Brad Dourif in “The Lord of the Rings.” Convinced the actor he shared a lot of screen time with (actual Brit Bernard Hill) that he was English. Dourif kept up the accent during the shoot, even off-camera-when filming concluded, he returned to his native West Virginia accent and Hill commented, “that’s the worst American accent I’ve ever heard.”
TBF I meet Americans all the time at my regular pub in Groningen, Netherlands, and there is no such thing as an "American Accent", because the US is too darn big and nobody from the US wants to sound "too" American. It's a really weird thing (They're either from Texas, Pennsylvania or Michigan).
@@theothertonydutch That's not exactly true, most cannot tell the difference between Canada and the United States' accents, to many it is the same. Of course, there are different inflexions, depending where you are, how certain words are pronounced, like the Canadians really empthise the 'OU' such as Out, (oww-t) about (a-bow-t)however, the overall tone is mostly the same, with only one significant notable difference are those are the Southern States. Then look at Britain, where you have Manc accent(Manchester), the Scouse accent (Liverpool), Brummie (Birmingham), Cockney (London), Midlands, Geordie (Newcastle), Cornish (Cornwall), etc. I'm missing quite a few but I have made my point and that is just in England, we haven't even mentioned, Scots, Glasweigian, or Doric and there is the N. Irish accent which differs from Republic of Ireland's accent, although both are noticeably Irish (as are most of these in their respective areas) and an honourable mention for the Welsh, which I know very little about but I am certain there will be a few there too. What there isn't, is a "British accent." Yet, it is said far more often than not. Then you consider that the British Isles is smaller than Texas, that is quite a lot. _Note; I am certain you could probably switch out many of the examples of "ACCENTS" I have used with "dialects," I have found it hard deceiphering which is which, so I used accent for the sake of ease._
You are seriously underestimating how many accents the us has, just the east coast alone has probably 20 distinct ones, and california has multiple too. There isn't just one southern accent. Don't get me started on the midwest, a minefield of slight variations from person to person, who knows where an accent begins or ends. Then there's the northern bits too, which get inspiration from Canada. The us probably has hundreds of accents. Not saying that europe, or even just the few mentioned countries don't have a compareable or larger sample, I simply don't know, but don't think that it's so cut and dried.
I remember when Hugh Laurie first starred in "House". There was a commenting section on the IMDB website, and there were so many Brits talking about how horrible his American accent was, while the Americans didn't even know he was British, lol. Even the casting director during the audition (to his discredit) didn't know who Laurie was and thought he was just another American actor.
He sounded American to me ... but not from any specific location in the USA. I've spoken to people who went to American schools abroad, particularly the American School in Japan, who also sounded completely placeless. He sounded a bit like that.
@@cacogenicist I think so. Like in Arabic, there is a sound ع which you must say in exaggerated fashion to sound ''Arabic'', but if you said it too exaggerated it would sound a bit weird depending on the region.
British ppl tend to think of the american accent of harsher and nasallier than it rly is, just how Americans think all Brits sound like posh cartoons. British ppl think that the "american r" sound is more growley and lower than it often is in practice. Americans think that British ppl talk with all their muscles in their jaw completely relaxed and open. When Brits heard what they already knew was a fake accent, and it didn't fit their image of an American accent they noticed it right away. Americans don't know nor care where an actor came from (if they aren't already a popular american actor) so they had no expectations for a fake accent before hand. The thought never even crossed their minds while watching the show. But they probably would have noticed if he had a stereotypical British-American accent.
My favourite UK accent done by US actors were the band members of Spinal Tap. I worked in music studios at the time in Central London, and was already working in voice production too, but to me, they sounded like half the London bands that we saw every week. I simply didn't spot that they were Americans. And their accents even took in the supposed schooling of the various characters. It was quite brilliant.
This one's a little more niche, but Daniel Davis as Niles in The Nanny. He's from the state of Arkansas and speaks with a strong southern accent, and his accent was so accurate, many people at the time were surprised to find out he wasn't actually English haha
I once met a man from Georgia. He had a beautiful Southern accent but occasionally would slip into what I can only describe as a posh English accent. He said he lived for several years in London where he picked it up. The amazing thing was how subtle the shift was between the two.
Yes. I only know him as Professor Moriarty from Star Trek TNG. The Nanny wasn't aired here in the UK. His accent is impeccable as well as his overall performance. I was stunned to find out he is actually from across the pond.
I love it too though when I learned about his family history and childhood - his dad is British and of noble heritage, and Guest spent parts of his childhood in England - it made much more sense how well he was able to slip into an English accent.
Agreed I thought they did the English accent brilliantly I thought they were British. All the spinal actors were good. If you knew guys who were in English bands then it is exactly how they were…. lol
My husband and I were born in the late 1940s/early 1950s, respectively. Imagine how ancient we feel when someone refers to "forty years ago" or "the last century," and we realize how old we actually are.
Damn! I get the same thing too! Whenever I hear 40 years ago, my mind immediately goes to the 1950s. Thirty years is the 60s, 20 for the 70s, etc... And then I realize that the early-mid 90s was 30 years ago and I get slightly depressed.
The reason Hurt avoided weak forms was precisely as you said: to give his character a vaguely non- native air: he was playing a Muscovite, so SSB + a hint of foreignness was a good symbolic way of signaling his Russianness to audiences.
Yes, that's what I thought as well. He's not doing an SSB accent but acctually miming a technique of high-level non-native speakers by avoiding contractions and being too exact in his annunciation. It is by far the best interpretation of someone giving an impression of speaking in a laguage other than English while avoid stereotypical accents. I wish all hollywood performances adopted this idea.
Gillian Anderson has a good English accent i think. She spent her childhood in England and had to "learn" the American accent when they moved back to America. So now she tends to speak in an English accent when in England and American when in the states. You can check out her interviews in the UK vs US. She uses different accents in both and I find that fascinating
A lot of actors who started out here and went to hollwood can slip back into an English accent very easily and sound completely English, e.g. Angela Lansbury, Cary Grant.
Similarly, I understand Gwenyth Paltrow has an impeccable British accent. Her parents are both British so she grew up hearing it, and it was probably her first accent before she went to school.
My favorite British accent by an American accent was Cary Elwes before I learned he was actually British. I thought he was just really good at doing British accent, turns out he's actually good at American accents.
Hurt was serious about his accents, regardless of the region. I remember an interview where he talked about studying/creating phonetic breakdowns of accents using IPA notation.
@@thefantasyreview8709 yeah, many Americans sound more Irish than Welsh when they try to tackle it. I know Robert Downey Jr. was poked fun at for his attempt at the accent in Doctor Doolittle, but as a Welshman, I was impressed!
As an Irishman I'm used to seeing the Irish accent massacred in movies, where they often don't even try to do a real Irish accent. The best I've heard is Charlie Cox. I remember seeing him in Boardwalk Empire after watching Daredevil and thinking he must actually be an Irish actor, not American as i had thought. (He's actually Welsh)
Joseph Gilgun did a pretty decent Irish accent for Preacher, and Mark Strong's more educated Irish accent in Siege of Jodotville was actually better than whatever Jamie Dornan was trying to put on lol. Why studios don't let him keep his NI accent, I don't know.
Got any examples? the only accents I hear in movies done by Americans that is similar to the Irish accent is the Irish American accent but that's simply an Irish American accent not an Irish one.
Not really accent related but I was amazed when I found out the fella who played David St Hubbins (?) is the same actor who plays (better call) Saul's brother.
Great example! Probably gets overlooked because it's comedy, I remember being staggered when I found out the actors were American. The accents are so good and of course crucial to the comedy so even more pressure.
James Horner (known by all throughout the 1970's as "Jamie") was a classmate of mine for 4 undergraduate college years in Los Angeles. There was never a hint of a British accent and he never mentioned having ever lived in England. He presented as a shy "Valley Boy" from Encino, a composition major writing exclusively contemporary classical concert music. I performed on his Senior Composition Recital - an atonal string quartet piece reminiscent of Arnold Schoenberg. At some point after graduation, Jamie studied in London for 18 months and returned to LA as "James" with a mysterious British accent and surprising English mannerisms (e.g. speaking of "quavers" and "crochets", which is English, instead of "eighth notes" and "quarter notes", which is American). The eminent film composer David Raksin ("Laura," "The Bad and the Beautiful") gave James his start in Hollywood, but the curious British accent and mannerisms became a permanent feature of James's persona, despite Hollywood's being full of college classmates of Jamie's who remembered him as a guy from Encino without a British accent.
That's awesome. I play a few instruments, but I've always marveled at score and orchestral composers. My very good friend moved from Utah to Houston, TX 10 or 15 years ago and now speaks with a southern twang. Another friend moved to Australia and picked up some of their inflections and region-specific slang and idioms. It's wild! Same thing happened to me when I moved to Boston. You don't even realize it's happening until your friends from back home start teasing you for saying things like "packy," (liquor store) "statie," (highway patrolman) and "I'm wicked ti/ə/ed." (I'm exceedingly tired) Hahaha
And by contrast. I'm an American who has lived in England for almost 20 years and still have the same accent as when I first arrived-- though in some rare cases, I do use local idioms and pronunciations in order to be better understood. For example, "have" and "half" have different vowels here, and I maintain the contrast if ever required to order a half-pint, even though there's no such distinction in my native accent. I also use British spelling and word choices when writing anything at work. But it's not important to me to signal that I've assimilated English mannerisms or to pass as English. I normally get on well with English people, I respect many aspects of the culture, but I don't feel the need to become one.
If William Hurt was going for a sort of "Russian who attended school in the UK and has been training himself to get rid of his native Russian accent and his learned British accent but he's still working on it" thing, it worked beautifully. I have a neighbor who has a hard-to-place accent because she was born in The Netherlands but grew up in Germany and has been living in the US for 20-30 years so her accent is sort of like William Hurt's - it ALMOST sounds like one accent but has just enough differences in it to make it hard to pin point an origin.
I was thinking this explanation could have worked well for the British soldier in Inglorious Basterds. In the bar scene his cover is blown when a native German speaker tells him his accent is off and demands an explanation. He should have said he was born in one place, grew up in another, and was schooled in England. That would not only explain his weird accent but also why he uses the English "3 fingers" instead of the German "3 fingers" gesture. But, the script needed it so the rest of the movie can happen.
Your comment just reminded me of something: I've worked in the Utah tourism industry my entire adult life and became obsessed with accents and deciphering particular languages. I spent 15 years working in a shop in the SLC International Airport and was chatting with a gentleman during a lull in business one night. Out of the blue I blurted out, "Are you from the Netherlands?!" He looked at me stunned, then broke into a huge smile. He replied, "I've lived here for seven years and you're the first person who has ever guessed my accent correctly." It's a silly little triumph, but I was so proud of myself, haha. I always asked people with a particularly distinct accent if they were from South Africa. They almost always told me that most Americans thought they were Australian. Victory again! Another silly triumph came when I asked a family of three if they were speaking French. (They were.) I followed that up with, "But you aren't from France, are you?" They all smiled at me, probably baffled by my questions. Eventually I said, "I don't think you're Swiss . . . Are you from Quebec?" I don't know who was more surprised, them or myself. I was right, they were French Canadian. I should also mention that I don't speak a word of French! I'm still trying to get the hang of differentiating between Aussie and New Zealand accents, haha. Thank you for indulging me and my lengthy reply. ✌️😎 Guten nacht!
That's interesting, but I think he was doing pretty much what Geoff was saying in the video, which was trying to sound as "place-less" as possible. And it worked brilliantly.
