Movie Accent Expert Breaks Down 28 More Actors' Accents | WIRED

he's the best he was a genius so flattered someone is always watching I I'm Eric singer Eric is still spending his days being a dialect coach for film and television and I'm back now with more beard so today we're gonna talk about more accent performances in movies and especially how much it can contribute to the overall telling of the story Pacific Northwest accent Tonya Harding Margot Robbie I Tanya come on how am I the poor sport in all of this margot robbie is really a fantastic accent performer what do you like like me she captures something really really great about tonya harding's actual voice here so beautifully I knew I was gonna do it there's not a lot that's really distinctive about Pacific Northwest accents one thing we do find there is a caught caught merger where the vowel sounds and co t and c au ght sound the same can I talk to you for a second I'll talk to you for a second they're distinct in my accent and a lot of other American accents caught and called don't give a but we can hear those vowel sounds in cotton cot words sounding the same here dang I'm sorry's not talking back talk talking back in here guy you don't like the waving dress ha ha ha another thing I find really impressive vocally about this performance is the way the voice changes as the character gets older do dumb things when you're young your vocal folds get stiffer as you age one of the things that that does is lower the fundamental pitch and Tambor everything went to here's Tonya at 16 we had plenty winning before I have a I have a fur coat here she is at 22 skating career is over and I have no savings and here she is at 45 I never apologize for growing up poor being a redneck which is what I am Chilean accent Giancarlo Esposito better call Saul hello and welcome to the Los Pollos hermanos family my name is Gustavo but you can call me Gus the character is from Chile originally but he moved to Mexico as a young man go and I'm gonna guess that's where he learned English I apologize for being so transparent because his English is actually more Mexican accented here than it is Chilean accented correct listen to the word customer we serve our customers at Chilean accent would be more likely to have that as a very open ah Wow customer whereas he goes with a much more typically Mexican version of that in English which is a rounded all customer customer customer service and I think that's entirely appropriate and is a really fine detail for the character well perhaps in the future you will consider working for me okay indulge me take your hand put it right in front of your lips and say the word take it will not be necessary take did you feel a little puff of air no that's because we aspirate that sound a lot of other languages don't do that Spanish doesn't do it so usually when you get a Spanish speaker speaking English they'll say take he's doing that here we take we take the pig pride and everything that we do elsewhere in the clip he has a little bit of aspiration and of course the character ends up mastering that feature of American English please I'm happy to do which again I think is so cool because it's like he's working on it here it's just not all the way in place someone is always watching resh in accent Jennifer Lawrence Reds Barrow all I ever wanted was to be a dancer ever since I was a small child there's something that doesn't fully cohere ear the logic of the accent is missing it was never my intention I want to focus on the oral posture because I think Jennifer Lawrence's own oral posture we can see we can hear that through this I've never done a foreign accent before so that was a first for me he told me about what happened at the park after I established trust the back of her tongue is very loose and soft and why are we going to become friends and the front of her tongue is a little bunched and kind of doing the work he told me about what happens at the park I think if she'd flipped that equation so that the back of the tongue was bunched and stiff and sort of anchor ticket and the front of the tongue spread out a little bit like that and took over some of the movement can I think I think she would have had a foundation a logic that would have stitched the sounds together and made it more or Ganic and flowing I have done everything you've asked of me fake Russian accent alison brie glow [Music] so what's great about this is it's a comedy accent that knows in the framework of the story that it's a comedy accent it's based on this of course if I choose to go for the American title of course I will win it but I think Alison Brie just turns up the notch even one level more I love the way she has that palatalized vowel sound in capitalism kind of like John Malkovich had in key all in rounders which we talked about way back in episode one I quote Missouri Ozarks accent Sam Rockwell three billboards outside having Missouri as the judge not to give her bail on account our previous marijuana violations in the judge said sure Sam Rockwell worked from a single real life model for this accent police chief I think in a town in southern Missouri there's a cool experience but I couldn't believe that it was happening I think it really shows it's such specific and detailed work I'm sure that let's just pull out to specific vowel sounds one of them is what we can call the goat owl and the other is the mouth foul will hear the first one in the word no hear no and that mouth foul in station house station has both of these sounds are dif they glide from one sound to the other no and they're really wide diphthongs wider than in my accent for instance so instead of O in know we get a starting point that's lower in the mouth oh no no a similar thing happens with the ow sound in house station has instead of a relatively constrained ow we get our house passed I love it when patterns show up like that no Texas accent Jeff Bridges hell or high water they're trying to raise you're certainly not that's my desk I'm just going to take