MovieChat Forums > Amelia (2009) Discussion > Gene Vidal's Accent

Gene Vidal's Accent


I saw a free screening of this movie on Tuesday. Gene Vidal (played by Ewan Ecgregor) appears early on in the movie, then disappears for a while and comes back near the end. I am almost positive that in the first scene he had a British accent, but then later on it was gone. I checked his bio and the guy was really born in South Dakota! Can someone who has also seen the movie confirm this for me? Did he have an accent in the party scene or not??

Also, was it just me or did Amelia's accent appear and disappear too? At times it seemed really over the top (especially when she only had to one or two word lines) but then in other dialogues it was non-existent. I especially noticed that her accent seemed to go away in the scenes where she is reading her poetry in her thoughts.

Other than the accents, the movie was pretty good.

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Gene (Ewan McGregor) seemed to have a Scottish accent in the party scene. At first, I thought, "Oh, my God! Gore Vidal's father was Scottish?!" Then he had an American accent for the rest of the movie. Christopher Eccleston, who is Scottish (and Ewan McGregor's Shallow Grave co-star), did a much more convincing American accent.

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Christopher Eccleston is almost unrecognisable as the second to last Doctor Who.

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Christopher Eccleston is not Scottish, he is from Lancashire in Northern England and still retains a Lancashire accent.

Fanboy : a person who does not think while watching.

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Surprisingly Ewan did seem to forget and in the first 2 sentences of his first appearance in this film, he spoke in what sounded like his own Scottish accent. This is very odd for him- I'm a big fan and I pay attention to things like this and I cannot for the life of me understand how both he and the director and/or editor of this film could have let this slide. Thankfully for the rest of his scenes, he spoke in a flawless American accent.

Btw Christopher Eccleston is from Manchester, England- not Scotland. And yes, his American accent was flawless throughout.

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I don't understand why the director didn't just dub Ewan in that party scene after the film was finished. The Scottish accent took me out of the movie for a few moments.

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I noticed Ewan's accent at the party, but noticed Hilary's and Richard's accents changing off and on throughout the movie, too. Don't know if the director, editor or diction coach should have been fired.

Look, me Swahili's a bit off the boil. Do you speak any English?

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Ewan's accents are always a bit wavy.

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That’s true. And no more so than in this movie where he didn’t even have that many scenes.

Hearing Christopher Ecclseston’s firmer command of the American accent kinda highlighted how inconsistent and weak Ewan’s was.

Why didn’t they dub it in the party scene? It’s a massive distraction.


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I was to busy looking at the Gorgeous Ewan to let his accent distract me.....

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AMEN TO THAT!

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I think they just said "Oy, Ewan, just imagine you're still filming 'Down With Love'", which is not a pleasant thought, and I really wanted to like this flick, but it just reminds me of "U-571". I agree that Chris Eccleston was far more believable, and McGregor's voice would have better dubbed by Carl Childers.
"'melia, ya'll outer take sum potted meat on your flight, mmmm-mmmh?"

"I'm Amelia, flying to oblivion" National Lampoon's Radio Dinner

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Ain't that so, check him out in Angels & Demons!

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I'd listen to Ewan McGregor read the telephone book in any film with any accent. That man in a tux is just sublime. He was better looking than his co-star Ms. Swank.

-- If Ewan McGregor were a lollipop I'd be a diabetic strumpet --

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! Yeah, accents aren't Ewan's best "talent," if you know what I mean. As a Southerner, I was wincing all the way through Big Fish.

He did look an awful lot like Catcher Block in this film, though, and that was fine with me!

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I don't know how Gene Vidal spoke, but Homer Simpson said this about his son: "Gore Vidal! America's very own Englishman."

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David Suskind commented on Gore Vidal's accent sounding either British or a stage actor's accent, so maybe Gene Vidal had a similar accent even if he was from the Dakotas.

As to the earlier comment made about Ewan McGregor being better looking than Hilary Swank, that's as it should be since Gene Vidal was probably better looking as a man than Amelia Earhart was as a woman.


Life, every now and then, behaves as though it had seen too many bad movies

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David Suskind commented on Gore Vidal's accent sounding either British or a stage actor's accent, so maybe Gene Vidal had a similar accent even if he was from the Dakotas.


If you watch old TV shows from the 50s or older movies, many upper class American actors liked to try and imitate a British accent. But it came out a bit different. It was an affectation I guess, trying to belong to a certain class of polished high society. I've even noticed this in Sergeant Bilko shows, whenever an upper class lady plays a part, she invariably has a vaguely British sounding accent.

Now that kind of affectation doesn't fly anymore in the US.

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Gene Vidal was third-generation German-American. He was pure Midwestern. His son Gore (who was not his only child as claimed elsewhere in these pages) grew up in New York City or Washington, D.C. with his senator grandfather.

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