5 Actors That Should Have Been Allowed to Use Their Natural Accents
Call it a pet peeve, or call it a personality quirk, but there’s one phenomenon that is really starting to get on my nerves: forcing foreign actors to cover up their accents when they are hired for Hollywood movies or TV shows.
I’m not complaining about the fact that, if you are an actor from anywhere in the world, you have to come to Hollywood to make it really big. That is how it should be. Jackie Chan, Salma Hayek, Christoph Waltz, and a whole host of great actors from all over the world have starred in Hollywood film and television, and we are all the better for it.
The annoying thing is when an actor from an English-speaking country is cast for a part, and then for no good reason, is told to use an American accent. Sure, it’s impressive that they are good at accents. But if the United States is a nation of immigrants, shouldn’t we be used to accents anyway?
Why can’t they be like Patrick Stewart, who as Captain Picard played a French starship captain who spoke with an English accent and actually made the character more interesting as a result, or Edward Woodward, who on The Equalizer played a former government agent acting as a vigilante living in New York, but with an English accent? It’s time to let actors speak naturally, instead of oppressing them with evil Hollywood’s Midwestern dialect biases. This is the list of the worst offenders.
1. Anna Torv as Olivia Dunham (Fringe)
Original Accent: Australian
Character’s Accent: Midwestern/Northeastern American
I admit Anna Torv has grown on me, so I am starting to get over my little annoyance that they made her cover up her Australian accent. Still, this is America, where every third person you meet has an accent, especially in Boston.
At first you think: “Olivia Dunham is an FBI agent. Of course she has an American accent.” But you don’t have to be born American to be an FBI agent. You can be a naturalized citizen. Plus, Dr. Walter Bishop (played by John Noble, who also is Australian) has a foreign accent, and he was doing top secret research for the government. Why does he get a free pass? Let Anna express herself, I say! Let her be free!
2. Jamie Bamber as Lee Adama, aka Apollo (Battlestar Galactica)
Original Accent: English
Character’s Accent: Midwestern American
If any television genre gives actors carte blanche to use their natural accent, it is science fiction, especially Battlestar Galactica. This is a show about people on the other side of the galaxy, hundreds or thousands of years in the future (or perhaps the past). The very fact that the actors are speaking English requires a suspension of disbelief. So why does Bamber have to cover up his English accent? Because Hollywood is stupid, that’s why. James Callis (who plays Dr. Gaius Baltar) gets to use his English accent. Mark Sheppard (who plays Romo Lampkin, Baltar’s lawyer) gets to use his English accent. Whose cat did Bamber kill that he had to pretend to be American in a show that doesn’t even have an America?
3. Lena Headey as Sarah Connor (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)
Original Accent: English/Bermuda mix
Character’s Accent: American Midwestern/California mix
Okay, I’m kind of cheating on this one. Sarah Connor was already established by Linda Hamilton as being an American, so anyone you cast for the role will have to imitate Linda Hamilton’s accent. And Headey is quite talented as an actress and pretty much nails the American dialect.
It’s probably just a case of poor casting instead of Hollywood’s anti-foreign accent bias. Yes, I’m going with poor casting. Headey, as I said, is a great actress, but I don’t think she’s the tough as nails type. It’s not like she’s SO perfect for the role that you just HAD to go all the way to Yorkshire, England, to cast her. Weren’t there any actresses already in Hollywood who could, say, do a push-up? No actress that, for example, weighs more than 90 pounds and already lives on this side of the Atlantic? Not even in Canada?
The good news is that she’s been cast in Game of Thrones, which HBO just greenlighted as a series. Let’s just hope HBO is less oppressive when it comes to accents.
4. Sam Worthington as Jake Sully (Avatar)
Original Accent: Australian
Character’s Accent: Midwestern American
This is science fiction, so I have the same complaints as Battlestar. Worthington is a great actor, and he paid his dues in Australia, so he should get a shot at international stardom via Hollywood blockbuster. No problem. But why does he have to play an American in this particular movie? In the future when we travel to other planets and gleefully launch wars against aliens, is America the only country with space marines? No Australian marines? No English marines? That’s just weird.
5. Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House (House, M.D.)