I was born on a military base in Indiana, at one year old moved to germany until i was 7, then moved to New Mexico, then Texas, then back to my parents origins in Brooklyn NY, then New Hampshire, now Alaska. It's fun when people try to figure out where I am "from" when the answer is nowhere.
@@julietardos5044 Both are grammatically correct but enjoyable, in this case, clearly refers to actorS rather than just WH, otherwise why even mention them?
@@egbront1506 It's not possible for both to be grammatically correct. "One" seems to be the subject of "was," but majorbonkers disagrees. I don't see it.
William Hurt was a giant! One of the greatest actors of his generations and I feel that, sadly, he never really got the recognition he deserved, despite the four Academy Award nominations (with one win).
Yeah, he was so natural it never really felt like acting. No theatrics. Shame as his skill meant you didn’t see the actor but the character. Agree he wasn’t really recognised as he should have been
Hurt was incredible in everything he did but I was introduced to him in Altered States and that always stuck with me. That and The Doctor and Broadcast News.
William Hurt was huge during the late 80s and early 90s. He was the go-to Oscar-bait movie male lead and was quite well recognized at that time. Then, for some reason, it was like he fell off the map. F. Murray Abraham was huge after his Oscar for Amadeus and The Name of the Rose and then disappeared even more quickly. Julian Sands disappeared off the A-list around the same time, but I thought that might have had something to do with the controversy surrounding Boxing Helena. I've always been fascinated by how famous people disappear from sight and become practically forgotten. Sometimes it could be political, sometimes personal. Mira Sorvino lost her career standing up to the likes of Harvey Weinstein. I always wondered if maybe Abraham had enough money and just wanted to be a theater actor? Sometimes the actor fits the style of the time and the styles change.
@@gregthebaritone it is strange. I never felt Hurt fell off the map just that he never got appreciated as he should. Compare him with the likes of Hopkins or Freeman who essentially just play themselves. Hurt was too subtle for his own good. I put him and Jeff Bridges together in terms of really versatile actors who aren’t recognised.
@Glenn Tillema yeah the only british actor who in my opinion came close is Damien Lewis in band of brothers, the only problem with Lewis's accent is that its too generic house actually sounds like he comes from somewhere.
@@raptor4916 Lewis adopts a convincing southern Pennsylvania accent, which matches the origin of his character, Dick Winters of Lancaster, PA. It's a very neutral "general American" accent, which speaks as much to his middle class educational background as his place of origin. He doesn't sound like he's from anywhere specific because he was already from a place with a pretty subtle accent, and he attended a school that would not have encouraged a more affluent mid-Atlantic accent.
Many people were surprised when they learned that Christopher Plummer was Canadian and not British. He was trained in an era when many were taught a Mid-Atlantic or Transatlantic accent for acting, a contrived accent designed to be halfway between American and British.
There is also an older style of Canadian accent that isn't heard much anymore that also sounds quite formal. Donald Sutherland speaks with it, as did illusionist James Randi.
Actually, the claim that it was ”designed to be halfway between American and British” is entirely a myth, which gets endlessly repeated in various poorly researched web articles. First of all, none of the prescriptivist material of the time refers to it as ”Mid-Atlantic” or ”Transatlantic” (which are more recent terminology for it), but rather ”Eastern Standard” or ”Standard American”. Furthermore, the said accent is in no way passable as this supposed 50/50 mixture Conservative RP and Conservative GenAm, but is indeed a variety of near-RP with some minor differences. None of the prescriptivist guides of the time make any mention of trying to teach you such a mixture, or indeed any artificial accent at all; Rather, they claim to be codifying an already existing ”speech of an educated American” into phonetically teachable form. It was the accent of the old money US East Coast aristocracy (such as the Roosevelts), the existence of which predates its use in Hollywood. The eatliest speakers who use it in audio recordings were born as far back as the 1850s, and it’s not reasonable to assume these people time-traveled forward to the 1930s and snatched back with them a copy of some prescriptivist book for actors.
Maybe someone on this thread can help me out? What is the "accent" of Alexander Scourby in his 1960's reading of the King James Bible? It can be searched here on TH-cam. Is it TRANS-ATLANTIC? It doesn't sound exactly British... (He's not British). But it certainly isn't anything standard American either. If anyone can help me here, thanks in advance.
The actor John Hillerman, a Texan from the original series of Magnum PI, playing the character of Higgins does an absolutely outstanding job as a WW2 British officer. Also the guys from Spinal Tap are brilliant and really can't be faulted.
Hillerman's a great actor and I have fond memories of Magnum as a kid, but he wasn't doing an accurate British accent and had lots of giveaways. It was more a mid-atlantic accent.
James Marsters as Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer actually did a pretty convincing British accent. I'm British and he fooled me for a good few episodes. I think it helps that he doesn't lose the accent when he shouts, which a lot of accent-borrowers do.
@@sib9769 Yes finally someone has said it! Emma Watsons American accent sticks out like a sore thumb whenever she attempts it, and usually my go to example for "See! Not all Brit actors can pull an American accent!"
I'm a Brit and love the original Magnum P.I. series. I was amazed to discover that John Hillerman was not British but even more so when I found out he was a Texan. By the way, as mentioned, I'm British (Scots) and studied French, German and Spanish at university. I love watching your videos as, even though I already know much of what you say, I keep discovering nuggets especially concerning pronunciation. The way you present each video is worthy of a university lecture and must be an enormous help to non-native speakers.
Hillerman said that he was carefully trained to replace his native Texan accent with something more generically American but learned other accents at the same time. He plays Higgins’ half-brothers in some episodes, or I think in one case plays Higgins impersonating his Texan half-brother using his real accent. Also plays the Irish priest half-brother… can’t recall if there were more.
American southern accents tend to be closer to older UK accents. Depends on the region and who settled and when. Appalachian English is closest to Ulster English, which makes sense, same people separated by an ocean and a few hundred years.
3:09 "I am just a militia investigator" - weirdly, this comes out sounding incredibly close to DANISH english. thanks as always for the amazing video, Geoff. I value each upload so much.
I recently listened to the audiobook of Ernest Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises" which was narrated by William Hurt, and his vocal performance is so impressive. The book features various characters with different accents, and he does all of them perfectly, including American, British, Scottish, French, Spanish and more.
@@lucyelstonsoprano Thank you. I'll watch it next time it's on. I'm hoping that I haven't already heard all the best bits, the same way that other films have been spoiled for me because the quotes are out of context, but time will tell. 😀
I don't know any of the correct terminology, but I always assumed that where William Hurt sounded a little off, a little stilted, it was because he was trying for a Russian element in his speech, and I personally thought it worked.
Greetings from Sweden! When I saw William Hurt in "Gorky Park" back in the 80s, I was a schoolgirl learning English, and I was convinced that Hurt was a native Brit with an admirably beautiful accent, both soft and clear at the same time.
I'm native English. I worked with a couple of Swedish people in the mid 1970s. One of them spoke beautiful English. When he came to England from Sweden for a week's work, he started off sounding very slightly Swedish. Within a few days, he sounded 99.99% native English. When we then went to the USA, he continued to sound English for about a week. After that, he started to sound a bit American. A linguistic chameleon.
William Hurt's out-of-time accent in The Village is one of the few things about that movie that's good. There's so many things he really nails, and his delivery of the line "It is too painful; I cannot bear it" is one of the funniest but best lines
Amazed you highlighted James Horner! I'm a big time soundtrack fanatic and a huge fan of his. There are certain videos, one in particular where he's doing the score for Something Wicked This Way Comes (Just before Gorky Park I think!) where you can tell he's really trying to ditch the accent, but after so many years working with the LSO it seems to have become permanently installed!
Impressive accent for sure, and despite the odd slip up a fair few are ones I've heard Brits use, especially with Americanisation. I do find it interesting that some people found the accent inauthentic - presumably Americans as you said - because this always seems to happen with Irish accents in American films (usually American actors but sometimes even Irish actors) - American audiences would prefer the accent they expect rather than a real Irish accent, especially a location accurate one
@@MitchJohnson0110 I'm not sure we can quite consider "Irish"-American accents to be Irish... though it would explain what Americans assume Irish accents should sound like
@@saoirsedeltufo7436 Yes you can. Huge amounts of Irish-born people grew up in large communities made of first generation Irish immigrants in the United States and spoke to each other in their native accents. You don't stop being Irish the second you step outside Irelands borders.
@@MitchJohnson0110 I never even implied you did... The bulk of 'Irish-Americans' are descendants of those immigrants who went over over a century ago, often because of An Gorta Mór, and the 'Irish-American' accent is an American one with some Irish influences, not the other way around
I seem to remember Maggie Gyllenhaal doing a good British accent in the tv drama "The Honourable Woman". Also - the accents in Spinal Tap are for the most part very 'natural' - even the odd slips can be put down to 'mid-atlanticisms' so prevalent in British Rockstars' accents of the 1970's and 80's.
Some of the elder of the Kennedy children retained some British pronunciations throughout their lives because they attended school in London for several years as children. It was noticeable in both Jack and Bobby Kennedy.
I am Brazilian, and I fell head over heels in love with William Hurt when he played Molina in the Kiss of the Spider Womam. I'm glad that you brought him up.
Mike Myers is a living legend in many senses, but due to his UK heritage his array of ultra-accurate UK accents is absolutely astonishing 🤩 As it happens, Seth Myers (no relation) also has a pretty nice comedic British delivery. This video of yours, as all your work, really speaks to me due to my background: I'm a bilingual Finnish person who grew up in London and attended international schools in Finland after age 9; my SW London accent switched to a General American one as a child (impacted by my classmates and teachers), which I still consider my natural dialect despite never even visiting the US or ever having spoken any form of English at home. I can emulate multiple varieties of spoken English to this day, including my original Wimbledon twang. I'm steeped in global Anglophone culture, and I work as a translator, linguist, and poet, so my identity is a sort of curated mishmash of linguistic and cultural influences :D Language acquisition, multilingualism, code-shifting, and novel or neologistic usage are fascinating to me as processes, in shaping our identities especially. Thank you so very much for your crisply informative, professional, and entertaining channel 💗 Rakkautta Suomesta!
Holy moly, someone with a profile very similar to mine! (You wouldn't happen to be someone I know?) I'm technically bilingual in Finnish and English, being a native Finnish speaker but immersed in English-speaking countries for three years from preschool to 2nd grade. These days I speak with a British-slash-Transatlantic accent (I pass for a Brit in London but am automatically assumed to be American in Cornwall, for whatever reason), except that I revert to northeastern US whenever I visit the States. I'm a professional translator and composer, and the linguistic part of my career I owe entirely to my family's said relocation 50+ years ago.
As a Scot, I've always found Myers' much praised Scottish accent a lot more inconsistent than he gets credit for. It's near immaculate in So I Married An Axe Murderer, but I recall an SNL skit in which it's utterly atrocious, and parts of Shrek are dodgy too. Still far and away the best Scottish accent I've seen from North America, although the quality of competition for that title is very low.
@@DrGeoffLindsey The American actor whose name gets mentioned most frequently by Brits I've met over the last quarter century, is one, James Marsters, who played Spike the vampire on the hit TV show, "Buffy The Vampire Slayer". They all told me they were shocked to hear James speak in interviews, having just assumed he was 100% Brit born and raised. But nope, James is a California boy, who just happened to have a spot-on British accent. Not posh, either. Nor over-the-top cockney. Perhaps you could tell me which British accent he affects in the show? There lots of clips on TH-cam.
