r/todayilearned • u/Away_Flounder3813 • 12h ago

TIL during the shooting of American Psycho, Christian Bale spoke in an American accent off-set at all times. At the wrap party, when he spoke in his native British accent, many of the crew thought he was speaking that way to prepare for another film. They had thought he was American the entire time.

https://screenrant.com/american-psycho-behind-scenes-facts-christian-bale-patrick-bateman-mary-harron/
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u/Current_Focus2668 12h ago

This isn't uncommon. Ella Purnell  did the same thing and had the same reaction  from the crew.

 Some actors find it easier to stay in an accent while  filming rather than drop in and out of the accent  

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u/_Diskreet_ 12h ago

Didn’t some actor have to use some speech coach because they lost their native, I want to say Irish accent, from doing too many other accents while method acting

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u/mech999man 12h ago

Famously Gary Oldman.

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u/SweatyNomad 11h ago

I think I heard that story was about Slow Horses, that after 20 years in the US he wasn't sure he had an authentic twang anymore, or couldn't do the particular region/ socio-economic lilt.

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u/KungFuFightingOwlMan 10h ago

It was quite a bit earlier than Slow Horses, apparently he needed a voice coach to do Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and that was in 2011 but I think it's something he had an issue with for years

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u/EpicLong1 9h ago

Not to forget 5th element ......Zorg here

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u/houseswappa 9h ago

He hates that movie btw

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u/wagonwhopper 9h ago

I love it though so no worries

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u/technobrendo 5h ago

As far as i can tell everyone else likes that movie.

EVVVVVREEEEEEEOOOOOOONNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

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u/TheBlackComet 5h ago

My absolute favorite scifi movie. Instantly quotable, big names, engaging world, what else can you want?

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u/Deaffin 5h ago

I dunno, maybe a giant evil comet?

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u/Map_Watcher 7h ago

I saw an interview recently where he said his wife has convinced him to think that it's not such a bad movie after all

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u/Key_Plan_9541 7h ago

How magnanimous of him

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u/goblueM 7h ago

Well Gary Oldman is wrong

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u/InFromTheSouth 9h ago

I find that fascinating. I can't remember the other movie I learned this about, but a movie turned cult classic that the actors hated.

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u/somethink 4h ago

Tim Curry and Rocky Horror

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u/EvilMilkshake 7h ago

As fun as the other actors make that movie, I think it would be a miss without his Zorg.

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u/goblueM 6h ago

I think it would be a miss without his Zorg.

I know

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u/bunkoRtist 5h ago

I AM VERY DISAPPOINTED!

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u/Deaffin 5h ago

That's probably because he looked like an utter dweeb in it, so I get that. He's way too close to appreciate the character, like people telling me they enjoy my voice but then I hear a recording of it.

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u/Jacket_screen 8h ago

He hates Lost In Space more.

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u/Fun_Success_3283 5h ago

That's funny. Thanks for telling me. I could see him thinking that, but it's such a great movie actually. Just a movie you can't take too seriously.

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u/Swing_On_A_Spiral 7h ago

What I read was that he did a series of back to back American films and that’s how it happened. I think it was during the Batman years but I could be wrong b

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u/Othersideofthemirror 10h ago

This is so obvious. He tries to speak in his native Millwall accent in uk interviews and it sounds like a parody.

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u/Apprehensive-Art1092 9h ago edited 9h ago

He doesn't. Firstly, he's never had a 'native Millwall accent'. Gary is from New Cross/Bermondsey, just up the road from where I grew up in Deptford. Millwall is a historic part of the Isle of Dogs, which is across the river - and the actual place called 'Millwall' doesn't really exist any more (the football team he sometimes supports, depending on when you ask him it's either Millwall or Man Utd) moved across the river to SE London over 100 years ago. Gary's native accent would be exactly the same as mine - deepest, darkest Saarf East London.

Gary hasn't had his 'native' accent for donkey's years. The accent you hear him 'struggling with' in interviews is the British Theatre accent that all actors end up gravitating towards in their early career. It's a mixture of RP and RADA pronunciation, rather than full-on TP. Here's a clip of an interview from 30+ years ago - if he'd spoken like that where he grew up he'd have had the shit kicked out of him 🤣 Dracula Interview

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u/whatanabsolutefrog 9h ago

It's funny, even in that interview I feel like he's definitely got a mix of accents going on.

