RE: Gotta admit, he looks good... | Report this post to moderator
By: Terry212 (Odo's file, contact, web site) @ 12:30:31 on Oct 17, 2007

I don't recall the actors you mentioned doing southern accents. Standard, northeastern white guy TV newscaster accents aren't all that hard to do....English-speaking Western Europeans grow up with a lot of American TV. All those people you mentioned did the sort of "featureless" American accent, not a regional accent. And I'll agree....they did fine jobs. Those are NOT thick regional accent, though. It's just silly to call anything an American accent. President Bush and the people in Fargo come from the same country.

In my experience, when Brits attempt a southern accent, they just overdo the "r"s at the end of words. They pick up their bad southern accents from Californians and New Yorkers playing southerners in movies where they use bad southern accents.

I never really saw Deliverance, but those 4 characters were from Atlanta. One actor was from New York, one was from Arizona, one from Southern Florida (like...close to Miami), and one was from Kentucky.

I'm telling you...I'd like to find aome SOUTHERNERS who can identify actors originating from OUTSIDE the southeast United States who have done good southern accents in TV or movies. I'm sure there are some, but none come immediately to mind.

--------

Click here to check out my band, ego tree , and the Ego Tree site at myspace. Listen to/buy the CD for $9.99! ALSO AVAILABLE ON iTUNES!!

Reply

Quote

Parent

Top

RE: Gotta admit, he looks good... | Report this post to moderator
By: Davy Pavel Chekov-Jones (Odo's file, contact) @ 09:48:33 on Oct 17, 2007

"The job description of a well-paid, Hollywood-class motion picture actor is that he can do what he is hired to do. In this case, it's to sound like McCoy.

I think the casting director and Abrams didn't say, 'Well, he sounds horrible, but let's cast him anyway.'"

Well, someone once thought that Kevin Costner would make a good Robin Hood... or that Walter Koenig could make a convincing Russian! :)

I think it all depends on the actor. Most of those actors you mentioned have attempted and, for the most part, succeeded at fairly flat, WASP-y accents. Once you hire a "foreign" actor to try a Southern American accent, things start to get just a little wonky. Peter Sellers famously couldn't pull one off for DR. STRANGELOVE (so the part went to Slim Pickens) and I think the British actor Feddie Jones (? - last name may be incorrect--he was in DUNE) failed miserably in an imfamous "Space:1999" episode.

Hard to say for sure how Urban is going to pull it off.

Reply

Quote

Parent

Top

RE: Gotta admit, he looks good... | Report this post to moderator
By: Yesterday's Lemmiwinks (Odo's file, contact) @ 08:56:47 on Oct 17, 2007

From a diction P.O.V., it is MUCH easier for an British/Australian person to "nail" a southern accent than a northern-born U.S. citizen.

Not trying to be a d!ck here, but what?!

--------

"A billion robot lives are about to be extinguished! Oh, the Jedis are going to feel this one..."
-Hubert Farnsworth (Futurama: Crimes of the Hot)
----
"The Andorian Mining Consortium runs from no one!"
-Shran (ENT: Proving Ground)

Reply

Quote

Parent

Top