Yeah, i thought Renée Z. not only got the accent down to a tee, but even the facial expressions and body language were so middle-class 1990s southern English it was creepy!
@@MrGalpino I agree, it's almost too impeccable. She sounds British and not at all American, but like a posh Brit who's been to some kind of old-fashioned finishing school to be taught how to speak absolutely correctly.
The thing with James' accent is that it's his. He speaks and sounds as he does as a consequence of his life. It may be unusual but it's genuine. Working in a large international company I've run across this situation several times. It's usually surprising at first but then you learn about the life history of the person and realize the cultures and languages that shaped their English and accent. They are normally very interesting people.
As someone who's got a mixed accent (American/Australian), I'm always just a little bit foreign no matter where I go. (To Australians I sound American and to Americans I sound Australian.) It's got its positives and negatives.
William Hurt had a very pleasing English accent, crisp but but not mannered. I think he did a fine job. I noticed the ‘t’ before you mentioned it. I like how you break everything down in a forensic way.Fascinating.
@@mrpositronia Yes it is troublesome how only certain “British accents “ are allowable in period films. I imagine any movie about John Keats would probably have him speaking with an Oxbridge accent rather than in cockney.
Would you consider discussing Angela Lansbury's hybrid accent? She lived in the US for such a long time that her American accent became totally natural and effortless, yet in TV and films if you listen closely, there's a very light sprinkling of words and phrases that are completely English. I always wondered if there was a pattern or science behind that. How lucky we all were to be entertained by that lovely lady during her long and varied career.
Angela usually sounded a bit british - unless she used a southern accent (Manchurian Candidate - Blue Hawaii) - bits of pronunciation would slip thru - it was mostly heard in the melody of her speech - - in the same vein - Cary Grant and Roddy McDowall never quite lost their accents - tho Roddy could in later life if the role demanded it - Jean Simmons would take a while to lose her english accent - it was a surprise to hear Deborah Kerr's perfect american in From Here to Eternity - she was usually cast so her english accent didn't make a difference
@@thefantasyreview8709 this is not true at all. Niles absolutely is British in the show..even pines he wishes he was a barrister and MP to Maxwell's mother
@@akg9991 you realise he is Frazier's brother and Martin's son...and they are both American???? Apart from that "Niles was born in Seattle, Washington, in 1957[5], to Hester Crane, a psychiatrist, and Martin Crane, a police officer. Like his older brother Frasier, Niles was named for one of his mother's lab rats.[6] Also like Frasier, Niles was an unusually sensitive child and a frequent target for bullies. As a result, he was quite close to his older brother, and at the same time fiercely competitive with him. Like Frasier, Niles prefers fine arts, music, and intellectual pursuits to physical activities like sports. He is also an established philanthropist. After attending the private Bryce Academy with Frasier, Niles's success in school led to matriculation at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, as an undergraduate, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa,[7]"
I love Gorky Park as it was filmed in and around Helsinki, Finland, as that time it was impossible to film in the then Soviet Union. And as Finland had been part of Imperial Russia, there were/are enough old buildings in Helsinki to convincingly play Moscow 😀
Sean Astin had a very convincing accent in LOTRs, maybe it was the west country accent, which I assume was where a lot of early settlers to America came from. I actually thought the actor was eitehr English or Scottish when I first heard his performance.
If you compare his Gorky Park performance with him in Altered States, it seems like the avoidance of contractions is an actorly choice. I think it's something he's choosing to do to make his character seem smarter and more professional. Or it could just be that's how he talked? :D
@@philroberts7238 there are very few things in Russian which can even be contracted to begin with-- especially since the verb 'is', which is the most common contraction in English, is completely absent in Russian. There are contractions of some words, but those are viewed as low-brow or bumpkin ways of speaking, mostly. I think it is a good way of giving the language of the character a syntactic nod, more subtly than just dropping every instance of the verb 'is' or any simple articles would be. Trying to do it like that would only result in a cartoony, brutish speech to the English ear.
It’s a kids film (a really good one) but Maggie Gyllenhaal’s accent in Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang is actually excellent. It’s midlands/south without veering into Received Pronunciation. She affects it very naturally and I think she’s underrated as an actor
She is actually the best American I've heard doing a British accent but not for that role. Check out "The Honourable Woman" a mini series she did for the BBC about a decade or so ago. She actually plays an English MP and if i hadn't already known who she was going on, I would have sworn she was a native Brit based on that performance alone, that's how good her accent was.
Though not by an American, I've found the most convincing southern English accent on screen was done by a Scot: Martin Compston in Line of Duty. It was the first thing I'd seen him in and had no idea what his natural speaking voice sounded like. He was as convincing a Londoner as a greengrocer at Deptford Market.
I remember an interview with Michael Caine and he was asked who was the best American actor to do a cockney accent he ever heard (I think the joke prior was about Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins). Caine said it was young Forrest Whitaker in The Crying Game. He said it was so good he thought Whitaker was the new it-kid in British film and TV to watch and was shocked he was American. And yet Whitaker keeps coming up on forums as bad-Brit accents by Americans. But I think Forrest Whitaker is a fantastic actor who dives in so well into accents & speech pattern from real (Last King of Scotland) to made up (Star Wars) - I hope you do a dive into his accents someday!
Thank you for this! Aside from it being a great film I can remember being really confused by his accent! It was so good, understated and natural sounding I thought he was British but there was the very occasional line that threw me. I can remember replaying them and trying to figure out what was going on. A credit to his performance that i thought he was a British actor who had spent some time in the US.
So glad you mentioned this! I started watching the original broadcast from the later series and just assumed he was British. His accent in series 1 and 2 is quite ropey though!
HIs (Marsters) accent was pretty decent, but I never once thought that he was a brit. With lines of any length, there'd usually be a 'tell' of some kind. Usually these came in the form of some bizarre pronounciations that were neither American nor British, but possibly sounded 'authentic' to US audiences based on some fictional version of cockney that sometimes crops up on TV over there (Dick Van Dyke has a great deal to answer for).
One of my favourite British accents by an American is Alan Tudyk in A Knights Tale. It's not perfect but it's a very good estuary-english verging on cockney which as a native ssb speaker I assumed was genuine when I first saw it
@@harrynewiss4630 - i find myself disagreeing with other americans about the success of british actors with american accents - the ultimate judge i suppose would be a dialectician like Dr Lindsey here - or a survey of the natives of that dialect
Regarding James Horner, it's something I've noticed that musically inclined people often have an ear for accents, and imitation in general. For instance, David Bowie can't get through an anecdote without doing the accents of the people involved. And famously, he took his entire singing style from Anthony Newly. Mick Jagger shifted to various accents, to greater or lesser success, when changing musical genres. That was common among British singers at the time. But it's not confined to singers. I have a friend who's a professional drummer, and when he tells stories of the famous musicians he's worked with (more famous, I mean-- he does have a Grammy himself), he does their voices beautifully.
I know what you mean. I lived in Germany for many years and was often complimented on my accent (in German), but people also remarked that singers and other musicians seemed to have an easier time with accents. (I was a singer.)
Willem Dafoe does a very impressive North East English accent in the 2003 film The Reckoning, for an American he does extremely well, I've seen most actual English actors who aren't from the region struggle with it
I was born & grew up in Brighton, UK. Emigrated to US in late 20s. Another actor who I mistook for an old college friend when I heard her voice on the TV while I was making a cup of coffee is Gillian Anderson (X-Files) in her role as DCI in “The Falls”. The other is Michael Hall (TV Series “Safe”) playing a British surgeon.
The joy of discovering an American actor actually attempting to replicate straightforward British, well English, pronunciation! So many years of either "posh" (and posh from the 1920s) or Australian (occasionally with some mangled South African for good measure).
I grew up just outside Boston. It’s quite common for Bostonians too to put an /r/ sound between a word that ends in a vowel and another that begins with one. Hence, law/r/office and law/r/and order (or should I say loranodda?).
“Good for an American” -a review of my SSB English accent from a Liverpudlian I met in college. (I’ve been practicing my English accent for years. I watch so much content about accents, and I consume a ton of media from the UK)
William Hurt was one of my favorite actors, and I didn't even remember he had an British accent in Gorky Park. It just flowed really naturally. Not accent-related, but check out Wim Wenders' Until The End of the World if you haven't seen him in it.
William Hurt sounds a bit like Alan Rickman to me in the scenes you played, which would tend to confirm that he did a good job. Although a far sillier movie, I was always thought Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer were fairly convincing as British musicians in the hilarious “This is Spinal Tap.”
The British accent tradition used for certain cinema foreigners has a long standing tradition with the Romans, who would generally get British accents. John Wayne played a Roman in his broad Western/Californian accent, and everyone thought it was hilarious.
I remember that scene. My best friend and I were watching “The Greatest Story Ever Told” and laughed for about 10 minutes straight after the John Wayne scene.
If you think that's hilarious you should watch Star Knight. It's got Harvey Keitel who's supposed to be a an English medieval knight but plays his role using his native New York Bronx accent!
@@MsFlamingFlamer That scene is also the source of possibly the greatest film accent-related anecdote I've ever heard. Reportedly, Wayne playing the centurion had several cracks at his one line "Truly, this man was the son of God", but it kept coming out a bit flat, so he was asked by the director to try another take but to "say it with awe". Everyone resets their positions. Camera rolls once more. The Duke fixes his gaze on the crucified Messiah and opens his mouth again: "Awww, truly this man was the son of God." It's _probably_ entirely apocryphal, but goodness it's a great story.
William Hurt's British accent was solid. I find it hard, because of who he is, my knowledge of his work and his regular accent etc, to not pick up on the lilt / cadence of a lot of lines, but (and this is crucial for me) not to the detriment of the performance. His accent is solid to the point where I'm questioning his characters motives or agenda etc. I have seen it written a few places that it was a deliberate choice to be ever so slightly off because of who his character was in the wider narrative - something is supposed to be off, he's supposed to be unsettling at times. I can make my peace with that. Fantastic performance. Great movie. thanks for for great video.
as an american with close ties to my family in Leeds and has visited england many times i can attest that british people are innundated with american culture (they have all but transformed their entire nation trying to catch up to american diversity standards - nobody told them there is no earthly reason that a tiny european island , a good portion of which is in the arctic circle, should be a diverse wonderland).. Regardless, brits are intimately familiar with all things american, they have grown up hearing the american accent(s) NEARLY just as much as their own- this is why brits do so well with american accents- The other way around doesn't really pan out.. Other than catching the latest few episodes of "downton abby", most americans haven't a clue about the british.
About avoiding contractions; I guess you're right about it being characteristic of non-natives learning English, but in this case it might be a hold over from the stereotypical "Russhian" accent employed by generations of Boris Badanov type actors.
I'd like to hear your commentary on Renee Zellweger's British accent in "Bridget Jones Diary". I had never seen her in movies before and thought she was a total Londoner.
Heya Jeff, have you seen Peter Jackson's version of The Lord of the Rings? There is an American Actor named Brad Dourif who supposedly fooled the casting directors of the film as he spoke with a RP accent throughout the casting process, never breaking character. It wasn't till he was already cast they found out his normal speech was very American. Huge breakdown of it in the LotR extended documentaries.
I think all of the American cast in those films did an exemplary job (as indeed did every single person working on them in every department) of their accents.