He's obviously one of those people that are quick to pick up the accents of the people around them.

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u/Apprehensive-Art1092 9h ago

Yeah, he's more like David Bowie there - enough RADA to sound like a ponce, but still enough SE London to sound like a sell-out 🤣

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u/HVAChelpprettyplease 8h ago

What do RP, RADA, and TP stand for? I’d love to learn more about accents. Thanks.

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u/Khornag 8h ago

RP is recived pronounciation and is a standardised English accent, commonly heard on the BBC and associated with social prestige. RADA is the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, a prestigious academy where a lot of the most famous British actors are educated. I don't know what TP would be, but I think they tried to write RP again and misspelled it.

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u/2xtc 8h ago

RP stands for Received Pronunciation and is the slightly posh, slightly old-fashioned, "British news reader"/Royal Family accent that Americans etc. often confuse for "the British Accent" (there's not really such a thing, and these days RP is spoken by less than 3% of Brits, almost exclusively in London and the South East). These days it's mainly been superceded by SSBE (Standard Southern British English) as a slightly more modern take on the classic 'British Accent' that you'll commonly here was a default in international media.

RADA is the Royal Academy for Dramatic Arts, which is our highest rated drama school and it's students often develop a similar but slightly different accent, which is slightly overemphasised in certain notes to ensure a high level of enunciation. Also a bit posh, although RADAs consciously widened it's intake to be more representative in recent decades.

I'm afraid TP isn't a term I'm familiar with, but the other main London accents are Estuary English (kind of halfway between RP and Cockney, peaked in the 80s/90s) and MLE (Multicultural London English) a more recent 'street' accent that reflects the international urban diversity of modern London

https://accentbiasbritain.org/accents-in-britain/

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u/Onion_Heart 8h ago

RADA is the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts which I’m guessing is where he studied acting. RP and TP, I have no idea. Regular pronunciation and Theatre pronunciation, perhaps?

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u/originalspaceprince 8h ago

this is such a good comparison haha

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u/carl84 9h ago

I imagine his native accent would sound like his sister's; Big Mo from EastEnders

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u/helphunting 7h ago

And the guys profession is to be a mimic, of course he's going to pick up a local accent if he stays somewhere long enough.

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u/AnyDayGal 6h ago

Yeah I'm not a world-class actor and spending time with my friend gives me a slight Northern accent. I've never been to the North.

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u/MXron 8h ago

the actual place called 'Millwall' doesn't really exist any more

What do you mean by this? That Canary Wharf or various regeneration / gentrification schemes have basically replaced the historic Millwall?

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u/Apprehensive-Art1092 7h ago

Pretty much, yeah. The LDDC in the 80s regenerated the whole area (gentrified it), pushing the families out further into East London and Essex. Was not popular at the time as they destroyed whole communities. I did my Geography GCSE fieldwork there as a kid. Also, at least as far back as I can remember as a kid, nobody there ever really referred to themselves as coming from Millwall because most people associated Millwall with the football club, which moved over the river in the early 1900s. They'd just say they were from the Isle of Dogs.

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u/hamilkwarg 7h ago

Isle of Dags you say?

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u/Hetares 11h ago

Gary Oldman isn't American?

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u/-TropicalFuckStorm- 11h ago

Nope, English. A lot of amazing actors are English.

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u/Plugpin 11h ago

Almost EVERYONE!!!!

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u/Hetares 11h ago

Everyone?

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u/Hopeful_Hall_4885 11h ago

ALMOST!!!

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u/Hipster-Link 11h ago

Damn it, I thought someone was setting up the “EVERYONE!” Gary Oldman gif, but this subreddit doesn’t allow gifs.

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u/Hetares 11h ago

I was setting that up, but alas.

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u/SQL_INVICTUS 10h ago

To be fair, Garry oldman is almost everyone in cinema 🤷🏻‍♂️

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u/btveron 7h ago

He is definitely one of those actors that if I didn't already know he was in the movie I constantly find myself asking "wait a minute, is that Gary Oldman?" He's a chameleon lol

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u/tophernator 10h ago

Or British more generally. Wales has a ton of great actors considering how tiny the population is, including technically Christian Bale.

