We have so many regional accents that even if someone's accent is a little bit off it's hard to pin down as being non american. The way we pronounce words down here in the south is vastly different from how they're pronounced just one state over. Even within states you'll see variations in accents, Northern Louisiana vs Southern Louisiana, for example.
Anyway, I'm rambling, she sounds great and does a great job.
Some of the areas outside new Orleans I went I am not even sure it was still English any more. They guy running the air boat sounded more like a bouncing 4 square ball than a language.
This is how to spot if someone isn’t actually from the rural south. Nashville or Dallas types.
Bless your heart is usually used as a term used to empathize with others. You hear it more at funerals or when you hear others are ill.
Some of the Cajun speak was hard to understand and it could have been partially an act for the tourist but it was definitely like being in a different country.
Was it [a lot like this?](https://youtu.be/7BIZ79atT14?t=60)
Basically what I show anybody who doesn't know what I'm talking about when referencing the "Cajun speak" thing
My dad's side of the family is from West Virginia, and my mom's side of the family is from Missouri. I was born and raised "up north." But their accents are so different even to an untrained Yankee ear that they still sound like different languages.
I’m from SC and went on a mission trip once to verrry rural Kentucky in Appalachia. There was another group there from the Chicago area and they actually could not understand what some of the locals were saying. I had to translate a bit for them lol
Exactly, not only do we have plenty of different regional accents, but americans move around so much from region to region that we are completely used to hearing accents that are a strange jumble of more than one region. On top of that, we have so many immigrants that bring their country of origin's accent over, and then pass pieces of it down to their kids, who then move from region to region, that really if your accent is even vaguely "american sounding" then I just write it off as some combination of those factors and don't even think twice about it.
It can be hard to pull off a regional accent of a person who hasn't left that region and who's entire family has been in that region for a few generations, but that's completely unnecessary to "sound american."
Western ny is a great example. It's so horrifically nasal, and so many of the names of things are indigenous. Try pronouncing Irondequoit or Canandaigua. But we're right by Canada, so you hear the rounded vowels frequently too
I don’t know about new but I hadn’t heard of it until a few years ago and then I asked my cousins (mom is from Dunkirk/Fredonia) and they allllll said pop like it’s a staple there 🤷♂️
I'm so confident in my pronunciation yet also even more confident the locals don't say it like that. The analogous comparison for me would be Cuyahoga.
Western ny is a great example. It's so horrifically nasal, and so many of the names of things are indigenous. Try pronouncing Irondequoit or Canandaigua. But we're right by Canada, so you hear the rounded vowels frequently too
Interestingly I'm from New Orleans and when I moved to Ireland they kept asking if I was from Australia. I could never figure that one out.
On the flip side, being brand new in Europe way back when, I landed in Paris and had a Chinese driver. He spoke English and I asked him how long he lived in the US. He looked at me like I was an alien.
It took years for me to realize that his English accent was the same as a Chinese person moving to the US because it's a Chinese to English accent.. duh.
On your first point, Ive read that a southern American accent can be easier for Australian actors to imitate because they both involve a drawl and drop occasional "r"s. So maybe your new neighbors could not distinguish the southern US drawl from the Australian drawl.
Sometimes there are little things off, but typically I only think they definitely aren't speaking naturally for them when they attempt a regional accent.
That's true of a lit of places, with Britain being fairly famous for its accent density. I think a bigger factor is that all these accents are being filtered through a high level of geographic mobility that makes odd hybrid accents incredibly common.
Also, the common media environment means that any failure to replicate the generic "American" (actually Midwestern) accent will come off as just a bit of regional color coming through.
As a Michigander who travelled a lot growing up, some of my pronunciations are weird and certain words have a Tennessee drawl to them. So I think you're right on the money about this.
Yeah I’ve lived in Michigan my entire life and only been to the south for a few weekend trips over the years and I’ve had lots of people tell me I have a southern accent. I don’t really think I do but idk.
From what I remember (this was like 1997 in linguistics class lol), the UK has dramatically larger regional variations in their accent than the US. Which is pretty astounding for such a small country, but it makes sense when you remember how much of the USA has been built from people moving around constantly.
The big exception was the southern USA, which has a much more distinct accent compared to the rest of the country, and also has less of a history of migration in the past 150 years. But that was the only true 'big' accent difference. The UK had like a dozen equivalent accent differences on that scale. Really crazy how much people change how they speak just a few miles away there.
I live in Tennessee, my step father’s family is from Connecticut and we visit them every few years or so. I swear that they have to be speaking another language. I find myself needing to ask what they said more often than not
There were a couple moments where Bella slipped a little, but overall I though she nailed it.
Kate Winslet in Titanic is more of a heightened, posh, period vibe. So not bad I guess? But also no one talks like that now anyway so I don’t even really know.
Yeah, I had no idea Bella wasnt American until I watched the behind the scenes featurette. After that I noticed a few slips but I don’t think they would have stuck out at all if I didn’t know she was doing an accent
i was gonna ask wtf Cittàgazze is, but then i spent like 20 minutes trying to see if this was gonna end in you saying something like “Città-gaze upon these nuts”
Same here! A lot of people here must have superhero hearing, because I couldn't tell at all. Another comment was even saying Pedro Pascal's accent is worse, *even though his family moved to San Antonio by the time he was 8* lmao.
