Just when you thought Hollywood couldn't do a worse Irish accent...

Dave147

FionnMatthew wrote: »

I couldn't resist pointing out that Henry V was in fact, according to most accounts, out on the field fighting the French. It would, I think, be helpful to get the facts straight on this point.

Yeah right, and Grizzly Adams had a beard..

Happy Gilmore anyone? Ahhhhh

bnt

Múinteoir wrote: »

Gerard Butler outdoes them all in PS I Love You. You'd think someone from Scotland might have a vague idea about what an Irish accent is like.:mad:

I guess you haven't seen Sean Connery's Oscar-winning turn as an Irish-American cop in The Untouchables! Sir Sean's been a Russian submarine captain, a Spanish mercenary (Highlander), a Dragon, Robin Hood, two different English kings (Arthur and Richard), James Bond, and many different Americans - all in an Edinburgh accent. :pac:

The Denouncer

bnt wrote: »

I guess you haven't seen Sean Connery's Oscar-winning turn as an Irish-American cop in The Untouchables! Sir Sean's been a Russian submarine captain, a Spanish mercenary (Highlander), a Dragon, Robin Hood, two different English kings (Arthur and Richard), James Bond, and many different Americans - all in an Edinburgh accent. :pac:

But that's why he doesn't deserve to be in the list, because he didn't even attempt to do one, yet his performance in The Untouchables was superb. Paul Newman in Road to Perdition had an excellent "American-Irish" accent. The worst Irish accent ever goes to Donal Sutherland in The Eagle has Landed *shudder* "Top 'o the morning to ye".. "God bless all here" in the pub.."Sure aren't ye Oirish loik meself?" he says to the Wolfhound. *shudder*

FionnMatthew

I think one of the problems is that in Ireland we are acutely conscious of accents. It's not just that a Limerick can tell a Clare man from his accent, it's that a Swords man can tell a Rush man from his accent.

We've got all these extremely local accents, and an intuitive grasp of how they work and who they indicate. There are, of course, other accent modifiers which have nothing to do with location, such as social station, social pretension, familial idiosyncrasy, etc. Which I'd argue are globally ubiquitous.

But this sort of accent heterogeneity isn't to be found in the States, where the film industry of the West arguably is.

It's the same with England. I didn't notice, because I'm not Oxfordian, but apparently John Thaw's turn as Morse is flawed because of his Cockney twang, even though to me he sounds for all the world like an Oxford gentleman.

And I thought Clare Danes and Michelle Pfeiffer had great accents in Stardust, but apparently not.

But look at it the other way around: English and Irish stars who take on an American accent often surprise American audiences when it turns out that they are not Americans.

For instance, Hugh Laurie's turn as House has amazed American and Canadian audiences in that they just can't believe he's British.

Many Batman fans have been notably disillusioned online to find out that Christian Bale, Gary Oldman and Cillian Murphy are not Americans.


The thing is, when Americans or nearer try to do Irish accents, that hackneyed awful leprechaun accent probably sounds no different to them, than the genuine article. It takes a lot of training to develop the feel for accents that most of have for the different sorts of Irish accent.

To give an example close to home, my voice coach told me a story once about final exams for RADA. A friend of hers had been working on a Donegal accent with which to take her exams, believing this to be one which the (mostly British) speech examiners wouldn't have an ear for. The speech coach, who had a very British natural accent inquired as to the accent she'd be using. She answered with great specificity on the region of Donegal her accent was to be from. The voice coach replied with another question: which town, approximately, from that region would the accent be? Apparently, she was fond of the Donegal accent, and knew the local dialect of every town in the county, and was able to speak it too.


I daresay, though, that while an "American" accent doesn't offend most Americans, on account of it being most of a continent, it's probably easier to offend, say, people from Maine, or New Hampshire, with accents of those varieties.

Personally, I think that in the case of movies, producers should hire actors from the approximate locations their characters are from. Seeing Cillian Murphy in 28 Days Later was really refreshing (although, I thought Brendan Gleeson's London accent was rather good, in that.) Likewise, I eventually got used to Colm Meaney's DS9 acting, and grew to like his character, and his accent was actually authentic - I think that initially, the weirdness about his character was that a genuine Irish accent doesn't seem to sit comfortably with either the acting style favoured by Los Angeles television, or the style of cinematography there employed.