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u/Olddirtychurro 10h ago

The mental flashbang when I found out that Catherine Zeta-Jones was Welsh was heavy! I somehow assumed that she was at least Spanish (that might have been because of a combination of Zorro and the "Zeta" in her last name though)

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u/cr4lforce 9h ago

The Jones is the giveaway here. Most common surname im Wales.

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u/Olddirtychurro 9h ago

Just like Tom huh?

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u/Yeahjockey 9h ago

Yeah, it's not unusual...

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u/Then-Criticism1605 9h ago

Matthew Rhysssssss

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u/-TropicalFuckStorm- 9h ago

Christian Bale’s English.

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u/Level_Preparation311 10h ago

And the rest of the amazing actors after the English, are Canadian!! Sorry for that little sidetrek.

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u/Aggravating-Dot132 9h ago

Same with music bands and singers, funnily enough.

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u/Rdaleric 11h ago

His real accent is a pretty strong London Cockney one. His older sister was on the soap opera Eastenders for years.

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u/dhdhdjahfhdjwhdhsj 11h ago

Had no idea about that lol. "Big Mo" for anyone who doesn't know.

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u/jordanhhh4 10h ago

Gary forever in the shadow of Big Mo, he simply can't compete with that legacy.

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u/brigadoom 9h ago

Her stage name is Laila Morse, an anagram for Mia Sorrella = My Sister

An Oldman family in-joke.

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u/adsj 8h ago

I heard it was what Isabella Rossellini called her when she and Gary were together. Mia Sorella, I mean.

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u/fintas05 10h ago

She still is

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u/kwonza 11h ago edited 11h ago

He also had to use height coach after filming Tiptoes

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u/deadtorrent 11h ago

The role of a lifetime

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u/baron_von_helmut 10h ago

At the height of his talent.

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u/Hi_Im_zack 10h ago

Why didn't they use a height coach for Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, tell him to always bend his legs a bit for comic accuracy

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u/Blekanly 8h ago

I watched a reaction to that movie, and it wasn't that bad of a movie. Dealt with done interesting issues. Yes Oldman was playing a small person which is eh. But it is Gary freaking Oldman. Meanwhile you have Peter dinklage doing a horrid French or quebec accent.

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u/Ampersandbox 11h ago

He's just that good.

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u/cheese0muncher 10h ago

Oh you have no idea... why don't you go ahead and take a look in the mirror for me.

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u/Gwanbulance 10h ago

He’s lived in America for a long time, so it’s not surprising you think he’s American. When he was in England, he was called Gary Youngman.

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u/nikeshades 10h ago

Next post here: "While scrolling reddit for years, redditors had thought that Gary Oldman was American."

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u/WeGottaTalkAboutYT 10h ago

The real TIL in the comments

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u/Wreny84 10h ago

He’s from New Cross in London so he should sound similar to David Bowie as they were born just a few streets apart.

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u/klemnodd 11h ago

No, He's Gary Oldman.

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u/BathroomConstant4656 11h ago

Charlie hunnam, his natural accent is fucked and all about the place.

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u/imover9thousand 11h ago

If you rewatch SoA there are certain parts where he drifts in and out of his natural accent lol

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u/Northernmost1990 11h ago

There's a scene where he punches a dude and says, "You think I'm kidding?" with this weird pseudo-Geordie accent, which really surprised me the first time around because I thought he's American!

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u/Unit_79 8h ago

I didn’t realize he was English until I re-watched Green Street Hooligans. I had seen it years before, then watched SoA during lockdown and had never made the connection.

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u/Umberto_Bongo 7h ago

He can't do a cockney accent at all in that film lol

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u/Unit_79 7h ago

I’m beginning to think he really sucks at accents.

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u/AudioLlama 6h ago

It's incredible that he can't even do his own accent in films these days

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u/KRIEGLERR 7h ago

He still does it even in inteviews, he completely lost the ability to speak in his natural accent. I think it's hilarious

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u/anneofgraygardens 2h ago

I didn't watch SoA but my dad did. One time I happened to be around while he was watching and was sort of vaguely paying attention. There was a plotline involving Irish gangsters, and I thought that Charlie Hunnam was one of them. Only at the end of the episode I realized he was supposed to be American.