a few bags to get there pop quiz what a Texas accents and South Asian accents have in common Oh give up am i understand that the answer is retroreflection or the tongue tip curling back does does does it require I think greater concentration you can hear that retroflex very tongue tip Edie sound here in how did you do how did you do it it's making contact there does does note to linguists it's not actually a retroflex consonants post alveolar but the tongue tip is curling back in that direction yeah we're getting so more an inflection to is just pure West Texas oh that was a good one you'll get the hang of this yet Vietnamese accent Hong Chau downsizing they do for me I pay them good no problem I go so some people thought this accent was an offensive stereotype for you so so guilty the actress is actually from a Vietnamese background this was a very personal role for me my parents are Vietnamese refugees and she based this on real people that she knew relatives and people should grow up around nice people Vietnamese has some of my favorite consonant sounds in all languages thank you they're called voiced implosives and they're these but look look sounds where the larynx actually moves down on the consonants and you can hear that here in big box box box if you have a pronounced Vietnamese accent that way of forming those consonant sounds will find its way into your English right so that's right American accent Daniel Kaluga get out they were asking me by the African American experience maybe you could take this one this is just so good there's nothing not to like in this accent I think it's a great performance I agree yeah let's just focus on one individual word listen to the way he pronounces the word good here good good and let's compare this to the same vowel sound in this episode of black mirror in Kahlua zone native accent that's it good so the vowel sound itself is a little different the arch of the tongue is in a different place of the mouth it's further back the lips are in a different shape but another thing that's really neat is the way he leans into the bowel how American accents generally tend to be a little more vowel centric the vowel length is kind of flexible as he do as opposed to the more kind of staccato slightly lessen fowl centric rhythm of Kalu use native accent and most British English accents generally it's perfect thanks Texas accent Michael Caine on deadly ground so tell me more about the Father what exact did we lose that just sounds like Michael Caine to me I don't need that kind of problem right I don't hear any evidence of an attempt at an accent which is an interesting choice there is an interesting overlap between a cockney accent and a Texas accent which is in that mouth valve for both accents it starts from an kind of higher place and goes wow you can hear that in the word now now you know why Michael Caine's own vowel but it works for Texas now you know but one accidentally overlapping vowel sound does not an accent me Kentucky accent Andrew Lincoln the walking dead we made a lot of noise you want to wrap this up quick this is such a fantastic accent be me and so much is right you mean me so I'm gonna be picky there's a pretty universal southern accent feature which is called the pin pen merger where we have the words pin and pan or other similar words come to sound the same are almost the same pan and pan and he actually does not have that going on in one word here which is the word 10 which should sound more like 10 give me 10 seconds 10 seconds but it's really great work overall grateful Italian accent Penelope Cruz the assassination of Gianni Versace as you know my daughter well very much is that as a non-native speaker to do a different accent in a second language that's hard oh sure she's really lowered her register it's so much lower in this performance than in her natural voice I'm paying Donatella and everybody knows that where she speaks you know and it's a very it's a very unique very particular way of speaking every room or every indiscretion is very very hard for me whenever we for my family for my children just the killer yes but they'll just addicted to she's really effectively shifted over her stress and inflection from a Spanish pattern to an Italian one listen to this here it was a create he was a collector he was a genius da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da as opposed to this it was almost like she was also their psychologist at the data that their psychology is that the da da da da I'm worried Jenny how shows were the future once Jenny was my little brother though was you know we're always together hey Australia it's been noted that we haven't given you a lot of love we haven't done any Aussie accents before so here are a few Australian accents Dev Patel Lyon yeah any idea what it's like knowing my real brother and mother spent every day of their lives looking for me he has some very broad versions of the price vowel you can hear and where it's like lie what it's like and lives largely and at the same time he does not have a very pronounced Australian version of the a diphthong in face you can hear that in name and pain pain pain and it's actually very narrow the diphthong doesn't move very far and I'm not sure you can find that narrow name and that broad price in the same Australian accent makes me see but the accent is right in a lot of particulars it is completely integrated and own he is acting through it and ultimately that's the most important thing I bet you never imagined it being this huh Australian accent Kate McKinnon rough night you don't have a calzone she's just something really skillful and on points with those Oh goat diphthongs and don't joint and calzone calzone they're really interesting in Australian English they have a totally different movement do you have Swiss chard and there's a little pharyngeal squeeze a squeeze in the throat she's actually got that that's a really subtle thing is this a practical joke not everything is quite that good I'm good I'm really good