I had the same feeling of weirdness watching (the awful) About Adam, where most of the accents are genuine, but just seem all wrong.

bnt

Anyone here seen The Riches? It's supposedly about a family of Irish Travellers in the USA, who speak with American accents... so the lead actors are English, naturally: Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHMbhBdKjkE

irish_bob

FionnMatthew wrote: »

I think one of the problems is that in Ireland we are acutely conscious of accents. It's not just that a Limerick can tell a Clare man from his accent, it's that a Swords man can tell a Rush man from his accent.

We've got all these extremely local accents, and an intuitive grasp of how they work and who they indicate. There are, of course, other accent modifiers which have nothing to do with location, such as social station, social pretension, familial idiosyncrasy, etc. Which I'd argue are globally ubiquitous.

But this sort of accent heterogeneity isn't to be found in the States, where the film industry of the West arguably is.

It's the same with England. I didn't notice, because I'm not Oxfordian, but apparently John Thaw's turn as Morse is flawed because of his Cockney twang, even though to me he sounds for all the world like an Oxford gentleman.

And I thought Clare Danes and Michelle Pfeiffer had great accents in Stardust, but apparently not.

But look at it the other way around: English and Irish stars who take on an American accent often surprise American audiences when it turns out that they are not Americans.

For instance, Hugh Laurie's turn as House has amazed American and Canadian audiences in that they just can't believe he's British.

Many Batman fans have been notably disillusioned online to find out that Christian Bale, Gary Oldman and Cillian Murphy are not Americans.


The thing is, when Americans or nearer try to do Irish accents, that hackneyed awful leprechaun accent probably sounds no different to them, than the genuine article. It takes a lot of training to develop the feel for accents that most of have for the different sorts of Irish accent.

To give an example close to home, my voice coach told me a story once about final exams for RADA. A friend of hers had been working on a Donegal accent with which to take her exams, believing this to be one which the (mostly British) speech examiners wouldn't have an ear for. The speech coach, who had a very British natural accent inquired as to the accent she'd be using. She answered with great specificity on the region of Donegal her accent was to be from. The voice coach replied with another question: which town, approximately, from that region would the accent be? Apparently, she was fond of the Donegal accent, and knew the local dialect of every town in the county, and was able to speak it too.


I daresay, though, that while an "American" accent doesn't offend most Americans, on account of it being most of a continent, it's probably easier to offend, say, people from Maine, or New Hampshire, with accents of those varieties.

Personally, I think that in the case of movies, producers should hire actors from the approximate locations their characters are from. Seeing Cillian Murphy in 28 Days Later was really refreshing (although, I thought Brendan Gleeson's London accent was rather good, in that.) Likewise, I eventually got used to Colm Meaney's DS9 acting, and grew to like his character, and his accent was actually authentic - I think that initially, the weirdness about his character was that a genuine Irish accent doesn't seem to sit comfortably with either the acting style favoured by Los Angeles television, or the style of cinematography there employed.

I had the same feeling of weirdness watching (the awful) About Adam, where most of the accents are genuine, but just seem all wrong.

excellent post , i agree with you about there being such a broad and distinctive range of accents in ireland , as a result what seems like a decent effort to most people of a particular irish accent by a hollywood actor may seem atrocious by someone from the specific place the charechter on screen was supposed to hail from , take for example the move the devils own , to most people , bradd pitts accent would seem like a perfectly accurate northern irish accent , in my opinion it was an excellent one , not to people from co tyrone , the charechter was supposed to be from cookstown in co tyrone , check out the moviedatabase threads on pitts accent in the devils own and its full of comments from people from county tyrone talking about how its more of a county armagh accent or a county down accent , the fact is , his accent would perfectly pass mustard for the vast majority of people , people in cork , offaly , dublin would just see it as a northern irish accent and people from the usa and most countries would just see it as an irish accent
while awfull attempts at an accent can be pointed to , tom cruise in far and away or my own favourite, richard gere in the jackal , i think its really a case of you cant please everyone

homergriffin

Haven't seen it in years but I remember Patriot Games have very poor Irish accents

tony 2 tone

Billy Connolly as Il Duce in Boondock Saints. Shockin'!

Black Swan

A bad as Natalie Portman in "V" with her attempted "English" accent?

plonk

tony 2 tone wrote: »

Billy Connolly as Il Duce in Boondock Saints. Shockin'!

Was he trying to do an Irish accent in that.

Well anywho what I think alot of actors do is see that we have a few traits common over most of ireland e.g say thirty three and a third.
And this is what they percieve the Irish accent to be.

I lived in scotland for a while and they were terrible at doing the Irish accent but continued to rip the piss out of me nonetheless.

Ryanzo

Deadly flick only if the accent wasnt so bad, sounds like hes impersonating a recent escapee of lohmans