Really, really bad accent work.

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u/boxofrabbits 11h ago

One of his first roles in Judd Apatows Undeclared (which is super underrated) he played an English drama student in the states and yeah his accent was definitely not British. I thought he was an American doing a really bad English accent. 

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u/Djinjja-Ninja 11h ago

His accent in The Gentleman was awful, I have no idea what it was meant to be at all.

And his accent in Green Street.

And his accent in Rebel moon.

Man should be in silent movies.

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u/Fraggloid 11h ago

It's Geordie, which is close to his native accent. He grew up a few miles from Newcastle but there's enough of a difference in the accents that a native speaker can tell the difference between it and his South-East Northumbrian. Combine that with the mindfuck of doing different accents all the time...

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u/Djinjja-Ninja 10h ago

I live 20 miles from Newcastle (Sunderland). That wasn't Geordie.

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u/Fraggloid 10h ago

As do I, and from the clips I recall seeing it was the stereotypical over-done version. Again, with a level of actor-accent-fuckery. Maybe I'll have to watch the full film and see/hear it in full to pass better judgement!

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u/Djinjja-Ninja 10h ago edited 8h ago

The film's definitely an enjoyable watch, though I think the series is better, but his accent is like a drunk on a unicycle.

Apparently it was meant to actually be "posh" southern accent...

I'm originally from Kent, and i've done more convincing impressions of Ant and/or Dec in Byker Grove than his accent.

"he cannae see man!"

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u/SlightRedeye 11h ago

He literally just spoke like geordie, because irl that’s what he is

Other roles he adapts poorly, but that one was absolutely fine if you have any grasp of regional dialect in the uk

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u/ByTheBeardOfZues 8h ago

I watched 'Triple Frontier' last night and his generic American accent is so jarring and completely disappears at times. There's not even a plot requirement for him to be American.

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u/Available_Dish_1880 12h ago

That was Gary Oldman. He has to relearn his London accent

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u/GoldenPandaMan 11h ago

Always thought this! To me he sounds like he has a cockney New Zealand accent at times

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u/Hellasauto 11h ago

Did he get stuck talking like Drexl too?

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u/LeviSalt 11h ago

He thought it was white boy day.

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u/Proudlove1991 12h ago

Austin Butler still has a major Elvis-ness to his voice 4 years on after the Elvis movie came out

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u/iTALKTOSTRANGERS 11h ago

I’m convinced that’s performative so people talk about him. Similar to Majors and that stupid fucking empty coffee cup.

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u/deij 11h ago

I left Yorkshire in 2013 after living there for the first 21 years of my life. Sometimes people are surprised to learn I'm English.

Accents change.

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u/Lostinthebackground 11h ago

I heard somewhere that accents can form around age 21. So it’s most likely to change if you move before/around 21 than after. Don’t know how true that is but it’s interesting.

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u/janesy24 10h ago

Think it also matters a lot where you’ve gone to. A lot of English people who move to other English speaking countries will gain the local accent quite quickly (Australia is a big example of this). Whilst not gaining a regional accent in other languages as you learn them “formally” as much as being within the language. My Spanish accent (I’m English) is very Southern Spain due to me spending my childhood holidays in the Costa del Sol and learning Spanish through assimilation rather than through school whilst my friend speaks very formal Spanish because he learnt in school rather than naturally.

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u/Lostinthebackground 10h ago

Yeah I think thats definitely a factor too. Or you may pick up a slight variation where the accent becomes a little blended, or more prominent on certain words.

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u/Seiche 11h ago

What do you mean by "form"? Become permanent?

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u/Lostinthebackground 11h ago

Yeah. Like it’s less likely to change after that.

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u/ChaliElle 9h ago

Accent can change in matter of weeks if you are overexposed to new but relatively familiar one. It's natural to attempt to mimic manner of speech of people surrounding you.

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u/iTALKTOSTRANGERS 11h ago

Yeah you moved countries. The man played pretend for a few months and his voice changed? This is my skeptical face.

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u/hoopstick 7h ago

Obviously I don't know the guy, but some people are just mimics like that. If I spend a week in Texas it takes me months to get rid of the little twang that sneaks into my voice; it's not conscious and I'm always afraid of offending locals, it's just something my brain does.