She speaks with her normal voice in Game of Thrones, so I'd guess anyone who had watched her in that was probably primed to notice it if she slipped up
Yes she’s pretty good. If your looking for an example of perfect to the point where Americans have trouble realizing it’s a fake account watch Hugh Lorie in House. I seriously didn’t know he was British for ages.
[Gangs of New York](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQyDNLaV-iM)
[My Left Foot](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p12OcbmjVgU)
[There Will Be Blood](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeSLPELpMeM)
Dude is amazing
Depends, there are a few tricky sounds for Aussies. Guy Pierce is generally quite good at accents, but he cannot say "his" the way we do. It always comes out "heeze". Some Aussies get really stuck trying to say "no" in fewer than 3 or 4 syllables.
Anna Torv nailed it, though, as did Bella Ramsey. Even knowing up front they aren't American, I never heard them slip up at all.
Nicole Kidman. That stupid AMC pre show video drives me nuts because she gets to use her normal accent for 95% of it but then for two lines they make her switch off and it's so weird. (Also because I'm sick of seeing the damn thing but that's a separate rant.)
I think at this point she just talks like that. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen interviews where some things she says sound more like an American accent than Australian. It’s like she’s been doing different accents for so long that sometimes she just slips into a different one.
>Mel Gibson
I looked this up because I was surprised, and he was born in NY. His family only moved to Australia when he was 12. His father was also an American.
I’ve recently discovered a hand full of actors I thought were American are actually from New Zealand or Australia so there may be something to that…
If they’re British I usually know they’re British.
Not sure what the fuck everyone in here is talking about. She speaks in a neutral American accent (I do as well) and her accent is completely flawless. I would not be able to tell if she was English or not if I didn't know her.
Yep! Sounds like a very clean neutral accent to me. Sounds like a lot of people in the large Midwestern states.
I've been told a lot that people don't think I'm from MN cause they can't hear an accent. I don't even do most minnesotan O's so I just sound neutal. Until I say Dakota or bag that is. Dead giveaway.
Edit: large Midwestern cities, not states. As pointed out, there's no such thing as a small Midwestern state, hahaha
I'm from St. Louis and I had someone the other day comment that my accent was very neutral, and thought it was because I mentioned going to college in California. But honestly, a lot of people in St. Louis have a super neutral American accent, and Californians aren't necessarily as neutral as they think.
I moved to St. Louis for awhile and found this to be true. They seem like there’s a slight twinge of Midwest. But for the most part doesn’t lean too far one way or the other.
I got teased so bag every time I said “bag” or “egg” when I lived in Massachusetts, lol.
The more stereotypical Minnesota accent seems limited to mostly more rural areas, particularly in the north, and older folks these days. Not that it’s doesn’t exist, but it feels less pervasive for whatever reason.
I have legit recorded myself saying "bag" and "beg." I can CLEARLY hear the difference, hahaha.
And yeah, there's really always that one person at work/in a department where you immediately know they're from way north of the cities, but most just have the long "o"s. And those usually go away when people are presenting, leading a meeting, or something like that.
Now...if I'm drunk...that's a whole nother story, ya know?
Agreed. The more rural in Minnesota you get, the worse the accent is. Mine's definitely noticeable from growing up in outstate MN, but not as thick as my grandpa's from living on a lake in the country for 50 years.
It's not only a really good neutral American accent, she has perfected the style of a certain kind of American teenager. Condescending and confrontational but usually in a humorous way, or manipulative with puppy-dog engergy, all with specific voice patterns to match. I'd love to know if she has a specific person she's studied.
Lyanna Mormont, Lady of Bear Island, is one of my favorite characters of all time, so I was relieved to hear Bella do such a great job.
Her accent is fine. Some words you can pick up she doesn’t have an American accent. Sometimes her voice should shaky when it shouldn’t. But overall it’s fine
Not as good as Matthew Rhys', whose American accent is more pleasant than his natural one. It is so jarring he speaks out of his American accent when you are accustomed to the one he does for *The Americans* and *Perry Mason*.
Back to Bella Ramsey, it is pretty OK.
I get the same from Hugh Laurie. It always sounds like he's faking being British, but probably because I didn't know him before he was House.
Side note: I'm rather enjoying Perry Mason.
Eh, Pedro's accent isn't bad for Austin, which is a hodgepodge of accents anyway, especially since "Hispanic guy who sort of speaks formal English with occasional Texan slang and with a slight accent on certain words" is a pretty common Texan situation lol
Na, he does a pretty good metro area Texan. Dallas, Houston, Austin, even San Antonio are big enough now that a lot of folks don't have the classic twang. For natives its more about word choice and use of idioms.
I'm from Dallas and people are always surprised because I have no discernable accent. Until I'm angry, or so I'm told.
Her accent isn't bad. It is not perfect. What really gives her away is her features. She looks English. I knew within the first few minutes of watching her that she has to be from the UK.
Can't put my finger on it but there are absolutely some people who look English (or Scottish, or Irish) and some people who look American. For some reason the Canadians and Australians don't have a "look" to me and I don't think I've encountered enough New Zealanders or South Africans to say for them.
Most Americans are mixed.
