15 Most Atrocious Movie Accents
Cinema's worst serial accent offenders
BY Jul 16th 2009 23:23PMFILED UNDER: Features
User Comments (24)
Brad Pitt - Seven Years In Tibet (1997)
Going For: Austrian
Actually Is: A child who bit off his own tongue trying to recreate a scene from the Allo Allo repeat he caught last night.
The obvious choice for famed German mountaineer, explorer and all-around Aryan poster boy Henrich Harrer was the guy from the Levi's ad. You know the guy.
Sick of starring in solid american thrillers like Seven and Twelve Monkeys, Pitt was looking for a challange, something to make the critics stand up and respect his abilities as an actor... this was not that something.
Phonetic Phrasing: "Shat aap" (0:40 in the clip) - If he dragged those vowels out a bit, he'd be a cockney hooligan.
Other Offenses: The Devil’s Own (Oirish), Meet Joe Black (Jamaican?)
Tom Cruise - Far And Away (1995)
Going For: Working Class Irish
Actually Is: The Leprechaun from the “Lucky Charms” cereal commercial, as directed by Ron Howard.
Every actor in the Hollywoods can do an Oirish accent. Tom Cruise is one of them. Of course, it sounds nothing like real Irish, but they won't be convinced otherwise. Nope, they can all do it. It's easy... riiight.
In this tale of Irish immegrants looking to make a better life in the good old U.S of A, Cruise proves that the only Irish accents he's ever heard are the ones mangled by other Hollywood actors.
He is successful though, in making every other non-Irish actor in the film sound half-convincing. Thank Hubbard for small, Cruise-sized victories.
Phonetic Phrasing: "Dees peepol arr mye kynd o' peepol" (0:05 in the clip) - on the strength of this we're half expecting him to shout "Top o'the morning to ya" then do a jig. Oh yeah, he does.
Other Offenses: Valkyrie (German – he doesn’t try)
Next: Gerard Butler, Jason Statham
Print Comments (24)
1: Rusty4bears says
What? No Robert Englund in 'The Adventures of Ford Fairlane'?? "Ello Ello Ello"
Or Brion James in 'Tango & Cash' "Yoo wankah"
Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 12:04PMAlert a moderator
2: padrigo says
What about Heath Ledger in Ned Kelly- worst Irish accent ever. Even worse than Tom Cruise in Far and Away.
Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 12:30PMAlert a moderator
3: KittyFantastico says
How the hell did Keanu Reeves' accent in Bram Stoker's Dracula not make it in there? It's horrendous!
Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 12:35PMAlert a moderator
5: dgoodswen says
If you read carefully, Keanu Reeves' accent from Bram Stoker's Dracula IS on the list, just his appearance in Youngblood predates it - don't worry, we're calling out his entire repertoire of accents!
Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 12:51PMAlert a moderator
7: PadmanForever says
Sam Worthington was definitely a little shaky during pent up moments of T4 - Marcus suddenly became Australian. Russell Crowe syndrome.
Hmm, best accents, now that would be a tricky'un. I was impressed at Johnny Depp's consistent (if not 100% authentic) handling of the Scottish accent in Finding Neverland. I'm half Scottish and I can't even manage a full sentence. Also, Christian Bale's usual non-accented American becomes pretty impressive when you hear his bizarre 'cockney in a blender with an Italian mafioso' speaking voice.
Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 5:28PMAlert a moderator
8: dgoodswen says
Sam Worthington was definitely on the shortlist for his T4 shenanigans, the only reason he didn't make the cut was because he has no past form - if his accent is as wobbly in Avatar as it was in Terminator Savlon then we'll fully reconsider...
Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 6:37PMAlert a moderator
9: ashley.russell says
I'm guessing TF have never seen a little period film called Basil starring Jared Leto and Christian Slater, both of them are horrendous and yet so so unintentionally funny
Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 6:38PMAlert a moderator
10: ashley.russell says
I'm guessing TF have never seen a little period film called Basil starring Jared Leto and Christian Slater, both of them are horrendous and yet so so unintentionally funny
Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 6:38PMAlert a moderator
11: Comex says
OK, OK...I can agree with most of the accents you have on this list, but do you really think that Gerard Butler was trying for any sort of Greek accent in "300"? I didn't hear that at all. And since when is a weird lisp the same as a Greek accent? Everyone in the movie was being a bit melodramatic (har-har) but that's not the same as affecting an accent.
Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 7:45PMAlert a moderator
12: AYBGerrardo says
Sean Connery "Other Offenses: The Hunt For Red October (American)"
Eh? Definitely worthy of a place on the list, but he was meant to be Russian. Funny that he learnt the language but couldn't drop his accent.
Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 9:05PMAlert a moderator
13: AYBGerrardo says
Sean Connery "Other Offenses: The Hunt For Red October (American)"
Eh? Definitely worthy of a place on the list, but he was meant to be Russian. Funny that he learnt the language but couldn't drop his accent.
Posted: Jul 16th 2009 // 9:08PMAlert a moderator
14: jdean888 says
Brad Pitt in The Devil's Own was a laughable Northern Irish accent. Gerard Butler's P.S. I Love You attempt at Irish was pretty funny too, when he kept calling Hilary Swank 'Hahllee'.
Posted: Jul 17th 2009 // 2:44PMAlert a moderator
15: Desperation says
Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta?
Posted: Jul 17th 2009 // 5:21PMAlert a moderator
16: joeymac says
Don Cheadle single-handedly prevented Ocean's Eleven from being a 5* film.
Posted: Jul 17th 2009 // 5:34PMAlert a moderator
17: welshdragon42 says
what no one has failed to mention so far is the amazingly diverse and odd range of (cough) interesting accents that we inflicted upon us in Beowulf, with complete inconsistency and weirdness from Ray Winstons cockney (no modification attempted) to a variety of English, American, and most importantly the bizzare and inconsistent oldy english/scandinavian/failing accent of John Malchovich! How can no one have noticed this (or maybe the men were oggling too much at the animated Angelina Jolie or freaked out by the muscled Ray Winston lookalike?)
Posted: Jul 17th 2009 // 6:25PMAlert a moderator
18: sirdday says
Meryl Streeps accent is spot on. aussies actually sound that bad. spot on meryl
Posted: Jul 18th 2009 // 5:38AMAlert a moderator
19: Bluey3 says
Thank you so much for mentioning Tom Cruise [& Nicole Kidman] in Far & Away - this film has long been one of my all-time turkeys for the reasons you've given :-)
Other dishonourable mentions ought [IMO] to go to would-be Oirish maidens Meg Ryan [Restoration] and Cameron Diaz [Gangs of New York].
Weren't there any Irish actresses available?
On the same principle, I won't get started on Bridget Jones....
Posted: Jul 18th 2009 // 4:09PMAlert a moderator
20: Bluey3 says
As someone has already mentioned Keanu Reeves...
thought I'd add a note about his performance in Dangerous Liaisons aka Bill & Ted visit the 18th Century. Like, duuuude...
Posted: Jul 18th 2009 // 4:14PMAlert a moderator
21: apple says
marion cotillard in Public Enemies:she's radiant but her US accent is too bad
every Brad Pitt accent:he's not good in accents
Robert Downey Jr in "Sherlock Holmes" trailer:is Holmes an american guy?
Posted: Jul 20th 2009 // 11:48PMAlert a moderator
22: PadmanForever says
If you listen to the "Watson, what have you done?" line at the end of the Holmes trailer, there is definitely an accent there, but it would seem overall that Downey Jr is using the "softly softly" approach to accent work, which though it sometimes makes it seem like you're not trying, can be better than just walking about going (in this case) "Corr blimey, I'm from Lahndan taan". We'll see how it goes in the full film.
Anyways, the reason I returned to this article was to ask something kind of along the lines of that "gentle accent" approach -- I saw a little bit of "Days of Thunder" tonight, and I can't remember - is Nicole Kidman even supposed to be trying not to be Australian? Because if she is, it certainly doesn't show.
Posted: Jul 21st 2009 // 1:23AMAlert a moderator
23: Jason Voorhees says
Richard Gere in The Jackal is worse than anything, Keanu Reeves in Bram Stokers Dracula, Harrison Ford in K19 the widowmaker.
Posted: Sep 3rd 2009 // 12:12AMAlert a moderator
24: Gunner1 says
Clearly not a lot of South Africans commenting on this list, otherwise we'd have heard about Val Kilmer's utterly atrocious Cape Town accent in 'The Saint' - not to mention every single bloke who was supposed to be a South African in Lethal Weapon 2!! (and what's worse is that I believe Joss Ackland was born in SA, and yet his version of an SA accent was awful!!)
On the other hand, what I've heard of Leo DiCaprio and Tim Robbins' accents in the trailers (haven't seen the films yet) of 'Blood Diamond' and 'Catch a Fire' were much closer to spot on!!
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