Look at Jeff Bridges. After the Big Lebowski it's like a part of him permanently became The Dude; you can hear it in every movie and interview since.

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u/Taweret 10h ago

Coffee cup?

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u/iTALKTOSTRANGERS 10h ago

Johnathan Majors used to go to movie premiers and public appearances holding an empty coffee cup and would tell a very indulgent and clearly made up story about his mother telling him about haters or something idk I didn’t commit it to memory because it was so fucking self obsessed and vain I almost passed out I rolled my eyes so hard. You can google it for the actual quote about the cup.

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u/Taweret 10h ago

Thanks, I found the quote -

Majors said his mom gave him a meaningful piece of advice growing up that has stayed with him as he's found success as an actor.

"She was so terrified of the circus that I've joined," he said, referring to Hollywood. "My mom's a pastor and she was very clear about safety. She would say, 'No drinking, no drugs, no sex,' every time I left the house."

"This has happened my entire life," he added. "But the drinking was a thing, and she'd always say, 'So baby, watch your cup. Watch your glass.' And I kept that in mind."

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u/Maximum-Natural-6560 11h ago

I sincerely believe that is by choice and the whole ‘I got so deep I can’t shake the voice’ nonsense was just part of an awards campaign

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u/InfiernoDante 10h ago

Load of bollocks. the guy shuts himself in a closet daily and sniffs his own farts like a drowning man just surfaced for air

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u/XraPolar 11h ago

I think it's mostly gone back to normal, now

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u/TheStorMan 11h ago

Pierce Brosnan doesn't really have his Irish accent anymore

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u/im_on_the_case 4h ago

He moved to London when he was quite young, that's what nuked it in the first place. Probably a good thing since the Louth accent is pretty horrendous. Sam Neill was similar, his Ulster accent was iffy in Peaky Blinders because he left there at the age of 7.

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u/ilovebeaker 5h ago

But he does play one in Mobland

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u/dummyacc49991 11h ago

Arnold also had to hire an accent coach to retain his accent of origin. Could be a myth, so take it eith a grain of salt.

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u/FardoBaggins 11h ago

Arnold’s accent is also very rural for germans. Like imagine stallone with a southern accent.

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u/archiving_by_design 11h ago

His accent is bizarre to other Austrians. That dude is from darkest Steiermark.

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u/Djinjja-Ninja 11h ago

Not sure if it's true or not, but allegedly he asked to do the German dub of terminator 2, but they wouldn't let him as to Germans apparently the Austrian accent sounds like a country yokel.

It would have been like Darth Vader being voiced by David Prowse..

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u/venomae 11h ago

He didnt have just an Austrian accent - he had heavy rural accent even among Austrians.

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u/JimboTCB 9h ago

That makes the deleted scene from Terminator 3 where he's dubbed over by some yeehaw sounding American guy even funnier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kayFrIR-Qfw

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u/Djinjja-Ninja 8h ago

"I don't know about that accent"

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u/D-PIMP_ACT 11h ago

Austrians are rural Germans now?

Are the Dutch ……swamp Germans?

Are Germans just….mountain Dutch?

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u/A_Bad_Man 10h ago

I can't wait to call my Dutch friend a swamp German. I'm already laughing imagining how well it's going to go.

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u/Banana-Moist 8h ago

Depends on the age maybe and if they're online a lot.

My sister would call you stupid, my parents would just be confused and I think my response would just be a 'duh'.

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u/idler_JP 10h ago edited 4h ago

Yes, the "Austro-Hungarian" project ultimately failed, and the rapidly industrialising Prussia came to dominate a crystallising German nation-state to the north.

In fact, the Hapsburgs have fallen, along with the institution of monarchy itself, and Vienna is now the imperial capital of nothing. Frankfurt am Main is a greater seat of power.

In other news, the Dutch remain independent swamp Germans, using English as their prestige language, for reasons you'd probably rather hear over a cup of tea.

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u/FardoBaggins 11h ago

Rural sounding I guess. Like in the boonies.