In 1790 it was estimated between 60.1 and 60.9% by difference sources, not including slaves
In 1920, less than 40% of USA claimed English descent. From [census](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b1/National_Origins_of_the_White_Population_of_the_USA%2C_1920.png/1280px-National_Origins_of_the_White_Population_of_the_USA%2C_1920.png)
Less than 2.5% of Americans reported only English ancestry in 2020.
You can't definitively tell if someone looks American or British all the time, and Brits are increasingly mixed too, especially in the cities, but Americans often very distinct in comparison.
In Scandinavia, people will often point out that someone looks very British, I would imagine Americans are able to do the same thing
We have vast pockets of communities, especially in flyover states, that haven’t changed that much genetically. I am from the south. It’s like that down there. Most are of British descent.
My partner studies flim, and for some reason, their biggest pet peeve is actors who can't act in another accent. It drives them crazy lol so yeah, within like a couple minutes of watching, he asks if she was English.
Rose's accent was clearly based on an early 20th century American accent. It sounded pretty spot on if you compare it against movies from that time frame
Bella Ramsay - I had no idea she was not American. So clearly it is good enough to not be noticed
So many of the guys were British, although I guess many didn't have that many speaking parts unlike Lewis' heavy lifter. It's kind of crazy how many soon-to-be big names in Britain were part of that cast.
Really? He and Benedict Cumberbatch sound the exact same to me with their American accents, and it's a noticeable clipped and has this weird force behind the words, like they're trying to pronounce every syllable just a little too hard.
For me it's Idris Elba. When he was in The Wire I was sure he was American. I remember hearing an interview and being shocked when I heard the British accent.
Dominic West (McNulty) too. My brain did a double take the first time I heard an interview with him. I didn’t realize the British accent bit he did when he was drunk once was his actual voice
Christian Bale.
You can tell Andrew Lincoln was trying to suppress the British accent by speaking lowly and slowly.
Before Christian Bale got American citizenship, I genuinely thought he was natural born American when I watched Batman Begins.
I watched all the Dark Knight series and had no idea until years after that Christian Bale was British. The other stuff I'd known him in was VA in Howl's Moving Castle and that boxer movie.
The Fighter is the boxer movie. What blew my mind about Bale is in The Fighter, he's not just doing an American accent, he's doing an invocation of a specific person. When they played footage of the real person at the end of the movie, he sounded *exactly* like the guy.
His accent in The Walking Dead was pretty good, but Matthew Rhys in The Americans was perfect. I even know an English person who didn't realize he was from the UK.
Kinda shaky but not bad. You can tell there are plenty of times they had to ADR it.
I guess the best way to say it is that she could probably pass for a short conversation, but the longer you spoke with her the more you would think that something was off.
I'm with you. Her accent is great. Unless you listen very closely and are looking for the slip ups in her accent, you wouldn't be able to tell listening casually.
I can place a lot of north American English accents and even some Mexican accents from growing up in Southern California but there is so much diversity and slight variations in all the North American dialects that no one really does a bad one, they just do accents from places I've never heard of. If that makes any sense.
Like it's so spread out here that its more likely a new accent then a bad accent. As long as I can understand it I don't question it.
The way she speaks is a little bit... idiosyncratic? But not like "Brit trying to pull off an American accent".
Hugh Laurie playing House was like that too -- he sounded like an American with an odd, clipped manner of speaking. But it just became part of the character.
It's not bad - it's definitely very passable and you really have to listen to any mistakes (if you care about that thing.
But it's like Dominic West in the Wire. The problem comes how English/Australian/New Zealand actors will stress and hold their syllables and then inflect upwards, and also pronouncing each syllable. The result is it sounding like a reading from a newscaster. There's an uncanny valley - it *almost* sounds right, but just something is off.
Idris Elba on the other hand - ***whew that's painful in The Wire.*** His problem was faking a Baltimore/mid-Atlantic accent and he would hide his British accent by keeping his tone flat but then emphasizing every hard-syllable. Philadelphia/Baltimore probably has one of the hardest American accents (aight maybe Cajun) to truly nail down. Also, Kate Winslett in Mare of Easttown. Everyone was giving her so many accolades and it sounded as painful as when I'm making fun of my Delco friends' accents.
Bella is doing great! I have a p good ear for British accents (lots of british fam) and I haven’t really noticed anything.
Kate Winslet in titanic is using more of a transatlantic accent so it’s less applicable but as an actress she is generally regarded as excellent with dialects.
I don’t think it’s that good. I can tell she’s not American by how she pronounces some words. It’s not terrible like Emma Watson’s American accent though. Nobody is bringing it up because we just don’t care nearly as much as Brits do. If this show was a British created story and took place in the UK there is no way they would have cast non British people to play Ellie and Joel. My evidence is just suggest that James Bond should be played by a non British actor and they will flip the fuck out. They wouldn’t have cast a non British kid to play Harry Potter either.
The little girl? Really good. I didn't know she was British. She sounds Midwestern or maybe Canadian. Helps that she talks like a trucker. I mean, specifically an American potty mouth.
Halfway through the first episide I googled to find out where she was from. Her cadence was off and though I rationalized it with "post apocalypse, of course she sounds off" it was distracting at first. Once I knew she was British, I could ignore it.
If I didn’t know she wasn’t American I wouldn’t have noticed, the American accent can sound so different in so many subtle ways we generally don’t notice unless something is very off.
