He arrived in America as a child as a refugee. Okay, English is not his first language. But he has had a long time to work on his diction.
I hear the W used for R sounds. Surely Hollywood fame as a child could have set him up with a speech therapist.
It's just an accent. Not like he has poor grammar/vocabulary.
shareHis family probably didn't speak English at home. How many languages do you speak fluently?
shareHe can't help his ACCENT.
FWIW I've heard you can change an accent up through your teens. After that, it "hardens".
He probably had a chance to work on it as a kid. But who knows how serious he took it? He was just a kid & probably more focused on schoolwork. Can't really blame him or his parents for not seeing how it might hurt his career.
That might apply in some cases but not all, for sure.
My dad was born and raised in "Noo Yawk" city and by his own admission sounded like a typical "Noo Yawker" until he was in his early 20s. After graduating from Columbia and landing a management job at a major international oil company, he realized that having *any* heavy US regionalized accent was a detriment in the corporate world - correct articulation was the way to go.
So, he taught himself to have no accent whatsoever and believes that helped him achieve career success. He retired as president of an international subsidiary of the same original oil company he started with.
Growing up, I actually pointed out to a 13 years old boy who fished near me that he was using W sounds instead of R.
He would say "it's gonna Wayne" instead of "rain".
I would get him to practice his Rs and next time I'd see him fishing he'd say "listen to this" and say some R words.
Until he met me, nobody had pointed it out.
But because of me he won't sound slightly handicapped as an adult.