there's an R there that shouldn't be there at the end of the word where and where are we where are we it might be there if you ran the words straight through but she takes a pause afterwards so there shouldn't be an R there and where where where are we it's also very careful I feel like she's conscious of it the whole time it's not really an owned accent you're sort of kidding me right Antipodes accent Elisabeth Moss top of the lake Detective Sergeant this his character grew up in New Zealand she moved to Australia and maybe her accents supposed to be a little bit of a hybrid either way this sounds really American in name and case how do you know the case name as opposed to a much broader nine name case case which would be a lot of movement in the diphthong something like that Australian accents and even more so New Zealand accents are famous for what linguists call high rising terminal more commonly known as question intonation which is the voice rising at the end of what might just be a statement something like I like pie how do you know the case name and how do you know the girl what's curious here is not just that Elisabeth Moss is using Americans sort of standard falling inflections on these but that these are two questions where you might really expect to have that intonation Australian accent Zac Efron Mike and Dave need a wedding dates names Rick just got in from Melbourne so we talked about the phenomenon of goose fronting before that's where the vowel in words like goose through to is made with the arts of the tongue a little further forward in the mouth ooh Zac Efron's not doing that here and the word do it's way far back well yes I do he's kind of supposed to be doing a bad accent he gets found out right away I know that your brother he dated my niece look Mike I don't know your niece so does it matter that he didn't get that goose fronting and the word do like it's probably better that he didn't over there Australian accent Kate Winslet the dressmaker I can make you the most striking girl in the room this one's perfect why are you so interested in what I do all of a sudden let's focus on something that's amazing it's a teeny tiny little detail of the oral posture have a look at her lip corners here especially on the word dance I hear the footballers dance is Saturday night I see another kind of turning down dance dance a footballer's dance there's a muscle here called the depressor anguli oris which is responsible for pulling those lift corners down she's activating those it's not something she normally does and it's just right for the accent California accent nicole kidman big little lies this is he's a wonderful father I mean he's the best the best I couldn't think of a better one really so I'm gonna pick on something here now if we listen to the word best best the best this is her Australian accent creeping through Gilly her tongue is a little bit arched a little bit high a best best instead of a best which is what would fit better with the rest of the target accent the best listen here to the word god he treats me like a goddess she kind of evenly stresses it called desk goddess which is an Australian English pronunciation as opposed to the American goddess but it's also the vowel in that first syllable where she's got a little bit of lip rounding we get gul gul Dez got it which again is her Australian accent as opposed to the unrounded ah goddess version of America so this is an incredible performance you sure about this so why am I being so picky just to point out that this is really hard and it takes time if it's not completely second nature it can slip when the actor is having to focus on other things I don't know where this is coming from I really don't Boston accent Benedict Cumberbatch Black Mass you oughta come over to dinner sometime Marian the kids would love to see you we talked a little bit about Johnny Depp's performances whitey bulger in Episode three Johnny Depp Whitey Bulger so it's not just a Boston accent it's an idio life and forgotten where we came from notice his oral posture here there's a lip corner retraction and a jaw protrusion both of which you can see in the real Billy Bulger my mother she's born in Charlestown my father in the north end so that Joe is high as well so we have kind of a compressed space there it's almost shaped like a dinner plate inside the mouth you know what John good to see you doing so well you can see him listening and breathing through that same shape in space and configuration so when he speaks again give my regards to the boys of the plaza it's there it's all ready to go he stays in it Boston accent Lucas hedges Manchester by the sea what a delightful Boston neighborhood if you selected from Iceland oh this is wonderful work thank you I love the tight pulled in lips then against the teeth you could do that anyway we talked about price smoothing in Kentucky accents in Texas accents here's something that doesn't get talked about much in Boston accents which is mouth smoothing what so instead of an au diphthong it kind of starts in that place and really stays there listen to that here in town and now this plenty of toilets and clogged up drains all over town I got to maintain our boat now what's great too is because these are open vowels near the front of the mouth you can actually see that shape in his tongue now now where its darts and staves American accent Matthew Reese the Americans do not roll your eyes at me you can show me some respect there's a handful of little words that show up all the time was and what an of and from but a lot of British actors will do is they'll use the American version of the British vowel sound in those words and say waz and wow are you kidding me a lot of the time I think when we hear an accent from a British actor that kind of is almost perfect but something sticks out it's one of these words Matthew Reese gets all of them right listen to what and was in this clip what is whip you my life was the joke so you never hear him slip up on these words what what's what what are you what are you doing Philips American accent is a rhotic accent meaning all the R's are there even in unstressed syllables and after a vowel you know every so often Matthew Reese's native accent comes through and he actually leaves one of those are sounds out like in the name Kimberley here qqe it's a tiny little thing but I think it makes a difference I'm done with that now I have been for a long time Texas accent Brendan Fraser trust you think that being rich would be a breeze I think we can tell we're in Texas this character is from and I think it's East Texas Austin and Corpus Christi makes you so sure it's because of what we call the price vowel the vowel and words like life and right and time like right in my accent that vowel sound is a diphthong it moves it travels a life in a lot of the south and in West and Central Texas that fellow gets completely smoothed out so that it's not a diphthong anymore but just a long sound laugh right Tom East Texas has this on some price Valis but not others alright and he does it just right thank you very much so it stays a diphthong in life blood and right right but it's smooth out in calm turn which is exactly right and that cool English cockney accent Dick Van Dyke Mary Poppins this might be the most famous picked on bad movie accent ever well know loyal Academy I suppose I don't know what I have to add let me just say that I think dick Van Dyke's jaw was born to do a cockney accent still a bet on a finger in your age it's low very prominent and protruded maybe there was an opportunity there if he'd gone with his jaw to get closer to a real streets of London cockney accent now while does that sound Wakanda accent Letitia rights black panther this corsets is really uncomfortable so could we all just wrap it up and go Conda isn't a real place of course the accent that the t-shirt right is doing here is actually easy also which is a South African language and accent john connie originated the role of Chaka two challahs father in Captain America the Winter Soldier I am grateful to the Avengers for supporting this initiative and he is an easy OSS speaker so that just became the language of Wakanda custom a comes Helena Musa in any case Leticia Wright is doing an amazing job of it just something works doesn't mean that it cannot be improved Queens accent Tom Holland spider-man homecoming yeah and with pickles and can you swish it down real flat thanks this is really good thanks all the way through top to bottom I'm actually an actor I'm British and I'm playing spider-man he's doing something which is specific to a lot of younger Americans what's the vowel sound in the IMG endings of words like joking I'm joking I'm joking the way this accent usually gets taught to non-americans is with more of an a sound as in the word kit and he's doing more of an e sound as and the word fleece so joking joking I'm joking and that's something you hear from lots and lots of younger Americans so it's totally appropriate for the character this is great southern Irish accent joke Gilligan and preacher don't snap at me you've not cornered the market on being pissed off or Asia southern Irish accents when they get really expressive tend to have a very high fall that's the pitch contour listen to him here on there's no way there's no way it's really free and expressive why what is this what are the choices that supposed to mean I just also want to give a shout out to ruth negga in this who's doing an amazing job she's actually from Ethiopia but raised in Limerick Ireland Cassady I know what you want one of the things that's cool is that the trap vowel which is the vowel and words like asking and that is a little higher so the arch of the tongue it's arched up a little bit so ah ah and you can hear that hear and stop asking me that stop asking me that this is a really great southern American accent I know southern Irish accent Gerard Butler PS I Love You Jesus that's a lot more that's about joking Gerard Butler apologized to the nation of Ireland for getting their accent very wrong well good luck with that you southern Irish accents the strut vowel the vowel sound in words like calm come on mother if you click into that sound all dumb mother son you're gonna get some crucial information about the whole posture for the accent and if you don't get it you're probably gonna really struggle and he does are we finished now of Belfast accent Daniel day-lewis in the name of the Father like you always follow me when I do something wrong why can't you follow me when I do something right I think this is one of the best movie accents ever let's just talk about one diphthong which is the mouth diphthong you can hear it in the word house the only metal it was ever in our ice so in American English the tongue starts down in front uh and moves up in the back ooh ow house Belfast English is almost the exact opposite pattern it starts in the back of the mouth and moves up to sort of an arch in the middle a house it's also just a great sound notice the good I was happy I was delighted so there is an American English diphthong that is similar to this say the word ice now put an H in front of that hice it's not exactly the same as ice but it's not a world away it'll get you in the neighborhood I don't understand your language Scottish accent Christopher Lambert Highlander I was born in 1518 in the village of Glenfinnan on the shores of Loch Shiel did he drive not much I'm not sure there is one tact are you can hear the word immortal now I am immortal the funny thing is you wouldn't necessarily need to do that in a Scottish accent I talk funny - where are you from lots of different places conclusion the final thought I want to leave you with is again this is hard speech is really complex it's about the most complex thing we do physically as human beings and it's kind of what makes us who we are so if I'm being really picky on occasion or even splitting hairs it's because I think this is incredibly important stuff and because I think we can always be better

Channel: WIRED

Views: 7,249,588

Rating: 4.9461169 out of 5

Keywords: accent, accents, actors, american accent, australian accent, british accent, ott experts explain, ott technique critique, ott trending, english accent, daniel day lewis, accent breakdown, breaking down accents, accent expert, actor with accent, best accents, erik singer, arts & entertainment, accent analysis, best accent, actors accent, erik singer accent, wired accent expert, wired accents, cockney accent, worst accent, wired

Id: ZXyWwirLfcg

Length: 24min 22sec (1462 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 17 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/TheBoyWonder13]

I could literally listen to this guy talk for hours. He's so knowledgable and extremely interesting to listen to. And he has a very soothing voice. And he looks like Dennis. What's not to like

[u/Jardun]

Love to see good Texas accents in film, which is rare. Brendan Fraser and Jeff Bridges are great.

That Michael Cain 'accent' is hilarious.

[u/kingbane2]

as a vietnamese person when the vietnamese accent popped up i was like DAMN that's spot on, sounds just like my parents. when he mentioned people thought it was racist i was like hmmm they must not know many vietnamese immigrants.

he's absolutely right about those unique sounds for consonants that show up into english. it's very unique to the vietnamese accent.

edit: also his pronunciation of those consonants were really impressive. you rarely see non vietnamese speakers who can mimic it.

[u/[deleted]]

I know nothing about accents but keep finding myself watching these videos.

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It blows my mind how much this guy knows about dialect. I understand it's his profession/training.education but I'm still just in awe at the knowledge he has on the topic.

[u/TheEnygma]

is there any accent Daniel-Day Lewis can't do?

[u/kingrawer]

Yes! I was worried they weren't going to do more accent ones.

[u/MMath]

Watched this and now I can't speak English anymore

[u/blitzbangloo]

I love these videos especially the perfect comedic timing of the edits. Whoever edited this one needs a raise.

[u/iamnotbillyjoel]

i think if he really applied himself, he could also be a tv accent expert.