MovieChat Forums > The Year of Living Dangerously (1983) Discussion > Ms. Weaver's accent

Ms. Weaver's accent

posted 12 years ago by gioconda
7 replies | jump to latest

Surprising Siggy Weaver got any more work after this movie. Her accent was awful in this film as was her acting.

These comments come 30 years after the movie was released.

It's hard to believe Sig & Mel GIbson ever looked so good, but wow, they were both gorgeous.

Re: accents ~~~ Since Mel was actually Australian, his accent made Sig's hilariously bad British accent sound even more ridiculous.

Linda Hunt's accent was also dreadfully uneven and not even close to sounding Australian, but I guess nobody cared. She won an Oscar anyway.

[–] StarCaser 12 years ago

I am surprized that you believe that Sigourney's British accent was so bad. Considering that Sigourney's mother was born and grew up in Great Britain, one would have expected Sigourney to have learned how to speak with an British Accent.
Agree 100% with the pulchritude part of your post.

[–] avia2 12 years ago

But her character is a traveller. I know many English people with faint American accent because they've travelled abroad a lot.

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] ph75006 9 years ago

TRUTH. I know lots of English people who've taken on American accents and vice versa. Most of the time, it's just bits of speech and intonation that'd change (where the stresses would fall and the pronunciation of vowels, etc). Due to growing up on both sides of the Atlantic, I know I'm guilty of this inconsistency too and I know that it'll frequently drive some people crazy. It really depends on one's environment. If everyone around me speaks with an English accent, then my own would revert back naturally.

[–] ph75006 9 years ago

I thought Sig's accent was okay. It was just a bit inconsistent.

What really jarred me was Mel's Aussie accent. I'm just so used to hearing him speak in an American accent that his natural Aussie one seemed really affected in this film for some bizarre reason. He's been in the US for a looong time so it's not a surprise that his way of speaking has almost entirely changed. There are a few other actors (Charlize Theron, Poppy Montgomery, etc) who have confessed to switching over to speaking American all the time in order to practice and then after a few years, found themselves unable to go back completely to their original accents. Maybe that's what happened to Mel.

[–] txfilmfan 8 years ago

I once worked with someone in London who was born and raised in Canada by British parents, went to university in Australia and had worked in London for 10 years after that. As the company we were working with had a mix of British, Americans, Europeans of all backgrounds, and a few folks from Australia and New Zealand, her accent was shifting all the time, favoring whichever accent was closest to the person with whom she was talking. It was quite amazing to see her switch from a flat North American accent, to Aussie and then RP all within a few minutes. She said she's not even aware of it most of the time.

[–] Mike_Stockton 7 years ago

Perhaps not so obvious in the movie, however in the novel Guy Hamilton is Australian/American and Billy Kwan is Australian/Chinese.