Timeline for Why does Hollywood not use foreigners in foreigners' roles?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
14 events
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| Aug 28, 2022 at 21:43 | comment | added | gidds | As an interesting counterpoint to GOT: although The Lord Of The Rings is ostensibly set in Europe from ages past, it's effectively a world of its own — yet the movies not only used UK accents, but ones from a variety of regions and classes, all carefully chosen to match the characters. And all were performed well; many were impeccable, even from Americans or Australians. If only more movies cared that much about accent! | |
| Jul 13, 2020 at 13:44 | comment | added | Darrel Hoffman | @Juhasz A parallel I would've drawn would be to the Black Panther movie. Everybody in Wakanda has genuine African accents in the movie (they are mostly native African actors), but they're all from different parts of Africa. In this case it was a deliberate choice as they wanted to represent the whole continent even though it takes place in one small fictional country. I imagine it might be slightly jarring to African audiences to hear so many wildly different accents spoken in one location. | |
| Jul 12, 2020 at 19:16 | comment | added | Darth Locke | ll to the GOT accent point, while it might of been nicer to be a better parallel in being an equivalent to historically or realistically accurate, I think that personality and how lines are delivered actually matter more to this medium. What good is it if everyone sounds accurate, but no one acts well or every characters lines from all the northerners are NOT very distinguishable from any other? How does that necessarily help the characterization, themes, or pure enjoyment of the story? | |
| Jul 12, 2020 at 16:20 | comment | added | Juhasz | @DarrelHoffman another (worse) example of what Tetsujin is talking about (the inconsistent accent of an imaginary people) is found in the recent Wonder Woman movie. Someone decided that the Themyscirans should all try to speak with an Israeli accent (like Gal Gadot), but the non-Israelis actors do a terrible job. No two actors have the same accent, and worse, the (non-Israeli) actors can't maintain a consistent accent, flailing around in a Russian-Arabic-British muddle. youtube.com/watch?v=vGK7hJGjJQI | |
| Jul 10, 2020 at 15:38 | comment | added | Tetsujin | @DarrelHoffman - yeah, sure. We know. That doesn't make it any less irritating that they didn't in fact pay sufficient attention to the accents for people who actually know what they are. Normally, people from a single area speak with the same accent… they didn't even get a single family to speak with the same accent. They did studiously avoid having anyone with a Scots accent to avoid "the wall" being any more linked to Hadrian's & tended to use Scandi accents for North of it. That shows there was some thought went into it… just not enough. | |
| Jul 10, 2020 at 15:34 | comment | added | Darrel Hoffman | Game of Thrones does not take place in Britain, or even on Earth. It may be inspired by British lore, but it isn't Britain. The people of the fictional fantasy realm of Westeros can sound like whatever the show-runners decide they want them to sound like. Thus there is no such thing as a "wrong" accent for that show. | |
| Jul 10, 2020 at 15:16 | comment | added | Matt Burland | On Hugh Laurie, I was completely put off of House because it sounded to me like the accent he used to do in A Bit of Fry and Laurie when they were making fun of Americans. | |
| Jul 10, 2020 at 12:52 | comment | added | Tetsujin | I'll give her a "Game of Thrones" of 7. She is actually a Brit, but not a northerner. I always thought she generally got it pointing in the right direction, but it wasn't perfect by a long way. I often thought it was over-cooked on purpose. Her screen brother, Simon, though… ye gods, that was van Dyke territory :\ [Otherwise her brothers were mostly played by brits] | |
| Jul 10, 2020 at 12:42 | comment | added | Laconic Droid | For a really bad "Brit doing a British accent" I refer you to Daphne Moon's "Manchester" accent in Frasier. Sounds like she didn't even bother trying. | |
| Jul 10, 2020 at 10:44 | comment | added | Tetsujin | @OlivierGrégoire - "American". Gregory House is American, Hugh Laurie is British. | |
| Jul 10, 2020 at 9:40 | history | edited | Napoleon Wilson | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 4 characters in body
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| Jul 10, 2020 at 9:25 | comment | added | Olivier Grégoire | What accent did Laurie nail by the end of House season 8? Brit accent? Isn't he Brit? | |
| Jul 10, 2020 at 9:23 | comment | added | Paul D. Waite | I thought Renée Zellweger did a good accent job for Bridget Jones. | |
| Jul 10, 2020 at 8:38 | history | answered | Tetsujin | CC BY-SA 4.0 |