Worst accent fail?
 

Who in your opinion blew it the worst on their character's accent? For me it was David Ogden Steirs' non-Bostonian accent on MASH. I mean it was a repeated plot point that he was from Boston but the accent was nowhere near it.

Second-worst is Patrick Steward, the French captain with a perfect English accent. Hearing him introduce himself was always a "really?" moment.

Yours?

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

Gotta be Kevin Costner's English accent in Robin Hood, right?

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

There are a lot in movies (Sean Connery and Keanu Reeves come to mind), but this is in TV Talk.

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

Patrick Stewart is hardly an accent fail. He wasn't 'trying' to sound like he had a French accent. You might call it an inconsistency of the character, but it's not a fail.

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

Patrick Stewart as Professor X. Professor X is suppose to be American.

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

Amanda Tapping's accent as Helen Magnus in Sanctuary. It just sounds weird to me.

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

Ah. Missed that.

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

Morena Baccarin's Russian accent on The Endgame is pretty bad. Not nearly as good as Jodie Comer's on Killing Eve.

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

If we take the Star Trek universe at face value that everybody on Earth speaks English, we would also have to assume that this occurred due to the dominance of American culture.

Based on that, it seems far more likely that strong non-American accents like Scotty's would disappear in hundreds of years, rather than people from France still sounding like Pepe LePew.

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

Holy shit, whether in movies or TV shows, few things are as irksome as bad accents. I'd much rather the actor speak in his/her regular accent than some wretched imitation.

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

Everything I hated about “Chernobyl” ;)

and refuse to acknowledge its praise :grunt:

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

Gabrielle Anwar's Irish accent on Burn Notice. I think it didn't survive past the pilot.

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

I always thought it was really weird that they did not go back and re-record her dialogue in the pilot after she dropped the accent in the second episode.

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

First one that came to mind. Anwar claims the producers told her to drop it, because test audiences didn't like it.

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

Patrick Stewart wasn't trying to do a French accent when he was on TNG. This is Stewart trying to do an impression of a French accent:

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

Marina Sirtis initially doing a faux Israeli accent for Troi and a mossad character in NCIS, and a russian accent in Stargate SG1.

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

I love the movie, but Kevin Costner's Boston accent in Thirteen Days is worse than his English one in Robin Hood.

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

Sorry to hijack the thread because this is not a TV show nor even a movie, but one time I went to a local production of The Who's Tommy, and the actor playing the title character had the most over-the-top overly British accent of all time. He was more British-sounding than the guy who sang the role originally, who was ACTUALLY BRITISH! Like, I can't believe the director approved that. "Dude. Tone it down. Just sound as British as Roger Daltrey, ok? You know, from-Great Britain-Roger Daltrey?"

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

Mid-Atlantic Accent

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

Yeah, Winchester wasn't supposed to have a Boston accent. It was definitely a cross of the English and upper class American accent.
He did the accent well.

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

So the OP is 0/2 ? :lol:

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

Is that how Ogden Steirs actually speaks? The only other thing I recall ever seeing him do was the clock in Beauty and the Beast and it’s the same accent.

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

Indeed. It was much like that of Higgins on Magnum P.I. Not any British accent, not Bostonian or any specific New England accent, just an upper crust Mid Atlantic accent that represents arrogance and entitlement. ;)

DOS was BRILLIANT as Winchester. I love the character. The show got infinitely better when he replaced Frank Burns (who, to be fair, was played brilliantly by Larry Linville, but he and the character got screwed - he played the only character in the cast who was not allowed to grow and become more human and less of a caricature, so he quit).

No, his real accent was somewhere in between Winchester and the Dad he played in Better Off Dead. The closest was probably his character on Stargate Atlantis.

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

Basically anyone not from Boston trying to sound like they are from Boston. Not literally everyone from the city sounds like the "your cousin, from Boston" guy. See: most actors from Departed and The Town.

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

Not at all. He appeared on an episode of Frasier (which was hilarious) and spoke in a normal accent.

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt (being a smart self-aware comedy and the actress being a great one) that it was intentionally done bad ... but Julianne Moore doing a Boston accent on 30 Rock was awful:



I liked the show, but True Blood had a number of questionable Southern accents. Though it kind of worked for the show, with exaggerated over-the-top accents fitting in with all the other ways the show was over-the-top (with sex, violence, melodrama).

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

Winchester's accent wasn't supposed to be the stereotypical South Boston accent. It was supposed to be the upper crust Brahmin accent, which is much closer to an English accent.

Edit: Sorry, didn't notice this had been pointed out multiple times already!

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

Winchester,a Southie? I beg your pardon, suh!

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

Winchester may have been wicked smaht, but you wont find him at a Dunkin' Donuts.

Julianne Moore in 30 Rock is an excellent example. That was horrible.

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

has anyone mentioned Inventing Anna? It's pretty close to a fail aside for the fact the real Anna more or less had a garbage accent as well.

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

I started a rewatch recently and holy crap that threw me for a loop. I had forgotten all about it. It was... not good.

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

I just learned about that. I had no idea that it was so deliberate.

Re: Worst accent fail?
 

I know we're talking TV accents but others have brought movie accents up.

Isn't Dick Van Dyke's cockney accent in Mary Poppins considered one of the worst ever? Hasn't he had to apologize for it multiple times?