The Great Escape. Bloody Jesus Bloody Christ mate!

[Mini]

I did quite like his general over pronunciation though, gave a bit more energy to talking on the phone for 90 mins.

That's probably it, Hardy figured that a film consisting entirely of him talking on the phone would benefit from a pleasing accent. And I think in that sense it works, even if it's inaccurate. "Conk-reet!"

[mothman]

The Stath's accent is wonky enough in The Transporter, but made all the more bizarre by his not having it anymore in the sequels.

[Replies From View]

Richard Attenborough's character being Scottish for about thirty seconds of Jurassic Park.  The fact that they didn't bother re-recording that dialogue before release, despite all the post-production work elsewhere in the film, suggests it's fine to assume the character was doing a Scottish accent in that scene for no reason.  Just bizarre.

[zomgmouse]

Liam Neeson in Silence using his own voice when literally everyone around him spoke in an accent. Didn't even give it a crack, just sat there moping with a brogue.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Can I say the little guy in game of thrones? Not a movie though.

No one on that show comes close to Aiden Gillen for preposterosity.

[AsparagusTrevor]

No one on that show comes close to Aiden Gillen for preposterosity.

Yes, he manages several preposterous accents, often at the same time, rather impressively.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I've seen some people argue that, since he's no longer in Kings Landing, Littlefinger doesn't need to put on airs and has reverted to his real accent. I think that Gillen has only just realised that his character is a baddie and has decided he should have a baddie voice.

[George White]

Watching 1978 miniseries the Bastard. Fakeness abound. Andrew Stevens as a French illegitimate son of "British" aristocracy, narrated by Raymond Burr. Thatched shacks in a France that looks like a planet from Battlestar Galactica, everyone including the late Stephen Furst IIRC in donkey jackets and tricorn hats, more like 60s novelty garage rockers than French peasants, and the likes of Patricia Neal doing weird semi-Quebecois accents, and Ike Eisenmann from the Witch Mountain films, Fantastic Journey and Wrath of Khan as a French boy aristocrat, lots of Little Europe, doubling as an 18th century England that as i said, resembles a lost episode of Battlestar Galactica to the extent Lorne Greene appears as the Bishop of London and Count Baltar, John Colicos, also a Canadian but trained in Britain doing a fair job as Lord North, and some nouveau Californian mansion possibly Wayne Manor plays an English stately home with all the realism of Milton Keynes doubling for Metropolis.  The accents are weird, esp. the English ones which sound like they're all from Shelbyville, weird upper-class not-quite-British, esp. Cameron Mitchell as a one-eyed mercenary. Donald Pleasence and Elizabeth Shepherd's real accents throw everything off, as they are British.

[Absorb the anus burn]

Holly Hunter in The Piano.

[George White]

The entire cast of Hennessy, Rod Steiger, Eric Porter, Lee Remick, Patrick Stewart,Ian Hogg, etc. all trying to do Belfast. Porter does it best, Hogg (like Alex Norton's supposedly Belfast but 100% Glaswegian 'Ra man in Patriot Games) keeps his Scottish accent, and Stewart sounds ridiculous.

[neveragain]

Oh my word yes, what was going on there? Someone involved somewhere surely could have piped up, 'er, this is an accent unheard on Earth, let alone NW UK or Seattle.

Jane Leeves has often told the story that she offered an authentic Manc accent and was told it "wouldn't play in the States" (that's not a quote, but I can imagine producers saying it). So she offered a few variants and went with whatever the 'ell it is she does in the show. Surely the fact that each member of her family has a different regional accent is an inside joke.

[Rolf Lundgren]

For someone who is virtually English I've never understood why Christian Bale has a terrible English accent. In The Prestige he sounds like an American doing a bad cockney impression.

[kidsick5000]

Liam Neeson in Silence using his own voice when literally everyone around him spoke in an accent. Didn't even give it a crack, just sat there moping with a brogue.

Good. I hate it when they labour on with a actor failing miserably to do the accent.

Sometimes, all it takes is a small shift in text – one word in the script – and so many ears could be saved.
Take Ewan McGregor in Angels And Demons. Absolutely no reason to not just have that priest come from Scotland rather than Ireland. I don't rate his acting too highly anyway, but it' even worse when he's attempting to do some form of Irish.

[phantom_power]

For someone who is virtually English I've never understood why Christian Bale has a terrible English accent. In The Prestige he sounds like an American doing a bad cockney impression.

Is it the problem of posh people trying to sound common? That can often lead to Van Dyke-like accentry

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Surely the very worst accent in film history is Al Pacino's cockney accent in 'The Local Stigmatic': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO5rEeH5JQs

Unreleased and hard to find for years. I wonder why.

[Kane Jones]

Take Ewan McGregor in Angels And Demons. Absolutely no reason to not just have that priest come from Scotland rather than Ireland. I don't rate his acting too highly anyway, but it' even worse when he's attempting to do some form of Irish.

Same thing with Billy Connolly's appalling Irish accent in The Last Samurai. Why his character couldn't have just been Scottish is anyone's guess. Or they could've employed an Irish actor instead.

[AsparagusTrevor]

Same thing with Billy Connolly's appalling Irish accent in The Last Samurai. Why his character couldn't have just been Scottish is anyone's guess. Or they could've employed an Irish actor instead.

Unfortunately there are no Irish actors.

This means we're stuck with Scottish and American actors having to have a go at the accent. Luckily, most of the American audience think the the Lucky Charms leprechaun is what all real-life Irish people sound like.

[phantom_power]

Surely the very worst accent in film history is Al Pacino's cockney accent in 'The Local Stigmatic': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO5rEeH5JQs

Unreleased and hard to find for years. I wonder why.

The odd thing about that one is that he has obviously put his usual effort into doing the research and gets a lot of things right about the accent. It is just that the bits he gets wrong he gets so wrong the whole thing sounds preposterous