Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/11/17/hollywood-accent-coach-critiqu.html
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I can do Rick from the walking dead. Not the character but the actual actor in interviews.
Hellew, Guv’na! Oym Rick, innit?
Well, I’m still working on it.
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One could argue Dick van Dyke’s “Cockney” accent was at least an honest attempt to mimic that speech pattern.
Rooney’s “Japanese accent” wasn’t an honest attempt to speak English like a native Japanese speaker would. It’s just a grab bag of “let’s do the most stereotypical Asian-esque impressions possible.”
This was a great video. Thanks for sharing!
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32 accents and he didn’t get to Michael Palin? That’s outrageous!
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really?
also
because WTF not?
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Very insightful analysis by a pro. Thanks!
It’s easy to pick out the terrible ones: Mickey Rooney, John Wayne (as Genghis Khan?), Keanu in anything where he isn’t a surfer dude, early Brad Pitt. Sean Connery in anything where he’s not explicitly Scottish.
Brad Pitt obviously evolved a great deal as an actor, going from a pretty boy mailing it in to a star putting in all the work necessary.
I will argue about Malkovich, though. It’s a well-known tale about how he hired an old Russian woman and had her say all his lines. He copied her assiduously. The result sounds strange coming out of his mouth, but it isn’t because it wasn’t authentic or that he didn’t make the effort.
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anyway this isn’t useful if he’s going to do Brad Pitt in Inglorious Basterds, he has to critique the italian scene.
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The Conqueror: A movie so bad it literally gave everyone cancer.
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Why? Pitt’s Italian in that scene is meant to be intentionally terrible as a comedy device (playing on his previous overconfidence that he could speak Italian, which ended up being more “Eyetalian” versus Landa’s inscrutable Italian.)
Despite its sight historical inaccuracies, I love this film.
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“Hollywood accent coach critiques 32 actors’ accents…”
Gotta think that publicly dissing actors accents may not be the smartest way to book future gigs as dialect coach…
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Dick van Dyke has also said he has an excuse: his voice coach was Irish.
I think there should be more focus in Kevin Costner.
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I didn’t see many outright disses. He even said many times these issues are often due to insufficient time and training.
Many of the critiques were pointing out the little details that can get missed that remove authenticity.
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That and being unwilling to just hire an actor with the right accent instead of a “famous person”? 
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yes, it is a bad Italian accent spoken by an American with a southern accent, thus the obvious critique would be to determine how accurate his bad Italian accent is given those parameters.
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Then again in most cases I’m also a proponent of subtitles instead of “English with vaguely foreign sounding accent.”
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And where one of the extras is seen wearing a wristwatch.
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No see, what we didn’t realize when it came out was that it wasn’t an alternate-history period piece, it was a science fiction piece about the future (now) and was TOTALLY FUCKING ACCURATE especially the ending. Except they didn’t include the orange hair, but really just an oversight.
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Yeah, having this guy even address that is like asking Miss Manners to talk about someone crapping on public sidewalks. “Who the f*ck let this happen?” is really the only reasonable response.
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Oh god, he’s the worst. I mean, the Bond film where he went to Japan is forgivable since Bond films are supposed to be over the top crazy. But “The Wind and the Lion” (Moroccan), “Highlander” (Egyptian or Spanish?)…
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One could argue that. D’e really troy? Or was i’ aw jusabi’va jolly?
I will wonder my whole life whether actually doing the accent well would have deeply changed the nature of the film. One does acclimatise to it after a few minutes; but boy, it’s rotten.
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