Why do native English speaking actors emulate thick foreign accents ?
By shogunly
@shogunly (1397)
Libya
3 responses
@cassidy22 (2974)
• United States
23 Feb 07
Using accents is part of getting into character, and it's part of this thing called ACTING.
Some actors are very good at training for and using a variety of accents. Some are horrible at it. I only think the bad ones detract from the movie.
2 people like this
@shogunly (1397)
• Libya
24 Feb 07
Yes I understand the point when the original character speaks English in the part ,what I meant is when they are representing characters talking in their own language . Why the accent ? Why not speak normal English ? I understand it's for effect , but it is useless sometimes because one can appreciate that the character would not necessarily speak "with an accent" just because it's a foreign character .
.I was watching Harrison Ford in a movie about a Russian submarine . All the scenes where he talked to his men ,he talked in English with a heavy accent . When they meet the Americans at the end of the movie ,he doesn't speak at all ,because the character couldn't speak English ! So broken English was used to transmit the idea that they are talking in Russian , while they might as well have let them talk in their usual way ,since both ways are unrealistic !
2 people like this
@hijas007 (1386)
• India
25 Feb 07
i am from india and i have seen many indian films.i dont seem anyone here portraying any hollywood actors or actress.i agree there is some accent like english people but it is common among people here.so i dont feel any discomfort with them!
@BarBaraPrz (51811)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
13 Mar 07
I remember reading a review of a movie, where the reviewer decried the actor's "unconvincing" Polish accent... and I thought, Oh, really? I guess my father had a "unconvincing" accent, too, because the actor (Jeremy Irons) was spot on to how my father spoke in English. My dad spoke with a British accent because he learned English from the Brits, same as the character in the movie. The reviewer obviously wasn't aware of the fact that Poles speak in a soft accent, so pick up the accent of whoever teaches them whatever language. This was a Polish-British co-production, and the action took place in London. Only Jeremy Irons' character knew English, so when the other Polish characters spoke, they spoke Polish, and Jeremy Irons character did a darn good job of answering them in Polish.