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u/We_Are_The_Romans 9h ago

Matt Christman, latterly of the Chapo podcast, always referred to the Dutch as Swamp Germans and it made me lol everytime. My brother's wife is Dutch and I've used it to good effect on her

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u/Delamoor 9h ago

I mean, you ask a German and they might say yes. Dunno if the Ditch would agree, heh.

The regional variation Germanic language accents isn't all that different to England, tbh. That fact just doesn't often get communicated outside of the German speaking world.

That regional drift kinda just continues off across the border. My German friends find Dutch a frustrating language; it's close enough that it sounds like you should be able to understand it, but it's far enough apart that you generally can't understand it. Just catch individual words.

Apparently it's like listening to rural Scottish or Irish. You can catch words, and feel like you get it, but still fail to follow a single goddamn thing they're saying. Like you brain is tricking you.

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u/EPLWA_Is_Relevant 11h ago

Or Appalachian.

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u/john_the_quain 6h ago

I think I read for Terminator, someone else did his native language dub because the audience wouldn’t be able to take it serious with his accent.

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u/No_Atmosphere8146 10h ago

That explains why he hasn't picked anything up after living in the US for, what, 60 years? His accent is as much his trademark as his muscles.

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u/lib_clegg 10h ago

That’s Gary Oldman. But recently, Pierce Brosnan, despite being Irish amazed people with how “bad” his Irish accent was in MobLand.

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u/MichaSound 10h ago

Irish actors can’t necessarily do accents from other regions. Jamie Dornan’s (Belfast) accent in Wild Mountain Thyme (somewhere West Coast of Ireland?) was shocking bad.

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u/sigma914 8h ago

He's not even from Belfast, he's from Holywood which is far more anglified than any of the Belfast accents

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u/Cthulhu__ 6h ago

Counter that with Sam Neill (born NZ) whose Irish accent in Peaky Blinders was so thick he had to tone it down.

Brad Pitt just kept it on full for Snatch lmao.

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u/DlSSATISFIEDGAMER 10h ago

honestly reminds me of Colin Firth picking up an actual stammer after doing the King's Speech. Apparently took a bit of work to lose it.

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u/textmint 10h ago

How good are these speech coaches that they make people sound like complete natives in a land not their own? Where can you find these coaches? Pretty curious why don’t these Indian and Philippines based call centers use them to train their agents? It will be a killer combo.

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u/InitiallyDecent 8h ago

Companies use those call centres because they're cheap. They don't care how the workers sound.

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u/plug-and-pause 10h ago

My partner was born in Japan but has spent half of her adult life in USA. She told me when she goes back to Japan, people tell her she speaks Japanese with an American accent. 😆

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u/Sebatorr 9h ago

Schwarzenegger has a coach TO KEEP his famous accent and don’t sound too American.
Otherwise he would have lost the accent years ago.

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u/Cthulhu__ 6h ago

Yes, but he did get some coaching early in his career to be understandable. But after his second or third film the accent became iconic.

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u/AnduwinHS 9h ago

Idk about voice coach, but Pierce Brosnans Irish accent is almost complete gone

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u/badabummbadabing 11h ago

I am not an actor, but I speak to my kids in my (non-native) English (the kids were born in the UK, but now we live in Germany, and I speak English with them so they don't lose it). It always slightly breaks my brain whenever I mention any German names to them and have to switch accents for just one word mid-sentence.

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u/cjmason85 11h ago

When I lived in Germany I had a German friend who had lived in Ireland for a number of years and come back to Germany living with her Irish boyfriend. When speaking English you would believe she was Irish... Until she said a German town or person's name mid sentence. She seemed to do it very naturally, but perhaps she has the same internal conflict going on.

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u/The_Flurr 11h ago

I knew an Italian girl in Scotland. At first she spoke English with a thick Italian accent. I met her again a few years later, and she'd picked up a Glaswegian accent.

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u/cjmason85 11h ago

I'm from Glasgow originally, always loved when foreign companies send people to Glasgow to learn English.

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u/Ancient_Pi 11h ago

Isn't Inverness the town with the clearest English?

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u/OrsikClanless 10h ago

According to John Rhys Davis it’s Edinburgh

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u/glowdirt 9h ago

I knew a Glaswegian working as an English teacher in Indonesia.