When you said "40 years ago," I thought you might be talking about Jonathan Hillerman, who played Higgins on the TV series "Magnum: PI" and fooled Brits into thinking he was one of them. I'd also nominate James Marsters, who played Spike on "Buffy: the Vampire Slayer." He got off to a rough start, but by the end of the series (and during his time on "Angel"), his accent was flawless. Of course, it helped that he had Anthony Stewart Head to coach him.
I'm English - a northerner but with a "university accent - ie, fairly neutral. To me, Forest Whittaker in The Crying Game had a very impressive London accent, although he is American.
This has really driven home how much of the New England accents have in common with British ones. A lot of these features are common here, but those that aren’t completely change the timbre of the accent
Totally agree. It’s interesting to note the small differences that add up. I tend to think here in New England our vowel sounds are brighter and more nasal than in British English. I feel like it’s what gives the New England dialect a more “American” sound. And what interests me the most is the regionalization of New England accents, which have quite a bit of variety if you know what you’re looking for. I’m also fascinated by the pervasive stereotype of the Southie Boston accent. I don’t naturally have a strong accent, but when I go to other places in the country, they know where I’m from and start doing the exaggerated Southie Boston accent
I've heard it said that Brad Dourif did an excellent British accent in The Lord of the Rings as Wormtongue, but me not being an expert, I wonder what do you think of it?
Gorky Park is a very dark film with excellent performances especially Hurt's copper and to see Ricki Fulton as a baddie is a delight! Thanks for the upload 👍
My favourite American actor who delivered the most convincing (in my opinion of course) and endearing English accent is Daniel Davis when he portrayed Niles the Butler on "The Nanny" TV series. I found out later his natural speech is Southern American. Very impressive.
I have noticed some people adopt an accent developed in early childhood, and it stays forever. I was a child who moved to various locations and adopted the local accent quickly. I recall feeling like my speech had no ‘home’. I believe this finally lifted as a young adult but if given the chance of immersing myself in another region, I just might adapt again. There’s my comment. Thank you for your interesting work.
Thank you for your analysis. We Australians are familiar with both American and British accents largely owing to films and television. In the past forty years, there has been a shift here in our accent to a more middle-of-the-road accent with the disappearance of what we used to call “educated Australian” and its counterpart, the broad Australian accent. And we hear more British regional accents now on the BBC I have noticed.
Australians are THE BEST at American accents. I can't begin to count the number of actors I saw in movies with American accents and was later shocked to learn that they were Australian. As just one example, the movie The Patriot cracked me up. Here is a movie literally about historic American wars and patriotism, and it stars two Australians with impeccable American accents! (I knew Mel Gibson and Heath Ledger were Aussies by that time, but learning about each had been a shock once upon a time).
Forest Whittaker in The Crying Game, is an early example of an American doing a non cliched British accent. I assumed he was British, as he wasn't that famous back then.
Checkout early Denzel Washington in "For Queen and Country", playing a sarf London lad back from Los Malvinas/Falklands ... when I found out he was American I was amazed, but when I returned to re-watch it a few years ago, it seemed pretty bad accent-wise.
Recently, Brian Tyree Henry in Bullet Train has really impressed me. After seeing that film my husband and I went to check out his IMDB page fully expecting to see the usual British titles and were shocked to find out he's actually American. Currently, his page has an interview with a fellow cast member, where he speaks in his own American accent, but shows clips of the film so you can hear the difference. Very impressive.
A bit off topic, but I remember watching L.A. Confidential, then seeing the cast members interviewed, and I nearly fell off my chair when Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce opened their mouths and these thick Australian accents came out. I had NO idea they were Australian at the time.
When an actor is playing an English character, it should be noted that many people in England, by the age of thirty or forty years of age, may have lived in various places both in the British Isles and even abroad for a brief or longer period often and therefore being subject to some degree effected or influenced by them. In my own case from a northern working class environment to various areas around the country together with moving up the social scale. These all influence a persons inflections and traits of pronunciation. These aspects seem not to be allowed for by over pedantic critics of people such as William Hurt, as in the case of James Horner at the end of this video presentation.
Lynn Collins in "John Carter of Mars" (2012). She took up the same SSB accent as most of the rest of the cast -- in contrast to the American Civil War vet played by the lead. She kept up her accent between takes, and only dropped the accent once primary photography was complete -- and shocked the other actors who'd never met her before and had no idea she was American.
I found Maggie Gyllenhall in The Honourable Woman to be flawless enough not to cringe at any particular word or phrase, though she does go for posh. I'm not sure how much vocal coaching was around 40 years ago and how the quality and style might compare to modern coaching.
How delightful to find such a fine example. If I was to find placeless English accents, it would be Lord Of The Rings. I'll search around for a video on that. The two American hobbits did a fine job, which hopefully the two native speaking hobbits helped with :).
Sean Astin deserves particular credit for attempting (mostly successfully, from what I've heard) a West Country accent instead of a generic RP or cockney. Very appropriate for his character.
The diphthongal FLEECE vowel at 2:40 put words to something I often notice. For example, the self checkouts at the Co-op say, "Payment accept-ey-d", in a more "estuary" way than other self checkouts. I dunno why this really jumps out at me, but it does. Has anyone else noticed it?
Brad Dourif in “The Lord of the Rings.” Convinced the actor he shared a lot of screen time with (actual Brit Bernard Hill) that he was English. Dourif kept up the accent during the shoot, even off-camera-when filming concluded, he returned to his native West Virginia accent and Hill commented, “that’s the worst American accent I’ve ever heard.”
TBF I meet Americans all the time at my regular pub in Groningen, Netherlands, and there is no such thing as an "American Accent", because the US is too darn big and nobody from the US wants to sound "too" American. It's a really weird thing (They're either from Texas, Pennsylvania or Michigan).
@@theothertonydutch Maybe those are the three states where all the people from Groningen immigrated to.
@@theothertonydutch That's not exactly true, most cannot tell the difference between Canada and the United States' accents, to many it is the same. Of course, there are different inflexions, depending where you are, how certain words are pronounced, like the Canadians really empthise the 'OU' such as Out, (oww-t) about (a-bow-t)however, the overall tone is mostly the same, with only one significant notable difference are those are the Southern States.
Then look at Britain, where you have Manc accent(Manchester), the Scouse accent (Liverpool), Brummie (Birmingham), Cockney (London), Midlands, Geordie (Newcastle), Cornish (Cornwall), etc. I'm missing quite a few but I have made my point and that is just in England, we haven't even mentioned, Scots, Glasweigian, or Doric and there is the N. Irish accent which differs from Republic of Ireland's accent, although both are noticeably Irish (as are most of these in their respective areas) and an honourable mention for the Welsh, which I know very little about but I am certain there will be a few there too.
What there isn't, is a "British accent." Yet, it is said far more often than not. Then you consider that the British Isles is smaller than Texas, that is quite a lot.
_Note; I am certain you could probably switch out many of the examples of "ACCENTS" I have used with "dialects," I have found it hard deceiphering which is which, so I used accent for the sake of ease._
You are seriously underestimating how many accents the us has, just the east coast alone has probably 20 distinct ones, and california has multiple too. There isn't just one southern accent. Don't get me started on the midwest, a minefield of slight variations from person to person, who knows where an accent begins or ends. Then there's the northern bits too, which get inspiration from Canada. The us probably has hundreds of accents. Not saying that europe, or even just the few mentioned countries don't have a compareable or larger sample, I simply don't know, but don't think that it's so cut and dried.
There are multiple accents in new york alone, I think.
I remember when Hugh Laurie first starred in "House". There was a commenting section on the IMDB website, and there were so many Brits talking about how horrible his American accent was, while the Americans didn't even know he was British, lol. Even the casting director during the audition (to his discredit) didn't know who Laurie was and thought he was just another American actor.
He sounded American to me ... but not from any specific location in the USA. I've spoken to people who went to American schools abroad, particularly the American School in Japan, who also sounded completely placeless. He sounded a bit like that.
@MF Nickster - I find the increasingly frequent use of "overexaggerated" interesting. Is there a proper amount of exaggeration?
@@cacogenicist I think so. Like in Arabic, there is a sound ع which you must say in exaggerated fashion to sound ''Arabic'', but if you said it too exaggerated it would sound a bit weird depending on the region.
It’s because we can hear the ‘English’ coming through.
British ppl tend to think of the american accent of harsher and nasallier than it rly is, just how Americans think all Brits sound like posh cartoons.
British ppl think that the "american r" sound is more growley and lower than it often is in practice. Americans think that British ppl talk with all their muscles in their jaw completely relaxed and open.
When Brits heard what they already knew was a fake accent, and it didn't fit their image of an American accent they noticed it right away.
Americans don't know nor care where an actor came from (if they aren't already a popular american actor) so they had no expectations for a fake accent before hand. The thought never even crossed their minds while watching the show. But they probably would have noticed if he had a stereotypical British-American accent.
My favourite UK accent done by US actors were the band members of Spinal Tap. I worked in music studios at the time in Central London, and was already working in voice production too, but to me, they sounded like half the London bands that we saw every week. I simply didn't spot that they were Americans. And their accents even took in the supposed schooling of the various characters. It was quite brilliant.
Christopher Guest has his British background to help him with that accent. I'm guessing he helped the others with theirs too.
michael mckean is a great actor. love him in clue
👍👏👏👏👏
If you ever see a Jeff Beck interview the accent is right out of Spinal Tap - or vice versa.
The moment I read Spinal Tap I smiled. That was just brilliant, funny, and clever.
This one's a little more niche, but Daniel Davis as Niles in The Nanny. He's from the state of Arkansas and speaks with a strong southern accent, and his accent was so accurate, many people at the time were surprised to find out he wasn't actually English haha
I once met a man from Georgia. He had a beautiful Southern accent but occasionally would slip into what I can only describe as a posh English accent. He said he lived for several years in London where he picked it up. The amazing thing was how subtle the shift was between the two.
Going way back to the 1980's John Hillerman's accent as Higgins in Magnum, PI is also said to be excellent. Hillerman is from Texas.
Whaaaaaat? I had no idea! I adored him as Niles. I'll have to go look up interviews to hear his native Arkansas!
really no way?! that is definitely new information to me 😆
Yes. I only know him as Professor Moriarty from Star Trek TNG. The Nanny wasn't aired here in the UK. His accent is impeccable as well as his overall performance. I was stunned to find out he is actually from across the pond.
I will forever be in love with Christopher Guest’s perfect performance in Spinal Tap. He NAILED that particular accent.
I love it too though when I learned about his family history and childhood - his dad is British and of noble heritage, and Guest spent parts of his childhood in England - it made much more sense how well he was able to slip into an English accent.
Agreed I thought they did the English accent brilliantly I thought they were British. All the spinal actors were good. If you knew guys who were in English bands then it is exactly how they were…. lol
I can’t believe the 80s are no longer 20 years ago
I don't believe how outdated and old some 80s stuff appears on screen. It makes me feel so old lol.
@@belleooo Whenever someone uses any kind of phone in a movie it is jarring because it is so outdated.
I know! How did that happen? When did that happen?
My sister and I were born in the 60s and she turns 60 in a few days time.
What?!
My husband and I were born in the late 1940s/early 1950s, respectively. Imagine how ancient we feel when someone refers to "forty years ago" or "the last century," and we realize how old we actually are.
I have been watching Magnum pi (80s) its wonderful as never watched it much as a kid, so its like new episodes and its 80s..
When you said a film from 40 years ago, I automatically thought you meant the 50s 😭😭😭
Kindly give me your contact number/WhatsApp ,I am also work on phonetics
I know what you mean.
