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Tinear's thread below about the late Edward Woodward has set me thinking about actors who seem to able to do well in different - particularly foreign - accents.As a Brit, I've been very impressed by Gwyneth Paltrow in, say, Possession and Renée Zellweger in Bridget Jones's Diary and Miss Potter. 'Our' Damian Lewis seems convincingly American in 'Life' on TV - but what would I know?!
And, of course, Brits like Peggy Ashcroft and her classically trained ilk have done a wide range of British accents in their time. Helen Mirren, too, more recently.
Any others come to mind?
Edits: 11/17/09Follow Ups:
Pefect American and English accents. Seems to be pretty common among the Aussies
I hope inmates will forgive this tangent about a current UK ad campaign (see link), but these little guys have obviously roamed far from the Kalahari Desert. I'd be interested to know what people think of the accent. Native speaker or skilled/cringe-worthy actor?(If you enjoy this, there are at least three other ads in the series to date.)
PS I have no interest in getting you cheap car insurance, by the way!
Edits: 11/19/09
...a satire for low comic effect, in itself.
Thanks for responding to this.When I saw the first ad I was quite surprised that foreign accents were being used for comic effect on mainstream media in 2009 but - despite myself (your point about low comic effect) - I've grown to love them.
They remind me of Peter Sellers's Indian accent in the films The Millionairess and The Party and, of course, his duet with Sophia Loren, Goodness Gracious Me: I know Indians who both love and loathe it.
I suppose the effect has more than a little to do with the socio-economic status of the group being satirised. Fortunately, for example, the UK film industry has long got over its 'cheeky Cockney' phase.
Some of the most prominent Russians here currently are the so-called 'oligarchs' like Roman Abramovich, yet last week I bought The Big Issue magazine from a homeless Russian woman in Oxford Street.
Edits: 11/19/09
I love absurdity. I still like to laugh at Poles(and blondes)-are-dumb jokes.....and the like.
I think that those who find offense in these things are already pretty ripely offend-able.
...He acts in french films, speaking the language. The real thing. Just doing an accent is not nearly as cool, IMHO.
...I mean, their ranks are legion. A shorter list would be Brit actors who *can't* do a good American or foreign accents.
Hugh Laurie, Rufus Sewell, Ioan Gruffudd, Dominic West, Damian Lewis, Shane Taylor and Kevin McKidd are just the latest in a long line of Brit actors doing convincing American accents on US TV productions...and I can also think of actors like Brian Cox, Toby Jones, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Marianne Jean-Baptiste and a score of others who've been seen in US movies and on American TV who some viewers may not even realize are British.
Being able to do regional British dialects, not to mention American and foreign accents, seems to be taken as part and parcel of an actor's skills in Old Blighty (and Ireland too). It seems to be something an actor just normally learns to do as part of their craft. Being more versatile with various dialects just puts more arrows in the actor's artistic quiver so to speak - not to mention opening up a wider variety of casting opportunities. Most brush up with dialect coaches for special roles, of course.
I'm not necessarily a great judge of Brit actors doing German, French or other accents, although Brits seem to have a natural affinity for Germanic accents. David Suchet's accent as Poirot convinced me, but I'm not sure what a native Belgian/English speaker would think. I've also noticed that many Dutch actors like Rutger Hauer can do very natural sounding American accents. Danish actress Connie Nielson can do American English and RP English - I think she could probably convince me of anything anyway.
Welsh, Irish and Scottish actors are performing in non-native dialect every time they essay a role as an "English" character be it received pronunciation or Liverpudlian. Y'all have a great variety of dialects in your fairly small country BTW.
American actors are a bit less succcessful at British and foreign accents IMO, with notable exceptions like Meryl Streep. Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr. Some fo the hardest accents are American southern dialects (of which there are many) - Paltrow does a spot on West Texan accent which is very hard to capture. I think many people thought Alexis Denisof (of Angel and Dollhouse TV series) grew up in Britain instead of New Hampshire (he did live in London for several years).
