MovieChat Forums > The Jane Austen Book Club (2007) Discussion > Not buying Emily Blunt's American Accent

Not buying Emily Blunt's American Accent


it kinda ruined the movie for me.

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Well, I guess you missed out.

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I liked it. I found it better than her American Accent in the Devil Wears Prada.

"Come Again? That's what she said."

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Except, she didn't have an American accent in Devil. Her character Emily was English in that movie.


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Lol my bad. She had a great American accent in Dan In Real Life, there's a perfect example.

"That thing you're sucking on is not a Pina Coloda....."

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I thought she did a good job. Had a very proper, uptight way of speaking which was very fitting for her character.

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yeah emily blunt isn't that great with the american accent, but she is a great actress and that does make up for a lot.

"Whoa! Dream Big!"

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well, maybe her character required that kind of accent, I mean, Prudy is an eurowannabe...

anyway, hugh dancy's accent (the other brit of the film) sounds pretty good for me :)

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*agrees*

Plus when she was practicing lines with Trey, she stated that languages are her specialty

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Yes; in response to whoever called her accent a transition, you're mistaken. "British" encompasses a variety of accents, including Irish, Welsh, and English (and more accents therein), and Emily's character most definitely had an English accent for DWP. She didn't "change up" anything at all, as an English accent counts as a British one as well.

"It is morning, and there is so much to see."

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Agree!!

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Actually it was British.. She has a English accent, but for Prada she changed it up a little and made it British. They are so similar that it is hard for us americans to tell the difference. lol If I hadn't heard Emily in an interview talking about it - I would not have known either.

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What's the difference between an English accent and a British accent?

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I know that, but I don't get what the last poster meant when they said she changed her accent from English to British!

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"What's the difference between an English accent and a British accent?"

Good point, but one could say that there is no such thing as a British accent, rather the several accents that make up English speakers in the UK part of the British isles. In fact, to say someone has an English accent is equally problematic.

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I didn't realize until I read this post that she's not American.

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You know, I've never heard Emily in an interview so I had no idea that she didn't speak that way normally. She sounded very American to me.

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That English vs British thing is a little anal don't you think?

I'm not English or American but it's almost like an American saying 'Well, how can you say there's "an" American accent when I'm sure each state has their own twang.

English is English is English



Roman Polanski: The original five foot pole you don't want to touch anyone with.

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There is no such thing as a British accent...

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There is no general "American" elocution. The accent copied most often by most actors of non-specific, English, North-American parts is a straight mid-western without unusual inflection, but it is hardly definitively "American."

American includes a very specific Maine-towner, Long Island, all the boroughs of New York (heavens, Bronx is different from Brooklyn, which differs greatly from Queens, and all predicated on social class within the microcosms), three distinct Tennessee accents, North and West Virginia (hillbillies versus townies, of course), the two separate Carolinas, Georgia, separated very much by class, Chicago, the rest of Illinois (though upstate and downstate will tell you they can tell the difference), and all sorts of others, also separated by class, socialization, education and means. Unlike the stereotypical British, we have no single, definable "posh" accent (though the Brits will inform you that this single "posh" accent is also a fabrication), but the American inflection is no less complex, no less varied.

Standard Midwest is the general inflection to which most actors who are not attempting to portray a regional specific aspire, but it is hardly a definitive, nor even a singular, "American" accent.

Now, there is a general American language, as opposed to the Queen's English, per se, but this has nothing whatsoever to do with inflection, and everything to do with differing idioms and colloquialisms.

And Emily did not fail at developing *any* "American" accent; she obviously simply did not achieve the specific affectation some people expected - her accent in the film was entirely tolerable as one of the many, varied accents in the States.

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To respond to zithro, I thought her accent was okay, but the main problem with it was not that it was not American, but that it was obviously generic. She wasn't from anyplace in the states, and definitely not from California (my home state). I'm not sure what people make such a fuss about it, however. When I first saw the film, I did not realize that either she or Dancy were not American, and their accents did not distract me.

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I thought her accent sounded a little off on some words...... but I totally went with it 'cause it still sounded cool, and added to her character.

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I actually found Hugh Dancy's American accent to be quite bad. It was very distracting. He didn't seem the least bit American to me.

I didn't notice Emily's accent at all.

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Agreed. I kept hearing bits of his normal English accent, and then over compensating the American accent. It was a distraction, but I didn't mind too much, he's just so pretty to look at :).

Emily's didn't bother me at all. Prudie seems the type of person to speak a little differently anyway... but being an Aussie, I can't say her accent stood out as distracting or bad or anything.

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I thought it was great!

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I agree that I didn't buy it either. She sounded like she was trying to combine the character's snobbishness with an American accent and the result was that she just sounded...well...constipated.

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