Damn! I get the same thing too! Whenever I hear 40 years ago, my mind immediately goes to the 1950s. Thirty years is the 60s, 20 for the 70s, etc... And then I realize that the early-mid 90s was 30 years ago and I get slightly depressed.
@@sakaridis
I'm with you. I have the same issue and reaction . . . Hard to beleive the 1990s was 30 years ago . . .
The reason Hurt avoided weak forms was precisely as you said: to give his character a vaguely non- native air: he was playing a Muscovite, so SSB + a hint of foreignness was a good symbolic way of signaling his Russianness to audiences.
Exactly, and as someone who first studied English in USSR - that pronunciation is exactly how we were taught in schools back then.
+
Yes, that's what I thought as well. He's not doing an SSB accent but acctually miming a technique of high-level non-native speakers by avoiding contractions and being too exact in his annunciation. It is by far the best interpretation of someone giving an impression of speaking in a laguage other than English while avoid stereotypical accents. I wish all hollywood performances adopted this idea.
That’s what I’d always assumed too-somehow made him seem more Russian. Really sold the character.
@@grimmWednesday A great legacy from Hurt. All actors should have to study this technique when doing a similar role.
Gillian Anderson has a good English accent i think. She spent her childhood in England and had to "learn" the American accent when they moved back to America. So now she tends to speak in an English accent when in England and American when in the states. You can check out her interviews in the UK vs US. She uses different accents in both and I find that fascinating
A lot of actors who started out here and went to hollwood can slip back into an English accent very easily and sound completely English, e.g. Angela Lansbury, Cary Grant.
She's bi-dialectal, also check out John Barrowman's Scottish accent when he speaks to his parents
Similarly, I understand Gwenyth Paltrow has an impeccable British accent. Her parents are both British so she grew up hearing it, and it was probably her first accent before she went to school.
@@erinm9445 Yes, she's been in a couple of things that called for an English accent and her's was impeccable.
@@cdeford Yep, although I just learned I was wrong about her parents being British, no idea why I thought that!
My favorite British accent by an American accent was Cary Elwes before I learned he was actually British. I thought he was just really good at doing British accent, turns out he's actually good at American accents.
What! Cary Elwes is British! This is the most surprising reaction I've had to any of the suggestions here. (I'm British)
😂
In Mel Brooks’ “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” Elwes cracked the line “Unlike other Robin Hoods, I am actually British!”
Since he always played comedy English people and his serious characters were American I also assumed he was American, but no.
@@Frankie5Angels150 "Because, unlike some other Robin Hoods, I can speak with an English accent."
Hurt was serious about his accents, regardless of the region. I remember an interview where he talked about studying/creating phonetic breakdowns of accents using IPA notation.
No way that's so cool.
He appeared as a Welshman in another little known film and certainly didn’t pull that one off well!
@@jamesgraham814 Though... Welsh is a really hard accent to do. Not many can.
@@thefantasyreview8709 yeah, many Americans sound more Irish than Welsh when they try to tackle it. I know Robert Downey Jr. was poked fun at for his attempt at the accent in Doctor Doolittle, but as a Welshman, I was impressed!
Also speaks very creditable French. I saw an interview on Canadian TV.
As an Irishman I'm used to seeing the Irish accent massacred in movies, where they often don't even try to do a real Irish accent. The best I've heard is Charlie Cox. I remember seeing him in Boardwalk Empire after watching Daredevil and thinking he must actually be an Irish actor, not American as i had thought. (He's actually Welsh)
I always liked Robert Mitchum in Ryan's Daughter.
Joseph Gilgun did a pretty decent Irish accent for Preacher, and Mark Strong's more educated Irish accent in Siege of Jodotville was actually better than whatever Jamie Dornan was trying to put on lol. Why studios don't let him keep his NI accent, I don't know.
Charlie's accent in Kin is fucking class
Got any examples? the only accents I hear in movies done by Americans that is similar to the Irish accent is the Irish American accent but that's simply an Irish American accent not an Irish one.
@@kevinprzy4539 What is this “Irish American accent” you speak of? Been living in the States for 40 years. Never heard of such a thing.
Love the Spinal Tap guys, even slipping into 'mid Atlantic' at times which seems fitting for international jet setting rockers from the 80s.
Yes!
Not really accent related but I was amazed when I found out the fella who played David St Hubbins (?) is the same actor who plays (better call) Saul's brother.
Great example! Probably gets overlooked because it's comedy, I remember being staggered when I found out the actors were American. The accents are so good and of course crucial to the comedy so even more pressure.
@@leewhite2195 Me too!
Michael and Harry are American. Christopher is British/American.
James Horner (known by all throughout the 1970's as "Jamie") was a classmate of mine for 4 undergraduate college years in Los Angeles. There was never a hint of a British accent and he never mentioned having ever lived in England. He presented as a shy "Valley Boy" from Encino, a composition major writing exclusively contemporary classical concert music. I performed on his Senior Composition Recital - an atonal string quartet piece reminiscent of Arnold Schoenberg. At some point after graduation, Jamie studied in London for 18 months and returned to LA as "James" with a mysterious British accent and surprising English mannerisms (e.g. speaking of "quavers" and "crochets", which is English, instead of "eighth notes" and "quarter notes", which is American). The eminent film composer David Raksin ("Laura," "The Bad and the Beautiful") gave James his start in Hollywood, but the curious British accent and mannerisms became a permanent feature of James's persona, despite Hollywood's being full of college classmates of Jamie's who remembered him as a guy from Encino without a British accent.
That's awesome. I play a few instruments, but I've always marveled at score and orchestral composers.
My very good friend moved from Utah to Houston, TX 10 or 15 years ago and now speaks with a southern twang. Another friend moved to Australia and picked up some of their inflections and region-specific slang and idioms. It's wild! Same thing happened to me when I moved to Boston. You don't even realize it's happening until your friends from back home start teasing you for saying things like "packy," (liquor store) "statie," (highway patrolman) and "I'm wicked ti/ə/ed." (I'm exceedingly tired) Hahaha
Yes. Madonna also slips in and out of the old UK dialect, too.
@@marinakaye8284 And it's comically bad when she puts it on.
And by contrast. I'm an American who has lived in England for almost 20 years and still have the same accent as when I first arrived-- though in some rare cases, I do use local idioms and pronunciations in order to be better understood. For example, "have" and "half" have different vowels here, and I maintain the contrast if ever required to order a half-pint, even though there's no such distinction in my native accent. I also use British spelling and word choices when writing anything at work. But it's not important to me to signal that I've assimilated English mannerisms or to pass as English. I normally get on well with English people, I respect many aspects of the culture, but I don't feel the need to become one.
Oh my gosh, that’s actually hilarious and kind of mental. The fact that he spent 18 months in London and came back as the English “James”. 😂
If William Hurt was going for a sort of "Russian who attended school in the UK and has been training himself to get rid of his native Russian accent and his learned British accent but he's still working on it" thing, it worked beautifully. I have a neighbor who has a hard-to-place accent because she was born in The Netherlands but grew up in Germany and has been living in the US for 20-30 years so her accent is sort of like William Hurt's - it ALMOST sounds like one accent but has just enough differences in it to make it hard to pin point an origin.
I was thinking this explanation could have worked well for the British soldier in Inglorious Basterds. In the bar scene his cover is blown when a native German speaker tells him his accent is off and demands an explanation. He should have said he was born in one place, grew up in another, and was schooled in England. That would not only explain his weird accent but also why he uses the English "3 fingers" instead of the German "3 fingers" gesture. But, the script needed it so the rest of the movie can happen.
Your comment just reminded me of something: I've worked in the Utah tourism industry my entire adult life and became obsessed with accents and deciphering particular languages. I spent 15 years working in a shop in the SLC International Airport and was chatting with a gentleman during a lull in business one night. Out of the blue I blurted out, "Are you from the Netherlands?!" He looked at me stunned, then broke into a huge smile. He replied, "I've lived here for seven years and you're the first person who has ever guessed my accent correctly." It's a silly little triumph, but I was so proud of myself, haha.
I always asked people with a particularly distinct accent if they were from South Africa. They almost always told me that most Americans thought they were Australian. Victory again! Another silly triumph came when I asked a family of three if they were speaking French. (They were.) I followed that up with, "But you aren't from France, are you?" They all smiled at me, probably baffled by my questions. Eventually I said, "I don't think you're Swiss . . . Are you from Quebec?" I don't know who was more surprised, them or myself. I was right, they were French Canadian. I should also mention that I don't speak a word of French!
I'm still trying to get the hang of differentiating between Aussie and New Zealand accents, haha.
Thank you for indulging me and my lengthy reply. ✌️😎
Guten nacht!
That's interesting, but I think he was doing pretty much what Geoff was saying in the video, which was trying to sound as "place-less" as possible. And it worked brilliantly.
I was born on a military base in Indiana, at one year old moved to germany until i was 7, then moved to New Mexico, then Texas, then back to my parents origins in Brooklyn NY, then New Hampshire, now Alaska. It's fun when people try to figure out where I am "from" when the answer is nowhere.
That's not it. If he put on a Russian accent he'd stand out because all the other actors were speaking with English accents.
Chris Pratt's impersonation of 'The only way is Essex" on the Graham Norton show 7 years ago is hilarious and absolutely spot on!
I was gobsmacked by it.
Agreed
Touches of Australian in it, but good nonetheless
@@miketrace8504 Really? Can't say I detected that.
Lol! It was amazing. He could have passed for an Essex boy!
I didn’t know William Hurt had passed away. Very sad, he was one of those actors who was always enjoyable to watch.
....who WERE always enjoyable to watch!
@@majorbonkers ikr
@@majorbonkers One...was
Why is that wrong? Genuinely curious.
@@julietardos5044 Both are grammatically correct but enjoyable, in this case, clearly refers to actorS rather than just WH, otherwise why even mention them?
@@egbront1506 It's not possible for both to be grammatically correct. "One" seems to be the subject of "was," but majorbonkers disagrees. I don't see it.
William Hurt was a giant! One of the greatest actors of his generations and I feel that, sadly, he never really got the recognition he deserved, despite the four Academy Award nominations (with one win).
Yeah, he was so natural it never really felt like acting. No theatrics. Shame as his skill meant you didn’t see the actor but the character. Agree he wasn’t really recognised as he should have been
Hurt was incredible in everything he did but I was introduced to him in Altered States and that always stuck with me. That and The Doctor and Broadcast News.
I liked him in 'Body Heat'.
William Hurt was huge during the late 80s and early 90s. He was the go-to Oscar-bait movie male lead and was quite well recognized at that time. Then, for some reason, it was like he fell off the map. F. Murray Abraham was huge after his Oscar for Amadeus and The Name of the Rose and then disappeared even more quickly. Julian Sands disappeared off the A-list around the same time, but I thought that might have had something to do with the controversy surrounding Boxing Helena. I've always been fascinated by how famous people disappear from sight and become practically forgotten. Sometimes it could be political, sometimes personal. Mira Sorvino lost her career standing up to the likes of Harvey Weinstein. I always wondered if maybe Abraham had enough money and just wanted to be a theater actor? Sometimes the actor fits the style of the time and the styles change.
@@gregthebaritone it is strange. I never felt Hurt fell off the map just that he never got appreciated as he should. Compare him with the likes of Hopkins or Freeman who essentially just play themselves. Hurt was too subtle for his own good. I put him and Jeff Bridges together in terms of really versatile actors who aren’t recognised.