And then there's Anthony LaPaglia, an Aussie who most Americans think is a native New Yorker. Aussies on the whole do very well at Americvan accents - Cate Blanchette, Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe, Heath Ledger, Nicole Kidman, Naomi Watts, et al. Cate's British accent always seemed very good for me, and her father is from Texas, but you'd have to tell me how these folks' English accents are. Cate sounded great as Queen Elizabeth to me, and the vaguely RP of Weavings Elrons in the LOTR's movies was spot on to me. But while I was fine with Russelll Crowe's accent in Master & Commander, some other Brits I know were less impressed. You tell me.
English actors speaking german or french is mostly as charming as when French speaks English.
You see.
I must say dear Harmony you are not as lazy as I.
You are right about Southern accents being tough. Being from the South, I cringe almost every time an actor makes a stab at it, especially when attempts are made at a coastal Carolina accent. Always ends up sounding like Foghorn Leghorn.
nt
You've reminded me/us, as hoped, of many others.
Actors who are to any extent bi-/multi-cultural - Gillian Anderson and Kim Catrall come to mind - have a head-start, of course!
...Scot Kelly MacDonald who plays Carla Jean Moss in "No Country For Old Men".
I bought her Texan honeydew completely.
under-appreciated "Nighthawks," sounded like an educated Dutchman speaking English.
He was no better, several years later, with his robot-like pronunciations in "B R."
many can get the pronunciation down but it's the "music" that's hardest. I've heard no American do "English" very well, they all seem to be imitating, including Paltrow.
This native speaker, for one, was uncannily, even scarily, reminded of a former colleague by her delivery in Possession.
I'm sure you're right about Damian Lewis, but my impression is that at least some of this generation of actors have a better ear for this - 'music' and all - than previous ones.
Most people don't have very good ears for accents, especially Americans. The jokes about Americans attempting foreign languages are legion for good reasons.
Peter Sellers is one of the very, very few people that could do accents perfectly. Even so, his American accent, for example in "Dr. Strangelove," was overdone (perhaps for comic effect like his German one?).
... I'll mention that I was born and brought up in 'The Athens of the North' where, as everyone knows, the very finest English is spoken. (Sex is what coal comes in for us.) Also, I studied linguistics and phonetics in Daniel Jones's old department at University College London - Shaw is believed to have based Prof Henry Higgins on him - which might explain why this topic is close to my heart.
But credentials and expertise aren't all that relevant here: I was just curious to know about inmates' perceptions, whatever their own backgrounds.
PS Your dig at Patrick, below, has me wondering whether Archie Bunker isn't your alter ego!!
taught ESL for several years to a wide assortment of nationalities. I also speak a couple of foreign languages. My insight is that language is theater and music as well as linguistics. In other words, one has to somewhat assume the persona of an Italian to speak the language and also get the cadence, the flow, correctly to speak convincingly. An accent is akin to learning another language. Very few people can do that in a few months. The odds that those few would be actors is small but they do get a "leg-up" for the persona bit.
"The wife" has a masters in linguistics and agrees with me, though that doesn't mean much.
Anyhow, I didn't read a sniff of ad hominem in your post; it was interesting, informative, and equitable.
Wrong, all the same..... :-)
.. except about my being wrong!It seems to me actors work to please a broad audience, so their success or failure in their craft depends on the overall response of that audience, drama experts as well as ordinary Joes, Joannas, Giuseppes, etc. If, say, Hugh Laurie's House performance passes muster with a majority, Stateside and internationally, ... kudos to him, I say.
Accents for comic effect, such as Garbo's Ninotchka, require less skill but can be equally entertaining, I think.
It's always interesting to know which performances elicit cringes, though!
Edits: 11/18/09
d
Meryl Streep has a fabulous ear; "Sophie's Choice" comes to mind.
Edits: 11/17/09
Maggie Smith, Judy Dench,Kate Winslet, Rachel Weisz, Kate Beckinsale, Emily Watson, Helena Bonham Carter...
Even Bening ( Annette ) could in Being Julia.
efforts, I'd say your English accent would make Chevalier seem a native English speaker.
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nt
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bleep
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