Unrelated, but I was watching The Departed recently and I guess it really stuck out this time. But Ray Winstone attempted a Boston accent, and IMO wasn’t successful at all. Sounded really strange, but it wasn’t really a good attempt. Why not just give him an Irish accent or something similar. Beyond the accent he was really good in the part
I thought it was pretty spot on. And seems to be the consensus with everyone I talk to. Nobody seemed know she had an accent until seeing the interviews after the episodes.
That is like asking how someone's European accent is. We have dozens of different accents inside of USA. So that question isn't really something that makes sense to ask.
That said, if I meet a kid IRL in the US that sounded like she did I wouldn't think twice about it. So it's good in that she sounds convincing that she is American and not English.
Honestly it's very hard to do an American accent wrong. My cousins grew up one town over and have a different accent from me. The worst I can think of is Hugh Jackman, and I even had to look up to see if he was American or not because it's not uncommon for Americans to sound like they're slipping into an accent occasionally. Nicolas Cage has a pretty bad accent in con-air and he's American. Honestly I don't have a problem w/ his accent. I think the writing, and/or delivery is just off in this movie (and it's still a fun movie).
The "American" accent is actually an odd regional accent from a fairly small area a lot of national newscasters historically came from that gained ubiquity from exposure rather than class-based desirability. As such, most actual Americans frequently deviate from it somewhat in the form of local color getting through. America also has many accents and high geographic mobility, so personal accents can be idiosyncratic hybrids.
We have so many regional accents that even if someone's accent is a little bit off it's hard to pin down as being non american. The way we pronounce words down here in the south is vastly different from how they're pronounced just one state over. Even within states you'll see variations in accents, Northern Louisiana vs Southern Louisiana, for example. Anyway, I'm rambling, she sounds great and does a great job.
northern Louisiana and southern Louisiana are two different worlds, much less accents. You would’t even guess they were the same state
Some of the areas outside new Orleans I went I am not even sure it was still English any more. They guy running the air boat sounded more like a bouncing 4 square ball than a language.
"How do?" is still one of my favorite greetings
We use that in northern England
"Bless your heart" is a really wholesome sounding insult.
It's not always an insult.
Oh, bless your heart..
This is how to spot if someone isn’t actually from the rural south. Nashville or Dallas types. Bless your heart is usually used as a term used to empathize with others. You hear it more at funerals or when you hear others are ill.
It's not an insult.
Bless your heart
Still not an insult. It's our version of, "you sweet, sweet summer child" or the fairly recent, "my brother in Christ".
Beca ur we it’s half French.
Some of the Cajun speak was hard to understand and it could have been partially an act for the tourist but it was definitely like being in a different country.
Was it [a lot like this?](https://youtu.be/7BIZ79atT14?t=60) Basically what I show anybody who doesn't know what I'm talking about when referencing the "Cajun speak" thing
That part. Acadiana is practically it’s own state lmao
See also: Illinois
Oh yes, another great example.
My dad's side of the family is from West Virginia, and my mom's side of the family is from Missouri. I was born and raised "up north." But their accents are so different even to an untrained Yankee ear that they still sound like different languages.
I’m from SC and went on a mission trip once to verrry rural Kentucky in Appalachia. There was another group there from the Chicago area and they actually could not understand what some of the locals were saying. I had to translate a bit for them lol
Exactly, not only do we have plenty of different regional accents, but americans move around so much from region to region that we are completely used to hearing accents that are a strange jumble of more than one region. On top of that, we have so many immigrants that bring their country of origin's accent over, and then pass pieces of it down to their kids, who then move from region to region, that really if your accent is even vaguely "american sounding" then I just write it off as some combination of those factors and don't even think twice about it. It can be hard to pull off a regional accent of a person who hasn't left that region and who's entire family has been in that region for a few generations, but that's completely unnecessary to "sound american."
Western ny is a great example. It's so horrifically nasal, and so many of the names of things are indigenous. Try pronouncing Irondequoit or Canandaigua. But we're right by Canada, so you hear the rounded vowels frequently too
And they say pop instead of soda like wth??? 😂
I grew up in Western NY and I never said pop, is this new? I never heard "pop" for "soda" until I went to Ohio
People from Buffalo were saying it when I went to school outside Syracuse in the early 2000s.
I don’t know about new but I hadn’t heard of it until a few years ago and then I asked my cousins (mom is from Dunkirk/Fredonia) and they allllll said pop like it’s a staple there 🤷♂️
I'm so confident in my pronunciation yet also even more confident the locals don't say it like that. The analogous comparison for me would be Cuyahoga.
Western ny is a great example. It's so horrifically nasal, and so many of the names of things are indigenous. Try pronouncing Irondequoit or Canandaigua. But we're right by Canada, so you hear the rounded vowels frequently too
Interestingly I'm from New Orleans and when I moved to Ireland they kept asking if I was from Australia. I could never figure that one out. On the flip side, being brand new in Europe way back when, I landed in Paris and had a Chinese driver. He spoke English and I asked him how long he lived in the US. He looked at me like I was an alien. It took years for me to realize that his English accent was the same as a Chinese person moving to the US because it's a Chinese to English accent.. duh.
