I'm not complaining about Karl Urban, but its just something I was curious about in general. The character doesn't speak any English at all. Wouldn't it have just been so much easier and saved costs and time if they'd just gotten a native speaker?
shareProblem is, you need to find a Russian/Eastern European actor with firstly a good command of English to be able to work with (actors need to work together to develope idea's and contribute to the story)
Secondly, you need to find an actor who is well known west of Berlin to get people to go to see the movie for probably your biggest audience.... at the time Karl Urban had just been in a pretty big part in Lord of the Rings, so was hot property at the time, so naturally people will take note of a movie with both Damon and Urbans name above the title.
Well, it was a bit weird when Kirill, a contract killer, violent and self-confident, was speaking Russian "Ty gavaril shto dash myeashyats atdykcha" ("You told me I had one month off") anaemic like with a toothache...
It is so funny when actors from US or western Europe speak Slavic languages, for example Jim Sturgess in "The way back", Robert Pattinson in "Water for elephants", Daniel Brühl in "Ladies in Lavender" and Karl Urban here. It's always noticeable how unnatural it is for them - they speak too fast and indictinct or too slow and articulate like in the reading lesson. Even in the movies with the reader who drowns out the voices I can notice when they insert Polisch sentence - they suddenly lower their heads, their eyes cast down and they mumble. The only exception which I know was fantastic August Diehl in "Mr. Kuka's Advice", he looked very calm and natural speaking Polish, paradoxically he didn't play Pole but German who speaks Polish a little - as opposed to Jim Sturgess or Daniel Brühl.
My wife is Ukrainian, and in Supremacy she gives Urban a 6 out of 10 for playing a Russian.... she says he has the look and arrogence perfect, but the language is not as good as it could have been (but she says she has seen a lot worse!!!).
She mentions Hitman as being one of the worse for non-Russians playing Russian parts, as they use "easy" words, mixed with Slavic "sounding" words (that have absolutly no meaning) to make up sentances.
That's really interesting! Please ask her about Malkowitch in Rounders. I hate his "Russian" accent but maybe she sees it different.
Thanks in advance.
It’s just so sad that the variety of the world should be used as a contentious issue.
When I first saw Supremacy I was living with a Russian girl at the time and she literally laughed out loud every time Karl Urban attempted to speak Russian. She described it as sounding like he had a broken jaw, it was so bad.
Conversely, she also said that Matt Damon's Russian was almost perfect - obviously not a native speaker, but he had the cadence and pronunciation just right.
Ironic considering that Urban was supposed to be an actual Russian and Damon wasn't...
Ironic considering that Urban was supposed to be an actual Russian and Damon wasn't...
Does it really matter, though?
The movie is American, made for English speaking people. They could've just as well had them speaking some sort of gibberish, and it'd have been fine with most of us - since we don't understand it anyway. I mean, how would we know, while watching it?
It wasn't intended to satisfy Russians.
No problem here. But when people whine about supposedly bad American accents all the time we can talk about other accents as well, can't we?
It’s just so sad that the variety of the world should be used as a contentious issue.
Well, if it's a US-made movie, and there's someone who's supposed to be from Maine, talking like he's from Australia - then there's a problem.
But if it's a British or Irish movie with some Americans who don't sound right, I can let it slide.
If it's a foreign language movie, I wouldn't care, as I wouldn't be watching it anyway.
Huh?
If a non-american actor in an American film can't get the accent perfect it's a problem. If an American actor can't get it right in a foreign film, it's OK?
Why's that?
It’s just so sad that the variety of the world should be used as a contentious issue.
Did I say that?
What I'm saying is that an American film for an American audience should have decent American or regional accents - no matter who plays the part.
If I'm watching an English movie, and they have someone playing an American, who to me doesn't sound like one, then I shouldn't complain, as I'm not the target audience.
OK.
Here we have an American film with a character supposed to be Russian. The target audience is American? Then it should be OK...
Oh well, to each his own. It's not a big concern for me the actors speaking in a "correct" accent anyways. The one exception would be Malkovich. That was just too much.
It’s just so sad that the variety of the world should be used as a contentious issue.
Just my opinion.
It sounded Russian enough to me.
Urban's Russian was abyssmal. Whoever coached him was truly awful. I do know Russian and lived there, learning the language. Damon's was better, but not perfect by any means.
shareThey shoulda worried more about getting some actors who could speak/imitate Russian at least semi-believably - both this Urban dude and the blond one who played a Czech native in 15 Minutes, were rather awful. Nowhere near a proper pronounciation; as a matter of fact, Matt Damon`s Russian sounded better than what these two clowns spoke.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
In Soviet Russia, Kirill plays Russian Actor.
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