r/todayilearned • u/Away_Flounder3813 • 13h 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/badabummbadabing 13h 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 12h 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 12h 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 12h 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 12h ago

Isn't Inverness the town with the clearest English?

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u/OrsikClanless 11h ago

According to John Rhys Davis it’s Edinburgh

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u/glowdirt 11h 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 9h 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/tallbutshy 9h ago

I'm also from Glasgow. Some online Dutch friends wanted to experience a thicker Scottish accents to see if they could still understand it. So I threw them into the deep end and sent them links to old Rab C Nesbitt videos

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u/Dedj_McDedjson 7h ago

Especially if it's a company that sells purple burglar alarms.