6 Examples of Horrible Fake Accents in Movies
We’ve written two articles on this subject before. One covered American actors with great foreign accents. And the other covered foreign actors with great American accents. Today it’s officially time to make fun of actors who have no business doing any kind of accents whatsoever.
Sorry guys and gals but you really need to just stick to who you are…which in many cases ain’t half bad.
Here are 6 examples (with video) of actors painfully butchering accents…..
Thanks to Hollywood for pointing these out.
Liam Neeson in Taken
I’m not going to sit here and say that Liam Neeson isn’t a good actor because he happens to be a great actor. But I will say that passing him off as an American isn’t really the best move in the world. At least not in the movie Taken. I mean come on guys. What were you thinking?
Keanu Reeves in Bram Stoker’s Dracula
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDdY6dh5dJc
The only word I can think of here is “ouch.” Don’t ever play a British guy again Keanu. You know what would have been perfect in this scene? If he got up and screamed “I am an F.B.I. Agent!”
Kevin Costner in Robin Hood Prince Of Thieves
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXTj5nd2oKQ
I’m pretty sure this might go down as one of the worst accents in the history of cinema. All the other actors did a fairly decent with theirs but Costner went in and out of (what I think to be) his English accent well more than a dozen times.
Brad Pitt in Seven Years in Tibet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndqZr9np4lo
Pitt is another guy I happen to like in nearly 100% of the films he was in. But good Lord him trying to do an Austrian accent was a complete joke in this movie. It was literally painful to watch.
Nicolas Cage in Conair
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW3aCuxY1DY
I can’t believe this scene was taken seriously by anyone. OK that has to be a lie right? The entire movie Cage playing a Southern boy from Alabama should have sent a search squad from that state looking to ring his neck.
Demi Moore in The Butchers Wife
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wpQHiUrVUs
Wait, what? What in God’s name is going on here? If anyone here can guess what in the world Moore is trying to accomplish here then please write me a letter about it.
I was gonna mention the lack of Sean Connery but then I thought to myself, “Did he ever even TRY to do an accent?”.
The thing about Neeson is that he’s so good that you accept that he’s an American with just a unique speaking cadence. At no time did his performance actually remind me that he’s from the UK.
Re. Costner – it’s pretty sad when Christian Slater out-acts you.
Re. Conair -damn Monica Potter was hot.
Harrison Ford in that movie about a russian submarine has a terrible accent.
Demi Moore’s trying to do a rural hillfolk accent….I think. Sounds kinda like someone from southern Indiana or Missouri. Not quite southern, but not quite norther either.
I love Jason Statham but him trying to play an american is incredibad in “The One”
I agree, Liam is acceptable as just a unique cadence. Still American, but unique. There are a lot of Born-Americans that speak similar to that, one being my best friend.
Keanu was pretty bad. Considering who he’s supposed to be playing, it was weird for him to sound slightly American.
Kevin wasn’t so so bad, since he wasn’t REALLY trying for an English accent. But he probably should have just spoken normally to make it at least feel more natural.
Pitt was… Well I agree. I winced. ‘Nough said.
Nicolas sounded alright actually. Not really Alabama, but still southern enough to get the point across. And it doesn’t detract from his performance, which is very good.
And I agree with whomever said Demi was sounding like she was from Indiana or therabouts. I live in Kentucky, and she sounds like a LOT of the native Kentuckians around here. Not the really bad ones that make fire sound like far and butter sound like an odd version of buddha… But still Southern enough for the role.
what about malkovich in rounders? that was just bloody painful.
I hate Angelina Jolie’s obligatory British accent for any movie where she is not and American, or a Russian.
Halle Berry in the first X-Men FTW!!!!
Prince of Persia.
Commence rage sequence.
Jodie Foster in Anna and the King.
Sam Worthington in his career.
Halle Berry. X-Men. It’s like she’s from every country and no country.
“Unlike some Robin Hoods, I can speak with an English accent.”
Considering during the time of Robin Hood (pre-1228), everybody in Britain spoke Old English, NONE of the accents from any Robin Hood movie make sense.
Sean Connery in Red October
How can you seriously think that the clip from seven years in tibet is brad pitt? I mean maybe hes terrible in the movie but that right there wasn’t his voice. Its very clearly a dubbed version of the film. Theres no subtitles even though hes not speaking english, and at the end the little summary of Tibet is written in english yet a narrator feels the need to read it in German. Really? Is this just an elaborate troll?
Viggo Mortensen in LOTR was pretty bad. Weak British accent at times and just random stuff at others.
I love Conair and watch it occasionally but its pretty much everything I don’t want to see in a 21st century film. His accent is just ridiculous!
“Aah said… put thaa bunne’… back in thaa box!” Just terrible!
Hmm, I forgot the part where the accent of Middle Earth was British…………..
Aside from that, Ford in K19 was bloody awful, and Brad Pitt as an Irishman in The Devil’s Own was laughable.
He said he was from a ‘wee fishing village close to cookstown’ in the movie.
If it is where I think it is, and is probably, it’s the worst butchery of an already shite variation of the Irish brogue.
Any American’s ‘British’ accent!
Nicolas Cage had a great accent in Raising Arizona. Not perfect, but it added rather then subtracted from the character.
RDJ in Sherlock Holmes
Russel Crowe had a terrible accent in Robin Hood but was fine in Master and Commander, how strange.
Forget Con Air, has anyone ever seen Nicolas Cage in Vampire’s Kiss?
I’m not even entirely sure what accent he’s butchering in that movie, which is a strong indication of just how much he’s destroying it. I think he’s failing to do an English accent, but it’s so mangled it’s hard to be sure.
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what about Ray Winstone in Fool’s Gold? Trying to do a southern states accent but every sentence he ends back in his normal london accent. It’s hilarious.
Dick Van Dyke as a Cockney chimney sweep in “Mary Poppins”.
Mel Gibson in Braveheart! Och aye the noo, Jimmy!
Uhm.. no. That clip from Seven Years in Tibet with Pitt is not the original sound. Plus it’s the German dub, not Austrian.
How about Nic Cage in World Trade Center…an abomination of a New York accent if I’ve ever heard. Maybe it’s because I’m from Jersey and work in NYC, but it kills me when I watch that movie.
Cate Blanchett in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull……….of which was a mistake in its ENTIRETY………..butchered a Russian accent.
Moore was trying to emulate an accent from Ocracoke, NC—a small fishing village that hasn’t changed much since the 1700’s. Meg Ryan was originally supposed to play that part but dropped out and Moore took over. The people there still do talk with a British/Southern/Yankee accent—it’s kinda weird.
You can’t add Sean Connery to this list like people tried to do—he never tries to do an accent. Plays a Spaniard in The Highlander? He does it with a Scottish Accent—Russian? Again, a Scottish Accent. English? He won’t even pretend—he uses a Scottish Accent. Since he never bothers to do an accent, he can’t be accused of doing it badly.
Keanu Reeves in Bram Stoker’s Dracula FTW.
Rosanna Arquette trying a French Canadian accent in The Whole 9 Yards.
I live in Quebec and I have not met one English or French Quebecer that has not laughed.
It was even filmed here and she couldn’t get it right.
I love him to bits but Alan Rickman’s german accent in Die Hard was absolutely terrible!! Yet some of the best dialogue in that film is from him:)
I laughed myself sick when I heard Leonardo DiCaprio’s Afrikaner accent in Blood Diamond or how about the South Boston accent attempted by Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting?
Richard Gere – The Jackal
Emma Watson’s American accent in The Bling Ring was so bad.