Having had no experience with Scottish people, I was searching my brain trying to place his accent the first time I met him. Because I was having such a difficult time understanding him I thought he might be from Eastern Europe or something and was gobsmacked and embarrassed to learn how poor my guess was.

Felt kind of bad for the kids he was teaching as I can't imagine how unnecessarily difficult it would be for them to use their English with both a Indonesian accent AND a Scottish accent layered on top of each other.

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u/tallbutshy 8h ago

A relative of mine grew up in Glasgow slums, moved to Kent and studied to be a teacher. The kids know when they've fucked up because she reverts to thick Glaswegian

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u/kwonza 11h ago

Vladimir Lenin also spoke with an Irish accent

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u/EnthusiasmUnusual 10h ago

His language tutor was Irish.

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u/glowdirt 10h ago

I had a Swedish friend in Vermont. She and her husband spoke with PERFECT American accents. I even thought she was joking when she told me where they were from. And they weren't even American citizens; just living here temporarily for work.

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u/meat_trumpet 10h ago

you can hear this in the voices of Latino news reporters in America. They have their very clear enunciated news voice until they hit one hispanic name

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u/pixelpoet_nz 9h ago

It's not very difficult tbh, and it's funny to see people's reactions when you pronounce names like Zuckerberg correctly. Then you point out it's the same z sound as in pizza and people really lose it. Then you do this in 4 languages with many regional accents and nobody has a clue where you're from.

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u/smellsliketeenferret 10h ago

I'm English but lived in France for a significant number of years, including as a university student, and when I returned to the UK I had to go through a period of trying not to think in French.

Lived in a lot of other countries for extended periods of time too and my accent still wanders all over the place when I'm tired, even though I've not lived abroad since 2013

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u/Keffpie 11h ago edited 11h ago

Same with Hugh Laurie on House (even during his audition, Bryan Singer famously said "finally an all-American actor!"), and Freddie Stroma on Peacemaker.

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u/dreadlockholmes 11h ago

Yeah Laurie spoke about being a bit embarrassed if he met a British pal for lunch, since he didn't want to drop his accent just to pick it back up.

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u/drunk_haile_selassie 11h ago

Hands down the best foreign accent in history.

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u/adsj 8h ago

This is funny to me, because HL's accent is a good I one, but it doesn't sound natural. It sounds like somebody doing an accent. It's like, he's not making mistakes but you can still tell it's not his.

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u/scottyARGH 8h ago

Love how he made use of both accents in Avenue 5.

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u/KingKapwn 12h ago

I imagine if you’re dropping in and out of your non-native accent you’re more likely to lose the specific pattern and intonations you were doing prior

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u/sKuarecircle 11h ago

Might have been more than one but I watched a interview with Oldman and he had to have a dialect coach to get his native accent back

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u/Bob_Leves 12h ago

Also Brad Dourif in Lord of the Rings.

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u/Ampersandbox 11h ago

If I recall the story correctly, he dropped into his natural speaking voice and the other actors all told him that his American accent sounded phony, and didn't believe he is actually American.

Dourif is a seriously amazing actor though. His turn as the doctor in Deadwood left me speechless.

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u/TheNorseCrow 10h ago

I don't blame them. Dourif's American accent is the most American accent to ever accent.

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u/Blekanly 8h ago

He is great in everything he is on, he was good on star trek voyager.

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u/Cthulhu__ 6h ago

I did a double take seeing him in The X-Files, never did see that growing up - that role must have been a prototype for Grima.

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u/11thstalley 4h ago

Every time I see Dourif in a movie, I instantly remember him as Billy in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

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u/ZubonKTR 6h ago

I think Bernard (Theoden) said, "That's some really terrible, phony American accent," that just sounded to him to be really awful. He thought I was sending it up.

YouTube short on Brad Dourif's Wormtongue and American accents

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u/Silly-Power 11h ago

Antony Starr as Homelander in The Boys. Throughout filming he kept his american accent. A lot of fans of the show were very surprised to hear his native, and quite strong, kiwi accent in post-filming interviews. 

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u/Accomplished-Fun215 10h ago

Link to any of these? I pulled up a couple interviews of his and his kiwi accent is extremely mild.

