As a foreigner, I cannot help but wonder why they chose US actors as the leads. So to all Irish visitors of this site: Was their Irish accent alright? Did they get it right, considering the area their characters lived in? I remember the Robin Hood-Version with Kevin Costner - every critic ridiculed his accent...
shareIt is true, as someone's already mentioned, that of the leads only Chris O'Donnell was from the States. Minnie Driver was born in England, Geraldine O'Rawe in Ireland and Saffrow Burrows also in England.
It was 1995 and Chris O'Donnell was a popular actor. I'm sure they chose him in order to get people to see the movie. I have to say that I thought his Irish accent was pretty poor but I'm sure he did the best he could. Some actors aren't capable of foreign accents. I do think he acted well in the movie despite that one flaw. :)
I can't really imagine who they could have put in his place unless they went with unknown local talent which happens sometimes but as a previous poster said he was popular at the time and I guess they thought he'd glam it up a bit. I always thought actors should try to localise their accent rather than just adobt a run of the mill Irish brogue. It worked well for Cate Blanchett in Veronica Guerin she adopted a mild east Ireland almost Dublin accent.
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The accents are dodgy, very few actors can get the irish accent right. Daniel Day-Lewis can, but he lives here so has the advantage. It is usually a bad idea to put american actors doing the irish accent. There are so many different accents here though- local accents vary every 20 or 30 miles.
Johnny Depp accidentally did an authentic dublin accent in Chocolat when he was supposed to be playing a gypsy.
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Ok, that's what I thought. I guess it is hard to adopt another one's accent, even for some actors.
shareI'm not even Irish and even I could tell that Chris O'Donnell's accent sucked. Although, I have been to Ireland, so I do have some experience with the accent.
Either way, it seemed that he didn't.
The worst accent in the whole film was Saffron Burrowes. She was dire. Just dire. Saw her in the Finder doing a cockney accent, and the word painful comes to mind. She was not picked up for the series, only appearing in Bones.
Minnie Driver's was pretty strong. The weird thing is why they cast an English actress in the lead role, when they had a fairly interesting Irish actress as her friend. I wonder why they never took an unknown for the lead, and give high profile actors the secondary roles, sort of like what they did with Superman, when Christopher Reeve was an unknown, yet they cast known stars like Margot Kidder and Gene Hackman in the supporting roles. I know a comic book movie is a strange comparison, considering the subject matter is miles apart.
Alan Cummings accent was actually really good. He has a knack for accents.
Scottish and Irish accents are closer together than they are to English accents. That probably helped Cumming out. That said, yes, he is an excellent actor and does have a knack for changing his voice and appearance--though his Russian accent in Goldeneye was hilariously bad.
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Oh yeah, his accent in GoldenEye was bad. But Bond movies are never really known for doing good accents.
Funny how the Russian accent is nearly always done badly. That or the German accent.
Yes, I am living in Germany and so far I haven't heard hardly anyone getting it right. "Bruno" isn't bad, but in a funny way. Craig Ferguson does some funny German accent bits but they always come close to Sacha Baron Cohen's style.
shareChris lost his Irish accent halfway through he movie. Always hated that.
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