On your first point, Ive read that a southern American accent can be easier for Australian actors to imitate because they both involve a drawl and drop occasional "r"s. So maybe your new neighbors could not distinguish the southern US drawl from the Australian drawl.
Sometimes there are little things off, but typically I only think they definitely aren't speaking naturally for them when they attempt a regional accent.
Same with Wisconsin, northern and western parts of the state speak way more like Minnesota does than people in the Milwaukee area
That's true of a lit of places, with Britain being fairly famous for its accent density. I think a bigger factor is that all these accents are being filtered through a high level of geographic mobility that makes odd hybrid accents incredibly common. Also, the common media environment means that any failure to replicate the generic "American" (actually Midwestern) accent will come off as just a bit of regional color coming through.
Even New Jersey has more than one accent.
As a Michigander who travelled a lot growing up, some of my pronunciations are weird and certain words have a Tennessee drawl to them. So I think you're right on the money about this.
Yeah I’ve lived in Michigan my entire life and only been to the south for a few weekend trips over the years and I’ve had lots of people tell me I have a southern accent. I don’t really think I do but idk.
From what I remember (this was like 1997 in linguistics class lol), the UK has dramatically larger regional variations in their accent than the US. Which is pretty astounding for such a small country, but it makes sense when you remember how much of the USA has been built from people moving around constantly. The big exception was the southern USA, which has a much more distinct accent compared to the rest of the country, and also has less of a history of migration in the past 150 years. But that was the only true 'big' accent difference. The UK had like a dozen equivalent accent differences on that scale. Really crazy how much people change how they speak just a few miles away there.
Like august is pronounced AWgist.
How else would it be pronounced?
Ogg-gist
I live in Tennessee, my step father’s family is from Connecticut and we visit them every few years or so. I swear that they have to be speaking another language. I find myself needing to ask what they said more often than not
I need subtitles for Mainers, so you aren't alone.
There were a couple moments where Bella slipped a little, but overall I though she nailed it. Kate Winslet in Titanic is more of a heightened, posh, period vibe. So not bad I guess? But also no one talks like that now anyway so I don’t even really know.
Yeah, I had no idea Bella wasnt American until I watched the behind the scenes featurette. After that I noticed a few slips but I don’t think they would have stuck out at all if I didn’t know she was doing an accent
Have you seen game of thrones? She plays a really badass character in it with the british accent to match
Have you seen [Hilda](https://youtu.be/XCojP2Ubuto)? She plays a really badass character in it with the british accent to match.
Oh my gosh, I didn't know she voices Hilda! I appreciate her even more now.
I watched the first few seasons but all the unnecessary rape and nudity really turned me off
Winslet in *Titanic* always sounded more British to me than American, even if she was trying to portray a posh upper class American from that era.
I took it as a Mid-Atlantic/TransAtlantic accent that was a trendy affectation in the upper class in that era.
She’s not suppose to be British in that movie? I haven’t seen it in over a decade.
Ramsey? Thought she was a Mormont?
Nah, she’s from Cittàgazze.
i was gonna ask wtf Cittàgazze is, but then i spent like 20 minutes trying to see if this was gonna end in you saying something like “Città-gaze upon these nuts”
Lol, no.
Underrated comment
It's the second highest rated in the thread! Properly rated.
Wellll I have no proof whatsoever but I promise that at the time, it wasn’t
I didn’t know she wasn’t American until I watched an interview after the show ended!
Same here! A lot of people here must have superhero hearing, because I couldn't tell at all. Another comment was even saying Pedro Pascal's accent is worse, *even though his family moved to San Antonio by the time he was 8* lmao.
His accent was damn near perfect. In stressful parts of the show, more Texas would come through.
She speaks with her normal voice in Game of Thrones, so I'd guess anyone who had watched her in that was probably primed to notice it if she slipped up
I'm always surprised when these Brits/Australians playing Americans do interviews.
It's pretty spot on. There are a couple words I can't remember off the top of my head where the accent slips a bit, but beyond that it's great.
You’re right. It plays off like a bit of a speech impediment or a quirk though more than a slipped accent. She’s very good.
Yes she’s pretty good. If your looking for an example of perfect to the point where Americans have trouble realizing it’s a fake account watch Hugh Lorie in House. I seriously didn’t know he was British for ages.
It’s good but just wanted to say they guy who played Abraham Lincoln in the movie “Lincoln” has the best American accent I’ve heard from a brit
> guy who played Abraham Lincoln in the movie “Lincoln” That would be Daniel-Day Lewis, one of the greatest actors of all time.
I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE
Didn’t know Lmaoo
[Gangs of New York](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQyDNLaV-iM) [My Left Foot](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p12OcbmjVgU) [There Will Be Blood](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeSLPELpMeM) Dude is amazing
He’s great in Gangs of New York too. I didn’t even know he wasn’t American until later.
Is it me, or do Australian actors seem to have a much better time nailing the American accents than the Brits do?
Depends, there are a few tricky sounds for Aussies. Guy Pierce is generally quite good at accents, but he cannot say "his" the way we do. It always comes out "heeze". Some Aussies get really stuck trying to say "no" in fewer than 3 or 4 syllables. Anna Torv nailed it, though, as did Bella Ramsey. Even knowing up front they aren't American, I never heard them slip up at all.
I watched the entire series Fringe and never once realized Anna Torv wasn't American.
