MovieChat Forums > Damages (2007) Discussion > Zeljko Ivanek's Ray Fiske accent

Zeljko Ivanek's Ray Fiske accent


I was utterly confused. At first I thought he was trying to do a poor attempt of a general "Southern" accent. And then the accent got out of control and didn't sound like anything in particular. Then I heard his wife Mallory talk with the stereotypical "Southern" drawl too. I looked Zeljko up and realized he's Slovenian but spent most of his life in the Anglophone world. Indeed, his Emmy acceptance was spoken in a fluent American English, so he has no accent.

So why the Ray Fiske accent?

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As someone from the South myself, his accent was dreadful beyond belief. I can't believe he won an award after speaking his lines that way. Just goes to show you...the Hollywood crowd wouldn't know a Southern accent if it hit them in the face.


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I'm no expert on Southern accents, but his accent sounds ridiculous. It is an otherwise brilliant performance but shamefully marred by this silly accent which was unnecessary in the first place. The accent added nothing to the story.

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I am obviously ignorant to what an authentic southern accent sounds like..but it never sounded horrible to me in the show. Nowhere near the lows reached on HBO's True Blood.

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I think he was going for a James Carville Louisiana accent. That's who came to my mind, at least, when Fiske spoke.

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I think they implied or even said at some point that Fiske and his wife were from New Orleans. And I agree, it sounded kind of like James Carville, only Fiske made alot more sense.

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After living in the south for the last 15 years, I’ve heard them all. His lame idiotic idea of a generic “southern” accent is atrocious. Unless an actor has at least lived in the southern part of the United States, they really can’t pull it off. Southern accents and the way people pronounce certain words changes from state to state. Georgia is clearly different from Louisiana, Texas or Mississippi. They tend to add a syllable to the end of a word and some in the middle. And, not every southern accent is a slow drawl. When I first moved down south, I couldn’t understand what they were saying because they had this rapid fire way of speaking. When I said, I’m sorry can you say that again and they would, I could only pick up a word here or there. It became, what’s the matter honey, don’t you speak English? I would say anyone born after WWII talks very fast and are very animated when they talk. The older adults were the people who attended to talk with a slow drawl. Since it’s clear he was born after WWII, he doesn’t have the fast way of speaking down either.

So why the Ray Fiske accent?


I think because "Hollywood" has the idea that southerner are more approachable, less defensive then say a person from NYC, Bronx or Brooklyn accents. Unless you tick off a southern woman, then they will give you a piece of their mind.

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