Michael C Hall in safe - no American comes even close to that. Not just pronunciation but the undertones and rhythms of an English accent. Flawless
He is SO underrated, especially as an accent performer
The best British accent to me was Christopher Guest in "This is Spinal Tap". I didn't learn until much later that he was an American actor.
Youll always have my favorite british accent Geoff
I knew Hugh was a Brit because I saw him in Blackadder and A Bit of Fry and Laurie but to hear him as House completely blew my mind.
@Glenn Tillema yeah the only british actor who in my opinion came close is Damien Lewis in band of brothers, the only problem with Lewis's accent is that its too generic house actually sounds like he comes from somewhere.
@@raptor4916 Lewis adopts a convincing southern Pennsylvania accent, which matches the origin of his character, Dick Winters of Lancaster, PA. It's a very neutral "general American" accent, which speaks as much to his middle class educational background as his place of origin. He doesn't sound like he's from anywhere specific because he was already from a place with a pretty subtle accent, and he attended a school that would not have encouraged a more affluent mid-Atlantic accent.
@@StevenAlwine oh thats good to know.
I'll go to bat for Martin Freeman. Fargo (TV series) and Marvel movies, he's exceptional!
Many people were surprised when they learned that Christopher Plummer was Canadian and not British. He was trained in an era when many were taught a Mid-Atlantic or Transatlantic accent for acting, a contrived accent designed to be halfway between American and British.
There is also an older style of Canadian accent that isn't heard much anymore that also sounds quite formal. Donald Sutherland speaks with it, as did illusionist James Randi.
Actually, the claim that it was ”designed to be halfway between American and British” is entirely a myth, which gets endlessly repeated in various poorly researched web articles.
First of all, none of the prescriptivist material of the time refers to it as ”Mid-Atlantic” or ”Transatlantic” (which are more recent terminology for it), but rather ”Eastern Standard” or ”Standard American”.
Furthermore, the said accent is in no way passable as this supposed 50/50 mixture Conservative RP and Conservative GenAm, but is indeed a variety of near-RP with some minor differences. None of the prescriptivist guides of the time make any mention of trying to teach you such a mixture, or indeed any artificial accent at all; Rather, they claim to be codifying an already existing ”speech of an educated American” into phonetically teachable form.
It was the accent of the old money US East Coast aristocracy (such as the Roosevelts), the existence of which predates its use in Hollywood. The eatliest speakers who use it in audio recordings were born as far back as the 1850s, and it’s not reasonable to assume these people time-traveled forward to the 1930s and snatched back with them a copy of some prescriptivist book for actors.
@@joonaa2751 Interesting. Could you recommend some of the source material for this information so I can do some research myself?
Maybe someone on this thread can help me out? What is the "accent" of Alexander Scourby in his 1960's reading of the King James Bible? It can be searched here on TH-cam. Is it TRANS-ATLANTIC?
It doesn't sound exactly British... (He's not British). But it certainly isn't anything standard American either.
If anyone can help me here, thanks in advance.
@@joonaa2751 THANK YOU
The most commonly repeated claim with zero authentic backing. It's outrageous how confident people feel in spreading it.
The actor John Hillerman, a Texan from the original series of Magnum PI, playing the character of Higgins does an absolutely outstanding job as a WW2 British officer. Also the guys from Spinal Tap are brilliant and really can't be faulted.
I have been watching Magnum pi (80s) its wonderful as never watched it much as a kid, so its like new episodes and its 80s..
@@ntal5859 They made some good shows in the 80s
@@horacesheffield7367 well, perhaps not THE most... But, certainly a few are among the many other international cities of America.
Hillerman's a great actor and I have fond memories of Magnum as a kid, but he wasn't doing an accurate British accent and had lots of giveaways. It was more a mid-atlantic accent.
Id love to hear your breakdown of the accent performances in Spinal Tap, which ive always considered some of the best done by Americans.
Im curious what you thought of John Lithgow’s Churchill accent. Actually I’d just love an analysis of Churchill’s speech patterns in general!
James Marsters as Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer actually did a pretty convincing British accent. I'm British and he fooled me for a good few episodes. I think it helps that he doesn't lose the accent when he shouts, which a lot of accent-borrowers do.
Never crossed my mind that the actor playing Spike might have been American. Impressive.
Emma Watson always looses it in an emotional scene.
@@sib9769 I don't think I've seen her with an American sound. What films were those, please?
@@floradiamonds perks of being a wallflower.
@@sib9769 Yes finally someone has said it! Emma Watsons American accent sticks out like a sore thumb whenever she attempts it, and usually my go to example for "See! Not all Brit actors can pull an American accent!"
I'm a Brit and love the original Magnum P.I. series. I was amazed to discover that John Hillerman was not British but even more so when I found out he was a Texan.
By the way, as mentioned, I'm British (Scots) and studied French, German and Spanish at university. I love watching your videos as, even though I already know much of what you say, I keep discovering nuggets especially concerning pronunciation. The way you present each video is worthy of a university lecture and must be an enormous help to non-native speakers.
Higgins is Texan?!? I'm amazed to discover that too!
I remember being surprised when I found out the actor who played the butler Niles in the 90's sitcom "The Nanny" was American.
Hillerman said that he was carefully trained to replace his native Texan accent with something more generically American but learned other accents at the same time. He plays Higgins’ half-brothers in some episodes, or I think in one case plays Higgins impersonating his Texan half-brother using his real accent. Also plays the Irish priest half-brother… can’t recall if there were more.
American southern accents tend to be closer to older UK accents. Depends on the region and who settled and when. Appalachian English is closest to Ulster English, which makes sense, same people separated by an ocean and a few hundred years.
I thought Robert Downey Jr. sounded spot on in Sherlock Holmes. i also thought Johnny Depp was good in that movie about Jack the Ripper. Forget name.
3:09 "I am just a militia investigator" - weirdly, this comes out sounding incredibly close to DANISH english.
thanks as always for the amazing video, Geoff. I value each upload so much.
The best British accent by an American must surely be Keanu Reeves in Dracula.
/s
No no no, Kevin Costner in Robin Hood. also /s
MEWsic?!
LOL
He grew up in Toronto and his default accent is Canadian as is his citizenship. FWIW he knows it was cringe but it was a paying gig.
@@evanwu1737 Britain has 40 different dialects though. The one he did in Dracula is atrocious
I recently listened to the audiobook of Ernest Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises" which was narrated by William Hurt, and his vocal performance is so impressive. The book features various characters with different accents, and he does all of them perfectly, including American, British, Scottish, French, Spanish and more.
The guys in Spinal Tap were fantastic.
Micheal McKean in particular. Totally spot on.
Christopher Guest's father was a UN diplomat and a member of the House of Lords.
One day I plan to watch it, it's been on TV so many times but there's always something else going on. Has it dated much since being made?
@@floradiamonds I think it's still very relevant!
@@lucyelstonsoprano Thank you. I'll watch it next time it's on.
I'm hoping that I haven't already heard all the best bits, the same way that other films have been spoiled for me because the quotes are out of context, but time will tell. 😀
I don't know any of the correct terminology, but I always assumed that where William Hurt sounded a little off, a little stilted, it was because he was trying for a Russian element in his speech, and I personally thought it worked.
Same here!
Yes, that might account for the "dark" L.
Greetings from Sweden! When I saw William Hurt in "Gorky Park" back in the 80s, I was a schoolgirl learning English, and I was convinced that Hurt was a native Brit with an admirably beautiful accent, both soft and clear at the same time.
I'm native English. I worked with a couple of Swedish people in the mid 1970s. One of them spoke beautiful English. When he came to England from Sweden for a week's work, he started off sounding very slightly Swedish. Within a few days, he sounded 99.99% native English. When we then went to the USA, he continued to sound English for about a week. After that, he started to sound a bit American. A linguistic chameleon.
William Hurt's out-of-time accent in The Village is one of the few things about that movie that's good. There's so many things he really nails, and his delivery of the line "It is too painful; I cannot bear it" is one of the funniest but best lines
Amazed you highlighted James Horner! I'm a big time soundtrack fanatic and a huge fan of his. There are certain videos, one in particular where he's doing the score for Something Wicked This Way Comes (Just before Gorky Park I think!) where you can tell he's really trying to ditch the accent, but after so many years working with the LSO it seems to have become permanently installed!
Impressive accent for sure, and despite the odd slip up a fair few are ones I've heard Brits use, especially with Americanisation. I do find it interesting that some people found the accent inauthentic - presumably Americans as you said - because this always seems to happen with Irish accents in American films (usually American actors but sometimes even Irish actors) - American audiences would prefer the accent they expect rather than a real Irish accent, especially a location accurate one
There's also genuine Irish accents that developed in certain American-Irish communities and many Americans are more familiar with those.
@@MitchJohnson0110 I'm not sure we can quite consider "Irish"-American accents to be Irish... though it would explain what Americans assume Irish accents should sound like
@@saoirsedeltufo7436 Yes you can. Huge amounts of Irish-born people grew up in large communities made of first generation Irish immigrants in the United States and spoke to each other in their native accents.
You don't stop being Irish the second you step outside Irelands borders.
@@MitchJohnson0110 I never even implied you did...
The bulk of 'Irish-Americans' are descendants of those immigrants who went over over a century ago, often because of An Gorta Mór, and the 'Irish-American' accent is an American one with some Irish influences, not the other way around
the best brit accent is nigel tufnel lol
This episode was concise, I learned a lot in six minutes.
I seem to remember Maggie Gyllenhaal doing a good British accent in the tv drama "The Honourable Woman".
Also - the accents in Spinal Tap are for the most part very 'natural' - even the odd slips can be put down to 'mid-atlanticisms' so prevalent in British Rockstars' accents of the 1970's and 80's.
And she did a great on in Nanny McPhee Returns as well.
@@littleogeechee223
Not seen it, and to be honest, not likely to, but I'll take your word for it.
I'm kinda curious though now.
My English friend said the American actors in Spinal Tap did the British accent so very well.
Especially as they were regional as well.
Yup spinal tap hole excellent accent
Some of the elder of the Kennedy children retained some British pronunciations throughout their lives because they attended school in London for several years as children. It was noticeable in both Jack and Bobby Kennedy.
Lake Bell, in the film Man Up, does an absolutely incredible British accent. I couldn't believe it when I found out she was American.
I am Brazilian, and I fell head over heels in love with William Hurt when he played Molina in the Kiss of the Spider Womam. I'm glad that you brought him up.
Mike Myers is a living legend in many senses, but due to his UK heritage his array of ultra-accurate UK accents is absolutely astonishing 🤩 As it happens, Seth Myers (no relation) also has a pretty nice comedic British delivery.
This video of yours, as all your work, really speaks to me due to my background: I'm a bilingual Finnish person who grew up in London and attended international schools in Finland after age 9; my SW London accent switched to a General American one as a child (impacted by my classmates and teachers), which I still consider my natural dialect despite never even visiting the US or ever having spoken any form of English at home. I can emulate multiple varieties of spoken English to this day, including my original Wimbledon twang.
I'm steeped in global Anglophone culture, and I work as a translator, linguist, and poet, so my identity is a sort of curated mishmash of linguistic and cultural influences :D
Language acquisition, multilingualism, code-shifting, and novel or neologistic usage are fascinating to me as processes, in shaping our identities especially.
Thank you so very much for your crisply informative, professional, and entertaining channel 💗 Rakkautta Suomesta!
Very interesting! Kiitos paljon!