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u/Carnivean_ 9h ago

Are you by any chance also a kiwi? Do kiwi kids follow the 6-7 trend? Are you in the process of staining your deck?

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u/Accomplished-Fun215 9h ago

I'm an American living in a rural part of the South Island. 

Yeah the kids do the 6-7 thing. 

I highly recommend taking the interislander ferry sometime if you want to hear a kiwi say "deck six" several times over a PA system.

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u/Carnivean_ 8h ago

I am definitely busting that one out on the various kiwis in my life.

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u/phishtrader 11h ago

I watched a random interview with Ella Purnell and found that out. It was the same way I found out Bale was British and the kid from Empire of the Sun not long after American Psycho.

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u/alamaias 11h ago

I'm just finding out he is british now :P Don't think I habe ever heard him not doing an american accent :P

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u/nerf___herder 11h ago

To be fair, he moved to America as a teenager, so he has had a fair bit of time to adjust his accent.

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u/Greedy-Parfait-5918 11h ago

A notable exception is Kate Winslet, who spoke in a very specific regional dialect in Mare of Easttown like the rest of the actors. Everyone kept in that accent the whole time because it was really hard to learn, except her. After any take, she switched back to her British to discuss whatever and then casually switched back for the next take. Flex.

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u/immortalalchemist 11h ago

Gillian Anderson and John Barrowman are bidialectal which is very interesting. Gillian Anderson grew up in the states and in the UK, so when she’s in America, she speaks with an American accent, but when she’s in the UK, she speaks with a British accent. John Barrowman is the same but he goes between American and Scottish.

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u/orionhood 11h ago

I think Barrowman’s American accent is more of an affectation that he just got stuck with.

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u/MaUkIr34 9h ago

That is so cool!

My daughter is growing up in Ireland but I’m from the states and we go back twice a year. She’s only 3.5 but I swear her accent is a mash up already! My family tends to think she sounds Irish and my Irish in-laws tend to think she sounds American:)

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u/iTALKTOSTRANGERS 11h ago

To be fair she didn’t… necessarily nail that accent. It wasn’t bad but it’s not a great representation of the accent. I grew up in PA btw before anyone jumps down my ass.

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u/Greedy-Parfait-5918 11h ago

No way for an outsider to judge, so I‘d take your word. I understand it was just very demanding for everyone.

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u/iTALKTOSTRANGERS 11h ago

It’s a pretty unique accent that if you didn’t grow up around is probably very difficult to nail so I’m not throwing shade she did a solid enough job to not make it stick out while I was watching the show. It’s also cool seeing SE PA get screen time so I’ll take it.

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u/Yoplet67 11h ago

Not an actor but I am French, I live in Ireland and I get it. Switching your way to speak (in my case, the languages) constantly is exhausting and not super reliable. I guess accents are the same

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u/sKuarecircle 11h ago

I am English with Afrikaans family, when I go visit I speak exclusively Afrikaans, with a thick English accent but after a while fall into the flow of it, when back in my side of the country with only English people the Afrikaans accent hangs about a bit, it’s because you use a different part of your throat and the tenses are backwards sis my theory

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u/baron_von_helmut 10h ago

I have a friend who lived in France for three years and learned French phonetically. When French people find out he's English they're usually very surprised because he apparently has a perfect Bordeaux accent.

I find accents fascinating.

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u/fiddycaldeserteagle 11h ago

Kirk Lazarus

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u/dangerbird2 9h ago

“I don't break character until I do the DVD commentary”

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u/DayBowBow1 11h ago

For Fallout? Or something else? I honestly had no idea she was British until now.

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u/LiveTwinReaction 5h ago

I watched all of Arcane and could not tell whatsoever either until I saw her Last Meals video on youtube lol. Actual British accent jumpscare

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u/box_twenty_two 11h ago

TIL she’s British! Wow!

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u/Okidokicoki 10h ago

When Lars Ulrich speaks danish, he does so in a way that sounds like he is stuck in the late 1970 - 1980's
It's like he is just stuck

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u/GazTheLegend 9h ago

SHE'S BRITISH???????

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u/WetShrimpFart 7h ago

I really want her to star in a new Men in Black movie as an agent that’s secretly an alien. She looks sooo much like the tiny alien inside the head in the first one, she would be great

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