Skip to comments.
Top 10 worst Irish accents on film (OF COURSE there are links so you can hear them :-))
Irish Central ^
| March 17, 2009
| Conn Corrigan
Posted on 03/17/2009 9:39:00 PM PDT by Stoat
Top 10 worst Irish accents on film
Julia Roberts and Sean Connery may have won Academy Awards, but that does not mean that they can pull off a believable Irish accent on screen. See who else made the list of worst movie attempts at an Irish accent, including two more Oscar winners.
By
Conn Corrigan
,
IrishCentral.com Staff Writer
Published Monday, March 16, 2009, 7:14 PM
Updated Monday, March 9, 2009, 10:00 PM
Julia Roberts as Mary Reilly
The Irish accent, judging from some of Hollywood's attempts at it over the years, must surely be one of the most difficult for actors to master. (Unless of course, the actor in question is already Irish. In which case it becomes considerably easier.)
Presumably then, it's also one of the easiest to mess up, as this top 10 list of bad Irish accents shows.
The gold standard to judge against all other bad Irish accents must surely remain Sean Connery's portrayal of
Michael McBride, in the
Walt Disney classic "Darby O' Gill and the Little People."
2. SEAN CONNERY IN "THE UNTOUCHABLES"
That was in 1959; by 1987, when he starred as the tough Irish cop
Jim Malone in "The Untouchables," things had scarcely improved (though ironically, he nabbed the Best Supporting Actor Oscar).
It might also be pointed out that it's not just the Irish accent that the Bond star has grappled with it - no doubt he also made the cut for some Top 10 List of Bad Russian Accents for his portrayal of
Captain Marko Ramius, a Russian commander submarine commander in the movie, "The Hunt for Red October."
Every so often, U.S. actors - even really good, respected actors like Kevin Spacey - come out with stuff like "Ordinary Decent Criminal," a fairly unremarkable movie save for the fact that the main stars all try to outdo one another on the bad Irish accent front.
It's a kind of bizarre concoction of various Irish regional accents - a little bit of
Dublin, a touch of
Northern Ireland - that slips into American every fifth sentence or so.
It's astonishing that
Colin Farrell, a native Dubliner, didn't think of saying to Spacey, "What the f**k, Kevin?! No one in
Ireland, and I mean no one, talks like that! Now go get a voice coach and give the Oirish accent a rest!"
This mustn't have happened - and indeed, the director,
Thaddeus O'Sullivan, himself an Irishman, somehow failed to spot that Spacey's co-star,
Linda Fiorentino, had an equally ridiculous accent. Shame on both O'Sullivan and Farrell for not spotting these...
It remains a mystery why this film actually got made, when
John Boorman's "The General" - a movie about the same thing - came out before it, and is vastly superior.
One of the other stock Irish characters in Hollywood movies is the Irish terrorist. (For example,
Sean Bean in "Patriot Games,"
Brad Pitt in "The Devils Own,"
Richard Gere in "The Jackal," etc.)
Perhaps the worst bad Irish accent offender from the Irish terrorist category is Tommy Lee Jones' portrayal of
Ryan Gaerity in "Blown Away," above and beyond the worst Northern Irish accent you are every likely to hear. Real-life Northern Irish terrorists must have been disgusted that their movement could be insulted with such a woeful accent.
Like Sean Connery, Julia Roberts is a repeat bad Irish accent offended: in 1996, she played
Kitty Kiernan, the lover of Michael Collins in the movie of the same name.
(Although English actor
Alan Rickman, playing
Eamon de Valera in that movie does a pretty good job in his Irish accent - shame he didn't pass on any tips to Roberts.)
Things went from bad to worse for Roberts in "Mary Reilly," which was also released in 1996.
In it, she plays the title role, an Irish housemaid who becomes embroiled in a love affair with her employer Dr. Jekyll, and his alter ego, Mr. Hyde.
Apparently, Roberts had a voice coach for the part - and Roberts spokeswoman told a tabloid, "Julia wants her voice to be authentic."
Do yourself a favor, Julia - the next time you play an Irish character in a movie, get yourself a new voice coach.
7. TOM CRUISE IN "FAR AND AWAY"
To be perfectly fair to the much pilloried
Tom Cruise, his Irish accent in "Far and Away" is truly appalling.
Joseph Donnelly, the 19th century Irish peasant played by Cruise, sounds like how a Hollywood film executive imagines Irish people talk.
If Cruise's Irish accent has any redeeming features it's that it might fall into the "It's so bad, it's funny" category of Irish on screen accents.
It also diverts attention from
Nicole Kidman's efforts at an Irish accent in the same movie. (In one scene, Cruise tells Kidman, "Yer a corker,
Shannon. What a corker you are!" - a well known Irish pick-up line.) While being fairly feeble, it's not the crime against Irish humanity perpetrated by her ex-husband, to be sure, to be sure.
8. BRAD PITT IN "THE DEVIL'S OWN"
While not sinking to the same depths as Richard Gere in "The Jackal," Brad Pitt still manages to embarrass himself - and indeed anyone from Northern Ireland - with his efforts at playing
Frankie Gallagher, an
IRA man on-the-run.
Apparently, Pitt spent a few days hanging around
Belfast to perfect a Belfast accent. (He was even attacked in West Belfast while he was researching the role.)
Probably could have done with a few more days in Belfast....
9. GERARD BUTLER IN "P.S. I LOVE YOU"
Everyone involved in the making of this film, from the producer to the coffee maker, should be rounded up and shot - it's that bad.
First on the list to go is
Gerard Butler, who plays lovable Irishman Gerry Kennedy, and whose Irish accent is only one of the many problems in this pretty awful film.
Sean Connery has shown that even Scottish actors can have trouble with an Irish accent - a point also demonstrated by Butler in this movie.
P.S. Gerry, your accent sucks.
10. THE LEPRECHAUN IN "LEPRECHAUN"
Like many of the films featured on this list, this movie falls into the "It's so bad, it's good" category. And it's hard not to laugh at a movie with the tagline, "Your luck just ran out."
This horror gained something of a cult following, and was also notable for giving
Jennifer Aniston one of her first roles.
Of course, in a movie about Leprechauns, anything less than a ridiculous "Oirish" accent would be a total shock - and Leprechaun doesn't disappoint.
TOPICS: Arts/Photography; Humor; Miscellaneous; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: accents; hollywood; irish; irishaccents; movies; top10; top10list; topten; toptenlist
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20, 21-40, 41 last
To: Impy; All
Some of those links are to musical montages.Yes, I noticed also that some of the links are not the best. If you or anyone else would like to provide links to better examples of the accent-crimes being discussed, it would be sincerely appreciated by all I'm sure :-)
Perhaps the author of the article was distracted.
41
posted on
03/18/2009 4:50:25 PM PDT
by
Stoat
(Palin / Coulter 2012: A Strong America Through Unapologetic Conservatism)
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20, 21-40, 41 last
Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson