Movie Accent Expert Breaks Down 32 Actors' Accents | WIRED

my mother about you sorry thank you what else would I do with myself hi I'm Eric Singer eric is a dialect coach who helps actors with their accents in film and television let's look at some clips southern accent Brad Pitt inglorious basterds their left foot soldiers have a jew-hating mass-murdering maniac and they need to be destroyed Tennessee accents and southern accents in general have something called goose fronting sad good which is that the vowel in words like goose jew-jew humanity humanity cruel we will be cruel to the Germans his fronter in the mouth so jus humanity cruel he doesn't really get that it's what I liked here Nigerian accent Will Smith concussion if you continue to deny my work the world will deny my work Smith is playing a real person here that's all I am Bennet Omalu who has a somewhat Americanized Nigerian accent that Oh Will Smith playing me Smith doesn't seem to be going for a malas voice so much as do the truth kind of generalized Nigerian or African accent the truth listen to those th sounds in this this is bigger than they are they should be dentalized this day this is bigger than they are impersonation of Truman Capote Philip Seymour Hoffman Capote I know ain't you've handed in the final scene when the bellhop told me I had a phone call this is just amazing in every way his particular vocal quality and mannerisms are just like Capote's I think journalism can be good but I don't think creative writing can be good the accent is dead-on perfect here with my dead father Joe Caputi and the accents totally integrated going to see my mother died it's integral to the character and what the actor is doing as the character he had quite a lot to say about us Boston accent Michael Keaton spotlight this is our town Jimmy everybody knew something was going on and no one did a thing he's going for a Boston accent that has one of the stereotypical markers which is a lot god hot foul he says on one time come on and he says on the next if something was going on he doesn't do that rounding on confirmation from take a confirmation confirmation confirmation you should we got to put it into it polish accent kate winslet jobs that you told her you weren't going to pay for harvard this is really good for the most part thank you a thing that she doesn't quite get is the oral posture her mouth is very open again maybe theater training the more you open your mouth the more sound comes out it's a little thing have a look at johanna Hoffman's jaw all software developers it's a much closer joy it's much higher the less space between the teeth extremely easy to use look at Kate Winslet's but what you make isn't supposed to be the best part of you much more open Meryl Streep and Sophie's Choice check out her job take care then love her very very good to me Belfast accent Tom Cruise far and away grace is it Tramp she's a dancer in the burly cute she's my sister you know I'm sure this could have been better I know the actor probably wasn't given enough time to prepare that's enough of a sounds in like we get to see it like my shirt and hat did you say you like my hat keep going all over the place like sometimes they're close sometimes they're just say it Tom Cruise hardeneth French accent Joseph gordon-levitt the Walk This Day is going up go back to the hotel if I'm not back in five hours look for me to pull a stitch yes sir this is pretty good there are definitely things that could be improved here's a good thing listen to the vowel in stop they just ride the never stuff those human pretty dead-on she might pull out his are sounds here as being inconsistent sometimes he's got a French to uvular the scale the scale sometimes a more American sounding rep they just right they just right but people are inconsistent that's real that th sound and that is she's my dream he nails it and it's too easy that's hard for a French speaker Oh idris elba mandela long walk to freedom my lord it is not i but the government that should be put in the dock this is a great job Elba does a lot to capture Mandela's particular vocal characteristics and mannerism and placement rich I hope to live for he's actually got a little bit of a retracted a pulled back tongue rude listen to the word prepared I am prepared as opposed to prepared I am prepared we call that the square lexical set it should be a monophthong for Mandela and Xhosa accents generally whereas Elba makes it a different I prayed north guilty southern accent Nicolas Cage Conair I got nothing in common with the end with you they were the same it's my daughter's birthday today I don't know what happened to the actors prep here my first thought would be this doesn't really hit any of the marks southern accents have vowel breaking in words like creep and freak there's somehow managed to get every creep and freak in the universe which means that's a little wiggle crate and freak creep and freak also a foul and weird like playing only this one play should start lower you're not hearing any of that Wyoming Texas accents Jake Gyllenhaal Heath Ledger Brokeback Mountain you being a Mexico Jack twist cuz out here what they got in Mexico for boys like you here yes I've been in Mexico Gyllenhaal nails his Wyoming accent here listen to the vowel in 1 & 1 so it's all the way back in his mouth I did once I did once you can also hear it in a couple of high altitude folks couple of high out to do once or twice a year I loved his performance Here I am joking the characters tightness and repression and kind of struggle with himself is mirrored in his posture boom the newer look the way his jaw and his lips are held tight all the time you can even see him listening through that posture why don't you let me be though English accent Kevin Costner Robin Hood Prince of Thieves the chef calls us outlaws but I say we are free so this is like the paradigm of bad movie accents this is the one everybody brings up for good reason and faced with the price where it may be dear he can't make up his mind whether to leave the ARS in or take them out he's more powerful than 10 hired soldiers nothing's right here then I say we can win Creole accent from Sierra Leone Leonardo DiCaprio Blood Diamond you get full pammie force for them and get one more dead body instead of aeroplane way full with grenade launcher DiCaprio is speaking a West African Creole here called Creole Jane Goldman at least and go pay me huh all rotten air Caden no rotten AKM can't stand government true against then government true it's a creditable job but it's no fine huh it's a little marred by some West Indian intonation are you Chris otherwise it's pretty good are you Chris David or yellow whoa Selma but we shall be victorious in our quest David's not doing an impersonation it's more of an evoke ation which means he's just suggesting this very familiar voice listen to how much of his vocal range Martin Luther King jr. actually uses a man die when he refuses to stand up for justice and compare it to David a yellow not quite the same Baltimore accent Idris Elba the wire we're not gonna bring that corner up in here you hear me there's two volume up the truth business this is amazing Elmo was working on this accent for years one thing this axe that doesn't have is a really interesting Baltimore specific african-american pronunciation of words like to you what do you do follow to what about you but you can hear from other actors in the same show who are actually Baltimore natives listen to prop Joe naylet my nephew my nephew Japanese accent Mickey Rooney Breakfast at Tiffany's we have a pee made let this happen vintage New York City accent Daniel day-lewis Gangs of New York I want you to go out there you nobody else punished it's always tough to do a historical accent do you go for absolute accuracy at the risk of alienating the audience and making it inaccessible may have misgivings but don't go believe in magic and I think he walks the line brilliantly here the tip of his tongue hits a different place hits his teeth which is characteristic of a New York accent tell me tell me tell me this charge does it sit on easy with you he also gets a lot of nasality into the accent when in the heaven's name you're talking about still maintains a lot of color and expression help yourself to some decent meat on the way out Scottish accent no Gibson Braveheart and I see Oh army of my countrymen dear and defiant security you know I think maybe Gibson gets a bad rap for this performance yeah it does slip out why does it go but when it's on it's pretty good for example fight and you may die run and you love that's pretty good I give you thanks Russian accent Viggo Mortensen Eastern Promises if you can prove baby was his and Goethe was in that age that is statutory rape yeah Mortensen does a pretty creditable job here but please it doesn't feel quite integrated it's a little general for political reasons it's not that the sounds are off they're all pretty good okay it just feels a little stiff and a little careful the accent hasn't quite settled in yet thank you not like a real person speaking and then when you're talking their mouth afrikaans accent Matt Damon Invictus please mr. president it plays complete sense to me in the bus on the way to the stadium nobody talks damon prepped really well for this role and it's just a great job on an accent that's usually really hard for Americans there's always something to pick on listen to the line that has chosen and no in it something I've chosen when we all know nails that vowel the first time something I've chosen not so much the second time when we all know Paraguay and accent jon voight anaconda never look in the eyes of those you killed they will haunt you forever I have no idea what that accent was I know Kate Blanchet The Aviator he's equalities but it's all tied up inside the body so this is a great avocational Katharine Hepburn's particular idiolect if I had to quibble with it I'd say that Blanchette relies really strongly on Hepburn's Tambor and intonation your honor yeah she doesn't quite have the posture she has a very open jaw perhaps from her theater training if your death you must own up to it I supposed to the sort of high tide and slightly forward jaw that Katharine Hepburn had women and men simply are not the same man got these friends with women how they're just not the same English accent Angelina Jolie Maleficent I really felt quite distressed not receiving an invitation so Julie's going for us like the old-fashioned very posh English accent here yeah yeah what we'd call received pronunciation and she does a great job of it oh dear listen to the way she says the words royalty royalty nobility nobility gentry gentry and those short ending a sounds you won't really hear that in English accents anymore how quaint Russian accent john malkovich rounders and in my club I will splish the port whenever the I please is wolf you have left in the morning so Russian speaking English will sometimes stick a little yet sound in alligator loved and what Malkovich does here is something that no Russian speaker speaking English would actually do which is palatalized everything the way Malkovich says this ain't cool my cool is over-enthusiastic you'll never hear that from an actual Russian speaker London accent Renee Zellweger Bridget Jones's Diary the greatest book of our time one of the top 30 music oral posture these things are all going really really well thank you she does lateral plosion on words like gentleman gentleman that's exploding the T sounds straight into the L sound when it's difficult for a lot of people gentlemen gently gentlemen it's that estuary English accent that she's going for with a character properly German accent Brad Pitt seven years in Tibet the one raising their flags and honor the Chinese don't deserve this could be better listen to the words have you have the entire Palace in a panic and kind kind of difficult in the Glass House no in German the consonants at the ends of words are D voiced and this carries over into English so weird like have you have the entire Palace is gonna have a sound at the end of weird like kind kind of difficult is gonna have more like a sound at the end so half and kind which is really hard for a German to do speaking english belfast accent brad pitt snatch brings the filler size of you unless they're trying to say something they're talking right by right of you I wanna Catamounts kind of weeds Belfast English can be really hard for American ears to understand the abuzz about hey sorry listen the vowels in the words car she got a car you got a car which was just great contrast that with in the devil's own when he says see and sleep there is no more peaceful way I want to see and he just doesn't have it New York City accent he Fletcher the dark night but I know the truth there's no going back you've changed things forever this is a weird idiosyncratic American accent you for a weird idiosyncratic character complete I love the way he's able to maintain his accent even with this weird tongue flicking outa gesture that it does this part of the character English accent Keanu Reeves Bram Stoker's Dracula I know where the Boston sleeps my bottom there I've seen many strange things already bloody wolves chasing me through some blue infernos how southern English accents are non-rhotic you leave the R sound out after a vowel in a word like inferno blue inferno he can't make up his mind whether to do it or not I will give it my full attention vintage California accent Daniel day-lewis there will be blood one night I'm gonna come to you inside of your house wherever you're sleeping and I'm gonna cut your throat so this is another flavor of vintage or early American totally different from Gangs of New York is just about buying all my tracks you I love the way he seems to build the accent and even the character around the oral posture of course you do what you do he has his tongue bunched up in the middle of his mouth and bracing against the molars and he lets his cheeks be very loose yes I do his mustache is also perfect what else would I do with myself English cockney accent Don Cheadle Ocean's eleven hang on are you accusing me a booby trap it there's no way the actor was given enough time to prepare oh yeah for example listen to this line it'll be nice working with proper villains again none of those bells really hit their targets you had one job to do conclusion look this stuff isn't easy good or bad these actors all took some serious risks for our entertainment big asterisk here when an accent doesn't go right it's usually not the actor's fault it's usually a combination of actor coach and production and often is about not having enough time to prepare before shooting starts if there's one thing to remember is that accent is a crucial layer of storytelling cool

Channel: WIRED

Views: 11,335,551

Rating: 4.9294548 out of 5

Keywords: accent breakdown, breaking down accents, brad pitt accent, inglourious basterds, nigerian accent, will smith accent, philip seymour hoffman, capote, boston accent, actors, michael keaton, accent expert, polish accent, tom cruise, joseph gordon levitt, french accent, actor with accent, actors best accents, best accents, idris elba, lexicon, nicolas cage, nic cage, nic cage accent, don cheadle, worst accents, movie accents, accent analysis, wired

Id: NvDvESEXcgE

Length: 16min 41sec (1001 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 16 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/AppleChiaki]

Matt Damon talking about John Malkovich's accent in Rounders

[u/[deleted]]

Typical Double D Lewis always being great.

[u/ape_cage]

lmao @ nic cage in con air

[u/treyson]

Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote is really amazing.

[u/NerdHeaven]

I love accent videos like this, but my favorite I still this one as it has some really good examples and it flow really well. https://youtu.be/-8mzWkuOxz8

[u/the_next_seth]

This is awesome, he really seems to have the expertise to talk intelligently about these subtle vocal quirks.

[u/groceryliszt]

I directed/edited this. Ask me anything about this brilliant human named Erik.

[u/notreallyswiss]

How did Heath Ledger become so amazing? I remember him in a couple of stupid teen comedies, then suddenly - BAM! He's a modern marvel. Especially in Brokeback, the voice and, as this expert says, the way he holds his mouth so rigid just informs everything about this character and makes him real - more real than some of the actors portraying actual historical people. And like his Joker, the vocal mannerisms are so ballsy - they could have ruined the characters and made them laughingstocks. His acting was the first I realized that actors take real risks - you are not just a good or a bad actor, you make a choice about who your character is and what that means in an exact and meaningful way, down to every detail. It can go very wrong. But the good actors make us believe them, the mediocre actors get through it (or they don't), the bad actors just play themselves, saying lines, in a costume. The great actors actually create new cultural touchstones that make us see people or situations in a new and revealing way.

I was also impressed with Angelina Jolie and Renee Zellweger in kind of silly roles - the clips and discussion in this video made me realize how hard they really worked on these characters, but it's effortless to watch. They feel true and real.

[u/JoshyBiz]

Brad Pitt's accent in Snatch isn't supposed to be from Belfast - It's supposed to be 'pikey'