Original Accent: English
Character’s Accent: Midwestern American
I’ve read all kinds of rumors about the casting of Laurie. Allegedly, Bryan Singer wanted the House character to be the ultimate American (apparently he’s one of those evil Hollywood producers with an anti-accent bias), and when he saw the audition tape didn’t even know that Laurie wasn’t an American actor. I believe that because Laurie is a great actor and is good with the accents. But why does the House character have to be a native-born American? Shouldn’t they have at least one doctor who was educated outside the United States and perhaps became a naturalized citizen? That’s how it is in real life hospitals, especially in New Jersey. It’s part of the union rules or something.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
I can understand Jamie Bamber’s character as having an American accent because the actor playing his father has an American accent. If the accents were different it would have meant that father and son were raised on different planets, it could have been confusing to people. Mark Sheppard didn’t use his actual accent in “Battlestar Galactica”. He used an accent that was more Irish. James Callis’ voice/accent as Baltar is actually different than the actors actual speaking voice. I do agree though that people should be allowed to use their real accents more. Simon Baker on “The Mentalist” is another good example. Why couldn’t Patrick Jane have been Australian born?
March 5th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
If Jamie Bamber had used his native accent he wouldn’t sound related to Edward James Olmos’s character. Notice, Olmos wore blue contacts to look related to Bamber, shouldn’t Bamber have sounded related to Olmos?
March 5th, 2010 at 5:16 pm
True about the Adamas’ accents having to match, although they never explain why he neither he nor Zak look even remotely Latino/Tauron (which would, presumably, be dominant genes).
March 5th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
I agree with you about Hugh Laurie because there’s no reason he’d have to be American.
An exception to this interesting take is Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara.
March 6th, 2010 at 6:02 pm
First of all, Jamie Bamber’s accent is HORRIBLE. He has this high pitched quiet voice, it’s incredibly annoying. Let’s not forget his father has an American accent, so having a British-speaking son would have been quite peculiar.
And House? You are a retard if you think that show would even make primetime if the main character was an angry Britt. There would be an awful disconnect. Stop blogging now.
March 6th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
Jamie Bamber kind of had to have an accent to match EJO, I have to agree with everyone on that one.
I like Sam Worthington, but if you can’t pull off the accent don’t do it. Unless he was supremely better at staying in an American accent in “Avatar” than he was in “T4″, that in itself should have been cause enough to let him speak in his natural accent.
On Lena Headey, I actually completely disagree with you on bad casting. Just because she isn’t American doesn’t mean casting her as an already established American character is “bad casting.” I think that might be were my pet peeve differs from yours: Most of the time, I don’t think it’s absolutely a must to make everyone have a Midwestern American accent. If you’re continuing a role already established with a certain dialect, it’s pretty much a given that you should learn that accent. It’s making the actor speak in that generic American accent in a role that doesn’t *have* to be American that is the most irritating, I think.
March 7th, 2010 at 11:57 am
Maybe I just have some kind of weird hearing filter or something but I hardly ever notice people’s supposed “bad American accents.” I thought Jamie Bamber’s was fine all through BSG, and Sam Worthington’s in T4 (didn’t see Avatar). Honestly, I wouldn’t have known either was foreign if I hadn’t been told. Maybe it’s because there isn’t actually a real American dialect (Midwestern isn’t it — I promise) so none of them sound “off” to me because people in real life don’t all sound the same either (especially here in FL where almost everyone is non-native).
March 9th, 2010 at 7:04 am
i never ever find anything wrong with bamber =)
but honestly, i agree with celeste. being from where we’re from (florida), there is a real mash up of accents and dialects. i get told down here that i sound like i’m from up north, and when i go north, i get told i sound southern. true “american” would probably be non-regional, and more like californian without the slang than midwestern. a genuine midwestern accent alters vowel sounds… ever have a friend from chicago?
March 13th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
On Worthington, I could pick up on the Australian a lot. He had an accent that sounds very much from my area (Colorado), so when he’d slip it was noticeable to me. It was the least irritating things about that movie for me, but I noticed it.
I guess when I say “generic American accent”, I’m thinking more of my area rather than *true* Midwestern – if that makes any sense. I suppose we could equate this disagreement to saying “generic British accent” when there are different variations on the dialect depending on the area/social background and things of that nature.
April 3rd, 2010 at 1:05 am
He could have a different accent from his father if he had the accent of his mother. But without her on the show a lot to establish that fact, it would seem weird.
December 19th, 2011 at 7:09 pm
First time around when I watched BSG I never paid much attention to Bamber’s accent. Second time around, something about the way he speaks began to irk me. It reminds me of slurred speech patterns. He almost sounds like a little boy who hasn’t quite found a way to form certain sounds. I wondered if it was in fact a speech impediment. That’s when I found out he’s British and faking it. :P Not sure why they did it since they could have made the mother “british” and she’s shown and speaks in a few flashbacks so it wouldn’t have been that hard to explain.