...a joke. Almost all the non-British actors sounded terrible particularly Sterling Hayden. He sounded like he was a cowboy from the West rather than a Medieval Englishman. I like the guy but his bad job at sounding British ruined the whole feel of the film. Neither Robert Wagner nor Janet Leigh fared any better.
...why thank you ever so, I never buy insurance. - Lorelei Lee
Wagner's accent was the worst . . . just so middle of the road 20th century American for a medieval Scandinavian!
shareSince no one at that time would have been speaking English anyway (the closest would have been the invading Anglo-Saxons, who spoke a form of "Anglish" we wouldn't even understand and who don't appear in this movie anyway), the accents don't matter.
shareI have never understood why American actors hardly ever do British accents. Surely they can? They are actors after all. If Streep and Paltrow can nail it then any of them can. It really grates when those US tones come out of a supposedly british character. Brits do USA all the time and very successfully if the ratings are anything to go by. Dominic West, Hugh Laurie et al. Don't be so idle Yanks -earn your crusts!!
shareOh, Please!! Brits do USA accents atrociously, according to American ears. Ratings have nothing to do with it. Hugh Laurie gets it mostly right, but his Brit roots are clearly discernable.
Let's face it, we each can tell the fake in our own accents. Most British actors can't do American regional accents, as Americans can't do British. When you're working on a project for a matter of days, there's not enough time to become an expert linguist.
I stopped being so judgmental on accents a long time ago. Much easier on the brain, and you can pay more attention to the story that way. I'm just happy to be able to understand actors these days, given how they all mutter and mumble.
People who don't like dogs should be killed. - Simon Marchmont
The initial scenes got me, the Vikings who had an American, Irish and West Country accent respectively.
shareHayden intoning, 'Sorry my beef bones!' must be the absolute nadir of 20th century cinema.
shareThere is no such thing as a "British" accent; it is "English," "Scottish," "Irish," or "Welsh," and even in different parts of each country the accent can vary.
I didn't get the impression that they tried to do British accents at all. They simply spoke American English, but perhaps with a sentence structure which seem a bit unnatural for American English. I didn't mind at all.
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I agree. I don't think Wagner or Hayden were trying to do a British accent. They just spoke the way they always did.
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