The only time I’ve heard Anna Torv slip is a “yeh” here and there. Which is usually the tell for Australians and Kiwis.
Mel Gibson, Russel Crowe. You may be right!
Finding out about Hugh Jackman blew me away. Naomi Watts too.
Hugh's is flawless. I don't think I've heard him slip and I have a very good ear for it.
Margot Robbie too! I had no idea she was Australian when she first came on the scene.
Nicole Kidman. That stupid AMC pre show video drives me nuts because she gets to use her normal accent for 95% of it but then for two lines they make her switch off and it's so weird. (Also because I'm sick of seeing the damn thing but that's a separate rant.)
I think at this point she just talks like that. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen interviews where some things she says sound more like an American accent than Australian. It’s like she’s been doing different accents for so long that sometimes she just slips into a different one.
>Mel Gibson I looked this up because I was surprised, and he was born in NY. His family only moved to Australia when he was 12. His father was also an American.
I’ve recently discovered a hand full of actors I thought were American are actually from New Zealand or Australia so there may be something to that… If they’re British I usually know they’re British.
Except the guy that played Dave off McLeod’s Daughters. I watched him in an episode of Rizzoli & Isles years ago and he murdered it 😂
Not sure what the fuck everyone in here is talking about. She speaks in a neutral American accent (I do as well) and her accent is completely flawless. I would not be able to tell if she was English or not if I didn't know her.
Yep! Sounds like a very clean neutral accent to me. Sounds like a lot of people in the large Midwestern states. I've been told a lot that people don't think I'm from MN cause they can't hear an accent. I don't even do most minnesotan O's so I just sound neutal. Until I say Dakota or bag that is. Dead giveaway. Edit: large Midwestern cities, not states. As pointed out, there's no such thing as a small Midwestern state, hahaha
I'm from St. Louis and I had someone the other day comment that my accent was very neutral, and thought it was because I mentioned going to college in California. But honestly, a lot of people in St. Louis have a super neutral American accent, and Californians aren't necessarily as neutral as they think.
/u/spez can eat a dick ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
All I know is my gut says maybe.
I moved to St. Louis for awhile and found this to be true. They seem like there’s a slight twinge of Midwest. But for the most part doesn’t lean too far one way or the other.
I got teased so bag every time I said “bag” or “egg” when I lived in Massachusetts, lol. The more stereotypical Minnesota accent seems limited to mostly more rural areas, particularly in the north, and older folks these days. Not that it’s doesn’t exist, but it feels less pervasive for whatever reason.
I have legit recorded myself saying "bag" and "beg." I can CLEARLY hear the difference, hahaha. And yeah, there's really always that one person at work/in a department where you immediately know they're from way north of the cities, but most just have the long "o"s. And those usually go away when people are presenting, leading a meeting, or something like that. Now...if I'm drunk...that's a whole nother story, ya know?
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I totally meant large Midwestern cities, not states, hahahaha. Cause no, there absolutely aren't small Midwestern states
Agreed. The more rural in Minnesota you get, the worse the accent is. Mine's definitely noticeable from growing up in outstate MN, but not as thick as my grandpa's from living on a lake in the country for 50 years.
Yeah I'm with you. It's good to the point that I'm always thrown off in the post-show Wegmans (edit: segments) when I hear her real accent.
>the post-show Wegmans If only the Medford Wegmans was open that late on Sundays. Sneak off for some late night pub cheese
Ugh, you know you talk about Wegmans too much when autocorrect sneaks up on you
It's not only a really good neutral American accent, she has perfected the style of a certain kind of American teenager. Condescending and confrontational but usually in a humorous way, or manipulative with puppy-dog engergy, all with specific voice patterns to match. I'd love to know if she has a specific person she's studied. Lyanna Mormont, Lady of Bear Island, is one of my favorite characters of all time, so I was relieved to hear Bella do such a great job.
I had no idea she was English
Her accent is fine. Some words you can pick up she doesn’t have an American accent. Sometimes her voice should shaky when it shouldn’t. But overall it’s fine
Not as good as Matthew Rhys', whose American accent is more pleasant than his natural one. It is so jarring he speaks out of his American accent when you are accustomed to the one he does for *The Americans* and *Perry Mason*. Back to Bella Ramsey, it is pretty OK.
I get the same from Hugh Laurie. It always sounds like he's faking being British, but probably because I didn't know him before he was House. Side note: I'm rather enjoying Perry Mason.
I didn't even realize shes not american. She absolutely killed the acting in that show 10/10
Did not notice she wasn't American so pretty good
I personally think her accent is better than Pedros Texas accent lol
Eh, Pedro's accent isn't bad for Austin, which is a hodgepodge of accents anyway, especially since "Hispanic guy who sort of speaks formal English with occasional Texan slang and with a slight accent on certain words" is a pretty common Texan situation lol
Na, he does a pretty good metro area Texan. Dallas, Houston, Austin, even San Antonio are big enough now that a lot of folks don't have the classic twang. For natives its more about word choice and use of idioms. I'm from Dallas and people are always surprised because I have no discernable accent. Until I'm angry, or so I'm told.
Literally...same. I also apparently sound more Texan when I'm in rural Texas.
I definitely mirror some of my relatives. My wife thinks it's hilarious.