He guilty of the dreadful Dick-van Dyke cockney. No one on earth talks like Austen Powers
Holy moly, someone with a profile very similar to mine! (You wouldn't happen to be someone I know?)
I'm technically bilingual in Finnish and English, being a native Finnish speaker but immersed in English-speaking countries for three years from preschool to 2nd grade. These days I speak with a British-slash-Transatlantic accent (I pass for a Brit in London but am automatically assumed to be American in Cornwall, for whatever reason), except that I revert to northeastern US whenever I visit the States.
I'm a professional translator and composer, and the linguistic part of my career I owe entirely to my family's said relocation 50+ years ago.
As a Scot, I've always found Myers' much praised Scottish accent a lot more inconsistent than he gets credit for. It's near immaculate in So I Married An Axe Murderer, but I recall an SNL skit in which it's utterly atrocious, and parts of Shrek are dodgy too. Still far and away the best Scottish accent I've seen from North America, although the quality of competition for that title is very low.
@@DrGeoffLindsey The American actor whose name gets mentioned most frequently by Brits I've met over the last quarter century, is one, James Marsters, who played Spike the vampire on the hit TV show, "Buffy The Vampire Slayer". They all told me they were shocked to hear James speak in interviews, having just assumed he was 100% Brit born and raised. But nope, James is a California boy, who just happened to have a spot-on British accent. Not posh, either. Nor over-the-top cockney. Perhaps you could tell me which British accent he affects in the show? There lots of clips on TH-cam.
I think Renée Zellweger’s Brigit Jones and Maggie Gyllenhaal in Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang are very convincing with their British accents.
Came here to mention Renee Z. Also Angelia Jolie in The Tourist is pretty good.
Renee Zelwegger sounds like she studied how to sound convincing and did too good a job, ending up sounding not quite right.
Yeah, i thought Renée Z. not only got the accent down to a tee, but even the facial expressions and body language were so middle-class 1990s southern English it was creepy!
Renee's accent was so good in Brigit Jones I thought she was originally British
@@MrGalpino I agree, it's almost too impeccable. She sounds British and not at all American, but like a posh Brit who's been to some kind of old-fashioned finishing school to be taught how to speak absolutely correctly.
The thing with James' accent is that it's his. He speaks and sounds as he does as a consequence of his life. It may be unusual but it's genuine. Working in a large international company I've run across this situation several times. It's usually surprising at first but then you learn about the life history of the person and realize the cultures and languages that shaped their English and accent. They are normally very interesting people.
As someone who's got a mixed accent (American/Australian), I'm always just a little bit foreign no matter where I go. (To Australians I sound American and to Americans I sound Australian.) It's got its positives and negatives.
William Hurt had a very pleasing English accent, crisp but but not mannered. I think he did a fine job. I noticed the ‘t’ before you mentioned it. I like how you break everything down in a forensic way.Fascinating.
He sounded exactly like an English person who's spent a few years in North America in the film.
I'd suggest Jennifer Ehle's Elizabeth Bennett in the 1995 Pride and Prejudice was pretty good for a girl from North Carolina.
Isn’t her mum English though, and I think she spent time here as a kid too?
THat's a good one, I always forget she's not actually British!
You’re right, I had forgotten about her! Her normal accent is American, but having a British parent (like Mike Myers) I think helps significantly.
Those costume dramas absolutely do not represent how people spoke in those days. It's all glammed up for the American audience.
@@mrpositronia Yes it is troublesome how only certain “British accents “ are allowable in period films. I imagine any movie about John Keats would probably have him speaking with an Oxbridge accent rather than in cockney.
Would you consider discussing Angela Lansbury's hybrid accent? She lived in the US for such a long time that her American accent became totally natural and effortless, yet in TV and films if you listen closely, there's a very light sprinkling of words and phrases that are completely English. I always wondered if there was a pattern or science behind that. How lucky we all were to be entertained by that lovely lady during her long and varied career.
Angela usually sounded a bit british - unless she used a southern accent (Manchurian Candidate - Blue Hawaii) - bits of pronunciation would slip thru - it was mostly heard in the melody of her speech - - in the same vein - Cary Grant and Roddy McDowall never quite lost their accents - tho Roddy could in later life if the role demanded it - Jean Simmons would take a while to lose her english accent - it was a surprise to hear Deborah Kerr's perfect american in From Here to Eternity - she was usually cast so her english accent didn't make a difference
I consider her to have the very old film acting "transatlantic accent" - a deliberate mix of American and British.
I have to say Niles from The Nanny is by far my favorite actor doing a British accent. I heard he was American? So I was kinda taken aback
Yes! I was thinking of him as well. Also Spike from Buffy. Even my British friend thought he was British.
Yes. He's from Arkansas.
He's not doing a British accent. He's doing a transatlantic accent. His character is American.
@@thefantasyreview8709 this is not true at all. Niles absolutely is British in the show..even pines he wishes he was a barrister and MP to Maxwell's mother
@@akg9991 you realise he is Frazier's brother and Martin's son...and they are both American????
Apart from that "Niles was born in Seattle, Washington, in 1957[5], to Hester Crane, a psychiatrist, and Martin Crane, a police officer. Like his older brother Frasier, Niles was named for one of his mother's lab rats.[6] Also like Frasier, Niles was an unusually sensitive child and a frequent target for bullies. As a result, he was quite close to his older brother, and at the same time fiercely competitive with him. Like Frasier, Niles prefers fine arts, music, and intellectual pursuits to physical activities like sports. He is also an established philanthropist. After attending the private Bryce Academy with Frasier, Niles's success in school led to matriculation at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, as an undergraduate, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa,[7]"
I love Gorky Park as it was filmed in and around Helsinki, Finland, as that time it was impossible to film in the then Soviet Union. And as Finland had been part of Imperial Russia, there were/are enough old buildings in Helsinki to convincingly play Moscow 😀
Sean Astin had a very convincing accent in LOTRs, maybe it was the west country accent, which I assume was where a lot of early settlers to America came from. I actually thought the actor was eitehr English or Scottish when I first heard his performance.
If you compare his Gorky Park performance with him in Altered States, it seems like the avoidance of contractions is an actorly choice. I think it's something he's choosing to do to make his character seem smarter and more professional.
Or it could just be that's how he talked? :D
More formal and "Soviet" perhaps? (As distinct from putting on a pretend Russian accent.)
Yes, I've seen that in his other movies.
@@philroberts7238 there are very few things in Russian which can even be contracted to begin with-- especially since the verb 'is', which is the most common contraction in English, is completely absent in Russian. There are contractions of some words, but those are viewed as low-brow or bumpkin ways of speaking, mostly. I think it is a good way of giving the language of the character a syntactic nod, more subtly than just dropping every instance of the verb 'is' or any simple articles would be. Trying to do it like that would only result in a cartoony, brutish speech to the English ear.
It’s a kids film (a really good one) but Maggie Gyllenhaal’s accent in Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang is actually excellent. It’s midlands/south without veering into Received Pronunciation. She affects it very naturally and I think she’s underrated as an actor
She is actually the best American I've heard doing a British accent but not for that role. Check out "The Honourable Woman" a mini series she did for the BBC about a decade or so ago. She actually plays an English MP and if i hadn't already known who she was going on, I would have sworn she was a native Brit based on that performance alone, that's how good her accent was.
Though not by an American, I've found the most convincing southern English accent on screen was done by a Scot: Martin Compston in Line of Duty. It was the first thing I'd seen him in and had no idea what his natural speaking voice sounded like. He was as convincing a Londoner as a greengrocer at Deptford Market.
I remember an interview with Michael Caine and he was asked who was the best American actor to do a cockney accent he ever heard (I think the joke prior was about Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins). Caine said it was young Forrest Whitaker in The Crying Game. He said it was so good he thought Whitaker was the new it-kid in British film and TV to watch and was shocked he was American. And yet Whitaker keeps coming up on forums as bad-Brit accents by Americans. But I think Forrest Whitaker is a fantastic actor who dives in so well into accents & speech pattern from real (Last King of Scotland) to made up (Star Wars) - I hope you do a dive into his accents someday!
Thank you for this! Aside from it being a great film I can remember being really confused by his accent! It was so good, understated and natural sounding I thought he was British but there was the very occasional line that threw me. I can remember replaying them and trying to figure out what was going on. A credit to his performance that i thought he was a British actor who had spent some time in the US.
Great video! I'd love a video on James Marsters as Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I know many Brits who thought he was a native Londoner.
Wow I did!!!
So glad you mentioned this! I started watching the original broadcast from the later series and just assumed he was British. His accent in series 1 and 2 is quite ropey though!
HIs (Marsters) accent was pretty decent, but I never once thought that he was a brit. With lines of any length, there'd usually be a 'tell' of some kind. Usually these came in the form of some bizarre pronounciations that were neither American nor British, but possibly sounded 'authentic' to US audiences based on some fictional version of cockney that sometimes crops up on TV over there (Dick Van Dyke has a great deal to answer for).
Me and my brother love Buffy and have thought of Spikes accent as halfway to Van Dyking for years. Cannot agree on this one.
He did a good job, i had him down as someone who had lived in the US for a couple of years and had adjusted his accent to get work.
One of my favourite British accents by an American is Alan Tudyk in A Knights Tale. It's not perfect but it's a very good estuary-english verging on cockney which as a native ssb speaker I assumed was genuine when I first saw it
You're kidding. It's awful.
He killed as King Candy in Wreck it Ralph...
@@harrynewiss4630 - i find myself disagreeing with other americans about the success of british actors with american accents - the ultimate judge i suppose would be a dialectician like Dr Lindsey here - or a survey of the natives of that dialect
Yes! I was looking for this comment. I really thought he was English
Regarding James Horner, it's something I've noticed that musically inclined people often have an ear for accents, and imitation in general. For instance, David Bowie can't get through an anecdote without doing the accents of the people involved. And famously, he took his entire singing style from Anthony Newly. Mick Jagger shifted to various accents, to greater or lesser success, when changing musical genres. That was common among British singers at the time. But it's not confined to singers. I have a friend who's a professional drummer, and when he tells stories of the famous musicians he's worked with (more famous, I mean-- he does have a Grammy himself), he does their voices beautifully.
I know what you mean. I lived in Germany for many years and was often complimented on my accent (in German), but people also remarked that singers and other musicians seemed to have an easier time with accents. (I was a singer.)
Lake Bell in Man up did such a great job I was shocked to find out she was American
Willem Dafoe does a very impressive North East English accent in the 2003 film The Reckoning, for an American he does extremely well, I've seen most actual English actors who aren't from the region struggle with it
I haven't seen it! Thanks for the pointer
I was born & grew up in Brighton, UK. Emigrated to US in late 20s. Another actor who I mistook for an old college friend when I heard her voice on the TV while I was making a cup of coffee is Gillian Anderson (X-Files) in her role as DCI in “The Falls”. The other is Michael Hall (TV Series “Safe”) playing a British surgeon.
Gillian is a dual citizen and split her childhood across both countries.
@@seancassidy674 Yes again Gillian is one of us
The joy of discovering an American actor actually attempting to replicate straightforward British, well English, pronunciation! So many years of either "posh" (and posh from the 1920s) or Australian (occasionally with some mangled South African for good measure).
I grew up just outside Boston. It’s quite common for Bostonians too to put an /r/ sound between a word that ends in a vowel and another that begins with one. Hence, law/r/office and law/r/and order (or should I say loranodda?).
Also “drawring” for drawing.
