Erik Singer is an accent expert and professional dialect coach who helps actors pin down tricky phonemes and intonations. For Wired.com, he recently commented upon 32 notable modern performances where actors took “some serious risks for our entertainment” with accents or impersonations. Keep reading for some insight into the best and the worst!
Singer agrees that this is justifiably “the paradigm of bad movie accents.” Costner can’t decide whether to keep or omit his R’s, and overall gets “nothing right.”
Don Cheadle, Cockney, “Ocean’s Eleven”
Cheadle isn’t the type of actor you’d expect a bad performance from, and Singer sympathises that he was likely not given adequate time to prepare an accurate Cockney accent. He notes a particularly off-kilter sequence: Cheadle says, “It’ll be nice working with proper villains again,” where “none of those vowels really hit their target.”
Cage’s Southern accent in Michael Bay’s “Con Air” “doesn’t really hit any of the marks,” especially in how he glosses over the ɪə vowel-breaking in words like “creep” and “freak.”
READ: “6 Steps Toward Learning a New Accent”
John Malkovich, Russian, “Rounders”
Singer dings Malkovich for being “over-enthusiastic” with his Russian accent by “palatalizing everything,” which no native Russian speaker speaking English would do.
Will Smith, Nigerian, “Concussion”
Although Smith plays a real person (Bennet Omalu) who himself has a “somewhat Americanized Nigerian accent,” Smith instead opts for a “generalized Nigerian or African accent.” Even with that accent, Singer notes, Smith is inconsistent in noticeable ways: he fails to dentalize the “th” sound in words like “this” and “they.”
Others: Brad Pitt, Southern: Tennessee, “Inglorious Basterds”; Michael Keaton, Boston, “Spotlight”; Tom Cruise, Belfast, “Far and Away”
THE “PRETTY GOOD”
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, French (Philippe Petit), “The Walk”
While praising that some parts of Gordon-Levitt’s accent are “dead-on,” Singer finds a peculiar nitpick. Since the French language does not have dental fricatives (“this”), typically they are difficult for non-native English speakers to enunciate, but Gordon-Levitt’s character shows no hesitance with the sound.
Leonardo DiCaprio, Sierra Leonean Creole: Krio, “Blood Diamond”
DiCaprio does a “creditable job” with a very specific accent, but the work is “marred by some West Indian intonation.”
In this case, Singer highlights the importance of fusing accent to character, even if the sounds are all accurate. In contrast to Malkovich’s fast-and-loose Russian accent, Singer critiques Mortensen’s for feeling stiff, careful, and not integrated into the character.
READ: “3 Accent Mistakes and How to Avoid Them”
THE GREAT
Renée Zellweger, British, “Bridget Jones’ Diary”
Singer highlights the attention paid to music and oral posture in Zellweger’s performance. In particular, he notes how she nails the often-difficult lateral plosion in words like “gentlemen.”
Gyllenhaal nails the technical specifics of his Wyoming accent, pulling the vowel sounds of “one” and “once” to the back of his mouth. Ledger builds on this by mirroring his character’s tightness and repression in his oral posture.
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Truman Capote, “Capote”
The late Hoffman receives Singer’s most unreserved, ebullient praise for his Oscar-winning turn as the acclaimed novelist and screenwriter. Calling the performance “amazing in every way” and the accent “dead-on perfect,” Singer also lauds Hoffman for making the accent fully integrated and integral to the character.
Others: Matt Damon, Afrikaans, “Invictus”; Idris Elba, Baltimore, “The Wire”; Daniel Day-Lewis, Vintage New York, “Gangs of New York”
As an actor himself, Singer concludes with a sympathetic note that there are many factors that can make or break an effective accent or impersonation.
“Big asterisk!” Singer explains, “When an accent doesn’t go right, it’s usually not the actor’s fault. It’s usually a combination of actor, coach, and production, and it’s usually about not having enough time to prepare before shooting starts.” For the full breakdown of all these accents, watch the video below!