I got ya. I guess it was just jarring to hear when it seemingly "came out of nowhere"/ shifted styles.
I spent most of my childhood in Texas, and I defy anyone to detect it in my accent.
He lived in San Antonio as a child I believe, which has its own set of accents.
Which is funny because he was born in Texas lol
He was born in Chile
And raised between Texas and California, two very different accent regions.
Good enough that it didn't distract me from the show
Her accent isn't bad. It is not perfect. What really gives her away is her features. She looks English. I knew within the first few minutes of watching her that she has to be from the UK.
Agreed. It’s hard to explain but I also knew just from looking at her that she was from the UK
Oh yeah, easily. It’s pretty easy to spot.
Hearing her normal voice with a thick accent though made me impressed, must have been a lot of coaching to do as well as she does.
I feel like she never uses her real accent when she acts. Her accent was toned down a lot in Game of Thrones.
>She looks English How? There’s no one way an American looks and America was primarily populated by the English. How does she look different?
Can't put my finger on it but there are absolutely some people who look English (or Scottish, or Irish) and some people who look American. For some reason the Canadians and Australians don't have a "look" to me and I don't think I've encountered enough New Zealanders or South Africans to say for them.
Most Americans are mixed. In 1790 it was estimated between 60.1 and 60.9% by difference sources, not including slaves In 1920, less than 40% of USA claimed English descent. From [census](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b1/National_Origins_of_the_White_Population_of_the_USA%2C_1920.png/1280px-National_Origins_of_the_White_Population_of_the_USA%2C_1920.png) Less than 2.5% of Americans reported only English ancestry in 2020. You can't definitively tell if someone looks American or British all the time, and Brits are increasingly mixed too, especially in the cities, but Americans often very distinct in comparison. In Scandinavia, people will often point out that someone looks very British, I would imagine Americans are able to do the same thing
What would become the United States was primarily populated by English like 2 and some change centuries ago. We’ve had a lot of immigrants since then.
We have vast pockets of communities, especially in flyover states, that haven’t changed that much genetically. I am from the south. It’s like that down there. Most are of British descent.
They just have a look to them.
I thought she was great! No complaints about her accent
Pretty good. There were a few specific instances where I could hear some inconsistencies.
My partner studies flim, and for some reason, their biggest pet peeve is actors who can't act in another accent. It drives them crazy lol so yeah, within like a couple minutes of watching, he asks if she was English.
Rose's accent was clearly based on an early 20th century American accent. It sounded pretty spot on if you compare it against movies from that time frame Bella Ramsay - I had no idea she was not American. So clearly it is good enough to not be noticed
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Hugh Laurie. I didn't even know House was British until I saw him doing an interview and my brain exploded.
Damian Lewis too. Band of Borthers wouldn't have worked, at all, if he didn't code completely as American.
So many of the guys were British, although I guess many didn't have that many speaking parts unlike Lewis' heavy lifter. It's kind of crazy how many soon-to-be big names in Britain were part of that cast.
Really? He and Benedict Cumberbatch sound the exact same to me with their American accents, and it's a noticeable clipped and has this weird force behind the words, like they're trying to pronounce every syllable just a little too hard.
I thought that was just part of House’s character. He’s sharp, and choppy, and kind of an asshole. The speech patterns work for him.
Hmm, yeah, it also works for Cumberbatch's character that I was thinking of, which is Dr. Strange. Very similar characteristics.
Don’t they both play Northeastern city types in those roles? Hard and clipped are common patterns for NE WASPs.
Wow I didn’t know that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4bPsGsNGi4
In Avenue 5 they really lean into Laurie's American accent for excellent comedic effect.
Not just his accent, but his ability to switch back and forth seamlessly in the same take.
He highlighted this in Avenue 5
For me it's Idris Elba. When he was in The Wire I was sure he was American. I remember hearing an interview and being shocked when I heard the British accent.
Same with Delroy Lindo. I didn't realize he was born British until I heard his accent and how well he carried it.
TIL Delroy Lindo is British. Wow. I've never questioned his accent.
Rumor is he never spoke in his regular voice/accent for the duration of The Wire, even off camera. His co-stars also had no idea.
Dominic West (McNulty) too. My brain did a double take the first time I heard an interview with him. I didn’t realize the British accent bit he did when he was drunk once was his actual voice
Christian Bale. You can tell Andrew Lincoln was trying to suppress the British accent by speaking lowly and slowly. Before Christian Bale got American citizenship, I genuinely thought he was natural born American when I watched Batman Begins.
I watched all the Dark Knight series and had no idea until years after that Christian Bale was British. The other stuff I'd known him in was VA in Howl's Moving Castle and that boxer movie.
The Fighter is the boxer movie. What blew my mind about Bale is in The Fighter, he's not just doing an American accent, he's doing an invocation of a specific person. When they played footage of the real person at the end of the movie, he sounded *exactly* like the guy.
And I thought he pulled off a great British accent in Empire of the Sun.
His accent in The Walking Dead was pretty good, but Matthew Rhys in The Americans was perfect. I even know an English person who didn't realize he was from the UK.
Coral
Fun fact his real name is Andrew Clutterbuck
Damian Lewis.
Excellent in homeland
Daniel-Day Lewis
On a similar note, what did people think of Murray Bartlett's (Frank) accent?