@@cisium1184 I used to love drawring! And don’t forget “sawring wood.”
“Good for an American” -a review of my SSB English accent from a Liverpudlian I met in college.
(I’ve been practicing my English accent for years. I watch so much content about accents, and I consume a ton of media from the UK)
William Hurt was one of my favorite actors, and I didn't even remember he had an British accent in Gorky Park. It just flowed really naturally. Not accent-related, but check out Wim Wenders' Until The End of the World if you haven't seen him in it.
William Hurt sounds a bit like Alan Rickman to me in the scenes you played, which would tend to confirm that he did a good job. Although a far sillier movie, I was always thought Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer were fairly convincing as British musicians in the hilarious “This is Spinal Tap.”
The British accent tradition used for certain cinema foreigners has a long standing tradition with the Romans, who would generally get British accents. John Wayne played a Roman in his broad Western/Californian accent, and everyone thought it was hilarious.
I remember that scene. My best friend and I were watching “The Greatest Story Ever Told” and laughed for about 10 minutes straight after the John Wayne scene.
@@MsFlamingFlamer yeah, its like one of the most inappropriate accents for a character in the entire history of cinema!
If you think that's hilarious you should watch Star Knight. It's got Harvey Keitel who's supposed to be a an English medieval knight but plays his role using his native New York Bronx accent!
@@MsFlamingFlamer That scene is also the source of possibly the greatest film accent-related anecdote I've ever heard. Reportedly, Wayne playing the centurion had several cracks at his one line "Truly, this man was the son of God", but it kept coming out a bit flat, so he was asked by the director to try another take but to "say it with awe".
Everyone resets their positions. Camera rolls once more. The Duke fixes his gaze on the crucified Messiah and opens his mouth again:
"Awww, truly this man was the son of God."
It's _probably_ entirely apocryphal, but goodness it's a great story.
James Horner and Gillian Anderson have something in common: Americans who grew up in the UK and retain their childhood accent
William Hurt's British accent was solid. I find it hard, because of who he is, my knowledge of his work and his regular accent etc, to not pick up on the lilt / cadence of a lot of lines, but (and this is crucial for me) not to the detriment of the performance. His accent is solid to the point where I'm questioning his characters motives or agenda etc. I have seen it written a few places that it was a deliberate choice to be ever so slightly off because of who his character was in the wider narrative - something is supposed to be off, he's supposed to be unsettling at times. I can make my peace with that. Fantastic performance. Great movie. thanks for for great video.
as an american with close ties to my family in Leeds and has visited england many times i can attest that british people are innundated with american culture (they have all but transformed their entire nation trying to catch up to american diversity standards - nobody told them there is no earthly reason that a tiny european island , a good portion of which is in the arctic circle, should be a diverse wonderland).. Regardless, brits are intimately familiar with all things american, they have grown up hearing the american accent(s) NEARLY just as much as their own- this is why brits do so well with american accents- The other way around doesn't really pan out.. Other than catching the latest few episodes of "downton abby", most americans haven't a clue about the british.
I have always thought William Hurt an underrated actor. That was great to hear about James Horner.
Certainly wasn't underrated back in his heyday. More forgotten than ever underrated.
Can we all please stop misusing underrated. He’s an academy award winner for best actor for god’s sake.
About avoiding contractions; I guess you're right about it being characteristic of non-natives learning English, but in this case it might be a hold over from the stereotypical "Russhian" accent employed by generations of Boris Badanov type actors.
It helps that Hurt is such a naturalistic actor you don’t even notice he’s affecting an accent.
Harry Shearer's accent in 'This is Spinal Tap' is spot on. Not just a 'British' accent but a genuine regional accent from the north of England.
I'd like to hear your commentary on Renee Zellweger's British accent in "Bridget Jones Diary". I had never seen her in movies before and thought she was a total Londoner.
Heya Jeff, have you seen Peter Jackson's version of The Lord of the Rings? There is an American Actor named Brad Dourif who supposedly fooled the casting directors of the film as he spoke with a RP accent throughout the casting process, never breaking character. It wasn't till he was already cast they found out his normal speech was very American. Huge breakdown of it in the LotR extended documentaries.
I think all of the American cast in those films did an exemplary job (as indeed did every single person working on them in every department) of their accents.
@@KindredBrujah Agreed. Any off-key accent intruding into the film would have taken us out of that world. It never happened.
@@tonybennett4159 Viggo Mortensen slips sometimes. Sometimes sounds more US, sometimes more British. Elijah Wood & Sean Astin were flawless though.
@@mikespearwood3914 Wait, Viggo Mortensen was doing a British accent? Sounded American to me. Agreed that Wood and Astin were 💯as was Dourif.
Fascinating about James Horner!
for me, the best English accent I have heard from an American actor was Jennifer Ehle as Lizzie in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice
Her mother is a famous British actress though, Rosemary Harris
she's also British so...
@@elijahsackville-glucksburg No, she is American.
Like Gillian Anderson, she was partly brought up in the UK so had a lot of exposure to British English.
When you said "40 years ago," I thought you might be talking about Jonathan Hillerman, who played Higgins on the TV series "Magnum: PI" and fooled Brits into thinking he was one of them. I'd also nominate James Marsters, who played Spike on "Buffy: the Vampire Slayer." He got off to a rough start, but by the end of the series (and during his time on "Angel"), his accent was flawless. Of course, it helped that he had Anthony Stewart Head to coach him.
I'm English - a northerner but with a "university accent - ie, fairly neutral. To me, Forest Whittaker in The Crying Game had a very impressive London accent, although he is American.
I'm English born and raised , and I agree, that accent is almost perfect. Superb.
I find it almost impossible to tell he's not English.
I agree. In fact, he sounds like an English person who's spent a few years in North America, which is why very occasionally he sounds transatlantic.
This has really driven home how much of the New England accents have in common with British ones. A lot of these features are common here, but those that aren’t completely change the timbre of the accent
Totally agree. It’s interesting to note the small differences that add up. I tend to think here in New England our vowel sounds are brighter and more nasal than in British English. I feel like it’s what gives the New England dialect a more “American” sound.
And what interests me the most is the regionalization of New England accents, which have quite a bit of variety if you know what you’re looking for. I’m also fascinated by the pervasive stereotype of the Southie Boston accent. I don’t naturally have a strong accent, but when I go to other places in the country, they know where I’m from and start doing the exaggerated Southie Boston accent
I've heard it said that Brad Dourif did an excellent British accent in The Lord of the Rings as Wormtongue, but me not being an expert, I wonder what do you think of it?
Michael McKean from Spinal Tap does a brilliant English accent.
Wow, didn’t know Malcolm McDowell had a youtube channel.
I kid of course. Great video!
Gorky Park is a very dark film with excellent performances especially Hurt's copper and to see Ricki Fulton as a baddie is a delight! Thanks for the upload 👍
My favourite American actor who delivered the most convincing (in my opinion of course) and endearing English accent is Daniel Davis when he portrayed Niles the Butler on "The Nanny" TV series. I found out later his natural speech is Southern American. Very impressive.
1:23 He may not sound very posh but to me he sounds pretty posh. Maybe for the time it was a common accent.
What are you on about? He does not sound posh at all
I have noticed some people adopt an accent developed in early childhood, and it stays forever. I was a child who moved to various locations and adopted the local accent quickly. I recall feeling like my speech had no ‘home’. I believe this finally lifted as a young adult but if given the chance of immersing myself in another region, I just might adapt again. There’s my comment. Thank you for your interesting work.
Thank you for your analysis. We Australians are familiar with both American and British accents largely owing to films and television. In the past forty years, there has been a shift here in our accent to a more middle-of-the-road accent with the disappearance of what we used to call “educated Australian” and its counterpart, the broad Australian accent. And we hear more British regional accents now on the BBC I have noticed.
Australians are THE BEST at American accents. I can't begin to count the number of actors I saw in movies with American accents and was later shocked to learn that they were Australian. As just one example, the movie The Patriot cracked me up. Here is a movie literally about historic American wars and patriotism, and it stars two Australians with impeccable American accents! (I knew Mel Gibson and Heath Ledger were Aussies by that time, but learning about each had been a shock once upon a time).
Both Australians and Canadians seem particularly good at pulling both sets of accents off!
Forest Whittaker in The Crying Game, is an early example of an American doing a non cliched British accent. I assumed he was British, as he wasn't that famous back then.
I think his accent is pretty poor
@@pupface well I think it's middle class
@@pupface Pretty awful - file under 'dvd' of bad cockney accents.
it was all over the place!
Checkout early Denzel Washington in "For Queen and Country", playing a sarf London lad back from Los Malvinas/Falklands ... when I found out he was American I was amazed, but when I returned to re-watch it a few years ago, it seemed pretty bad accent-wise.
Recently, Brian Tyree Henry in Bullet Train has really impressed me. After seeing that film my husband and I went to check out his IMDB page fully expecting to see the usual British titles and were shocked to find out he's actually American. Currently, his page has an interview with a fellow cast member, where he speaks in his own American accent, but shows clips of the film so you can hear the difference. Very impressive.
It was a half-decent attempt, but I'm not sure how you could think he was British on the basis of his attempt.
You should hear him in (the show) Atlanta!
A bit off topic, but I remember watching L.A. Confidential, then seeing the cast members interviewed, and I nearly fell off my chair when Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce opened their mouths and these thick Australian accents came out. I had NO idea they were Australian at the time.
the aussies were superb at speaking american - even back when the brits were still struggling
Australians make great Americans.
Mel Gibson
@@kamau506Mel Gibson: American father, Irish mother, lived in the US till age 12 -- I'd say he does a pretty good Australian accent.
Don’t forget Niles on The Nanny. His British accent is amazing-I didn’t even realize he was American!
When an actor is playing an English character, it should be noted that many people in England, by the age of thirty or forty years of age, may have lived in various places both in the British Isles and even abroad for a brief or longer period often and therefore being subject to some degree effected or influenced by them. In my own case from a northern working class environment to various areas around the country together with moving up the social scale. These all influence a persons inflections and traits of pronunciation. These aspects seem not to be allowed for by over pedantic critics of people such as William Hurt, as in the case of James Horner at the end of this video presentation.
Lynn Collins in "John Carter of Mars" (2012). She took up the same SSB accent as most of the rest of the cast -- in contrast to the American Civil War vet played by the lead. She kept up her accent between takes, and only dropped the accent once primary photography was complete -- and shocked the other actors who'd never met her before and had no idea she was American.
I found Maggie Gyllenhall in The Honourable Woman to be flawless enough not to cringe at any particular word or phrase, though she does go for posh. I'm not sure how much vocal coaching was around 40 years ago and how the quality and style might compare to modern coaching.
How delightful to find such a fine example. If I was to find placeless English accents, it would be Lord Of The Rings. I'll search around for a video on that. The two American hobbits did a fine job, which hopefully the two native speaking hobbits helped with :).
Sean Astin deserves particular credit for attempting (mostly successfully, from what I've heard) a West Country accent instead of a generic RP or cockney. Very appropriate for his character.
@@GregJamesMusicconfirmed. I am a spokesperson for the Westcountry People’s Republic, and I think he did a good job!
The diphthongal FLEECE vowel at 2:40 put words to something I often notice. For example, the self checkouts at the Co-op say, "Payment accept-ey-d", in a more "estuary" way than other self checkouts. I dunno why this really jumps out at me, but it does. Has anyone else noticed it?
Love these film accent breakdowns! Fascinating to see forensically how close he came, and where he deviated.