Accents - can you fake them?

He does a good job sounding American. Typically actors like this work with a dialect coach, which is a whole different thing than people like us trying to fake an accent.

Tom

 

i had no idea he wasn't an American until about a year after I started watching House.

 

Incidentally, an Australian accent is pretty easy to fake. All you need is a closed head injury or a twelve pack of beer.



Tom

 

Accents can definitely be learned and adapted by good actors. Hugh Laurie does a great job on House portraying an American accent - so good that, to my ears, it doesn't have any of the trademarks that specify a particular location in America. It's not Boston, New York, Southern, Minnesota, or anything. It's just standard American.

Take another great example - Richard Dean Anderson, AKA MacGyver. He was born and raised in Minnesota, and as MacGyver he had a pretty good Minnesota accent... In his future roles, he pretty much dropped the accent (although there are a few spots you can still pick up on it). Just compare an episode on MacGyver in the 80's with one from Star Gate 5 years ago. Completely different accent.

 

I often find myself adopting a local accent without really being aware of it. With some conscious effort, and a coach, I could probably sound almost convincing in say, Scottish or Cockney, and maybe Australian. Cantonese or Jamaican would take more work. I don't see dreads in my future.

 

I caught Emma Thompson in an interview where she 'flipped' over into an American accent. The audience's jaw dropped, it was so surprisingly good.

 

Jamie Bamber (Apollo) on Battlestar Galactica does a very good American accent. I never knew about his natural British accent until I saw some interviews or clips of extras with him. Whenever I see him interviewed, it still throws me off to hear his Britspeak.

Leo Laporte of the TWiT podcast sometimes switches to various accents for fun, like German or Russian.

 

I think some of the actors in Band of Brothers did a great job with American accents. Watching the "Behind the Scenes" DVD was really an eye opener.

Many many years ago (early 80's), we ran into a group of high school students from England (Part of an English High School Jazz band) while touring in Italy. Some wanted to practice their "American" accent on us to get our opinions. The girls often started off as Southern Belle's and moved onto New York and later Boston and then Canadian accents.....all in the same paragraph. (Southern belle was popular due to the TV show Dallas).

It brought home the point of how our "british" accents must sound to them (basing them off of Monty Python, the Goodies, and other British television typically seen on PBS as well as James Bond).

 

A lot of actors mimicking the American accent will try to focus on some sort of "tell"....for example, many british/Australian actors have a pretty easy time doing a convincing "southern accent", the "tell" is the drawl....there are a lot of non-americans on True Blood, a lot of the actors on the show Flash Forward were British... Hugh Laurie seems to have adopted a sort of subtle lisp, which helps cover some of the harder to do american english sounds, but it's damn good.

 

I never watched House, but I've seen clips. He does a spot-on American accent. I've also seen him in Blackadder, and he does a spot-on English accent, too.

Some British friends of mine tell me that the guys in Spinal Tap for the most part do a very convincing English accent.

 

I'm thinking it must be VERY DIFFICULT to be a spy as a Yank can usually spot a Brit and vice versa....US/UK have each other figured out better than the rest of the world, but not quite.

Same with Northerners/Southerns during the Civil War.


Remember Magnum P.I. from the 80's? The landlord was from Denton, Texas - 15 miles north of me, but I don't speak with the Queen's English like him, but the (previous) President's English.

 

I was raised in NC, but I can't do a Southern accent to save my life. Though having grown up in the Appalachians, I can say there is a wide variety of Southern (be it mountain accents, "classical Georgian" and Eastern NC...which can get to almost old English). The easiest accent for me to memic is a Canadian accent. Normally, I have a vanilla "midlands" American accent.

As for an impressive accent, the latest I've seen is from the movie Kick-nice person. The main actor, Aaron Johnson, is 20 and grew up in the UK. When he was being cast for the role, no one knew that he grew up in England.

 

I tend to pick up accents very quickly - but, during an extended stay in Alabama, I discovered that my "southern drawl" turned itself OFF, decidedly, after 3 weeks. Couldn't even begin to fake it after that point. I think my brain rebelled.

I can dredge up a Minnesota accent, when prodded. I have to work at it, though. When I first moved to Minnesota, I was told I had a California accent. I could never tell the difference until I moved back to the West coast!

 

Your lack of being rude should have been your tell.

 

I was only kidding. From my experience, I agree with you 100%.

 

For the most part it's a generic American accent, which would make sense given that his character grew up all over the world as a military brat. However there are times when he says things with a distinct NJ accent. And I'm not talking about the stereotypical northern NJ "Sopranos" type of accent. It's more subtle ... and I only notice it because I'm a transplant to NJ myself.

Here's another one. Alyssa Milano was born & raised in Brooklyn. When she started acting, she worked with a dialect coach to lose the Brooklyn accent. Then she got cast in "Who's The Boss" and had to put it back on.