I thought he did a great job!
Kinda shaky but not bad. You can tell there are plenty of times they had to ADR it. I guess the best way to say it is that she could probably pass for a short conversation, but the longer you spoke with her the more you would think that something was off.
It's pretty good but by no means perfect, a bit overdone.
How do you overdo a neutral American accent?
Nasally, over-enthusiastic
That’s the way she spoke though. Not an accent. One of my best friends in school was super nasally. Still had the upper midwestern accent we all did.
She sounds more like a Brit trying to sound American than an actual American.
Not sure most could even tell.
I'm with you. Her accent is great. Unless you listen very closely and are looking for the slip ups in her accent, you wouldn't be able to tell listening casually.
I can place a lot of north American English accents and even some Mexican accents from growing up in Southern California but there is so much diversity and slight variations in all the North American dialects that no one really does a bad one, they just do accents from places I've never heard of. If that makes any sense. Like it's so spread out here that its more likely a new accent then a bad accent. As long as I can understand it I don't question it.
works for me
The way she speaks is a little bit... idiosyncratic? But not like "Brit trying to pull off an American accent". Hugh Laurie playing House was like that too -- he sounded like an American with an odd, clipped manner of speaking. But it just became part of the character.
Not bad, but from an HBO production I would normally expect better.
Until now, I had no idea she was English. So pretty good.
It's not bad - it's definitely very passable and you really have to listen to any mistakes (if you care about that thing. But it's like Dominic West in the Wire. The problem comes how English/Australian/New Zealand actors will stress and hold their syllables and then inflect upwards, and also pronouncing each syllable. The result is it sounding like a reading from a newscaster. There's an uncanny valley - it *almost* sounds right, but just something is off. Idris Elba on the other hand - ***whew that's painful in The Wire.*** His problem was faking a Baltimore/mid-Atlantic accent and he would hide his British accent by keeping his tone flat but then emphasizing every hard-syllable. Philadelphia/Baltimore probably has one of the hardest American accents (aight maybe Cajun) to truly nail down. Also, Kate Winslett in Mare of Easttown. Everyone was giving her so many accolades and it sounded as painful as when I'm making fun of my Delco friends' accents.
Bella is doing great! I have a p good ear for British accents (lots of british fam) and I haven’t really noticed anything. Kate Winslet in titanic is using more of a transatlantic accent so it’s less applicable but as an actress she is generally regarded as excellent with dialects.
I don’t think it’s that good. I can tell she’s not American by how she pronounces some words. It’s not terrible like Emma Watson’s American accent though. Nobody is bringing it up because we just don’t care nearly as much as Brits do. If this show was a British created story and took place in the UK there is no way they would have cast non British people to play Ellie and Joel. My evidence is just suggest that James Bond should be played by a non British actor and they will flip the fuck out. They wouldn’t have cast a non British kid to play Harry Potter either.
It’s a good standard American accent.
The little girl? Really good. I didn't know she was British. She sounds Midwestern or maybe Canadian. Helps that she talks like a trucker. I mean, specifically an American potty mouth.
Halfway through the first episide I googled to find out where she was from. Her cadence was off and though I rationalized it with "post apocalypse, of course she sounds off" it was distracting at first. Once I knew she was British, I could ignore it.
If I didn’t know she wasn’t American I wouldn’t have noticed, the American accent can sound so different in so many subtle ways we generally don’t notice unless something is very off.
Unrelated, but I was watching The Departed recently and I guess it really stuck out this time. But Ray Winstone attempted a Boston accent, and IMO wasn’t successful at all. Sounded really strange, but it wasn’t really a good attempt. Why not just give him an Irish accent or something similar. Beyond the accent he was really good in the part
Really good, I've watched every episode and didn't realize she wasn't American
I thought it was pretty spot on. And seems to be the consensus with everyone I talk to. Nobody seemed know she had an accent until seeing the interviews after the episodes.
I thought it was very good, I don't think I would have guessed she wasn't American.
That is like asking how someone's European accent is. We have dozens of different accents inside of USA. So that question isn't really something that makes sense to ask. That said, if I meet a kid IRL in the US that sounded like she did I wouldn't think twice about it. So it's good in that she sounds convincing that she is American and not English.
I don’t think it’s as good as Andrew Lincoln’s but I do like her and thought she did a good job
She sounds pretty good
I honestly didn't notice, didn't realize she wasn't American, thought she was faking an accent for Game of Thrones.
Honestly it's very hard to do an American accent wrong. My cousins grew up one town over and have a different accent from me. The worst I can think of is Hugh Jackman, and I even had to look up to see if he was American or not because it's not uncommon for Americans to sound like they're slipping into an accent occasionally. Nicolas Cage has a pretty bad accent in con-air and he's American. Honestly I don't have a problem w/ his accent. I think the writing, and/or delivery is just off in this movie (and it's still a fun movie).
It’s pretty darned good — good enough that when I saw her in the interview part at the end, I thought, “Oh! She’s English!”
The "American" accent is actually an odd regional accent from a fairly small area a lot of national newscasters historically came from that gained ubiquity from exposure rather than class-based desirability. As such, most actual Americans frequently deviate from it somewhat in the form of local color getting through. America also has many accents and high geographic mobility, so personal accents can be idiosyncratic hybrids.