Michael Fassbender's Accents

Thank you!

How does a professional production let this slide?

Because he's a german trying to sound English

duh

Sorry, but Fassbender's french accent was terrific. If there was a Rasberry Award for dodgy accents in this film it would have to go to Kevin Bacon for his butchery of German.

Not being able to adequately pull off a Southern accent does not automatically make them terrible at accents. They'd have to be consistently terrible in a variety of accents to qualify. And the Southern drawl, I've heard, is especially tricky, even for American actors, if they aren't originally from those parts, or heard enough of it in real life to draw from. As far as recent efforts go, I thought Olyphant sounded great in Justified.

As for Brits, I guess it takes the really method sort of actors to pull it off, if Day-Lewis and Bale are any indication, if we're talking about a more period kind of drawl. Not sure if they're wholly method but Hardy and Wilkinson also seem to be able to pull off decent period drawls, as well. To my non-Southern ears, anyway. Dunno what all these classically-trained British actors would sound like attempting a more contemporary one. If anyone can pull it off, though, I'm pretty sure Oldman would be able to, if he hasn't already. >.<

From what little I've heard in The Counselor, Fassbender sounds okay to me when he does generic American. I say little cos I couldn't sit still past the first 20 minutes and gave up altogether after the 30-minute mark. I can't remember what he sounded like in Band of Brothers. I didn't even remember him in there at all. All in all, I haven't seen too many of his movies to judge if he's able to do other sorts of accents but I don't think what he did or didn't do in XMFC is a good indicator of his capabilities.

Cumberbatch I've only ever heard speak non-Brit in August Osage County and while I wasn't impressed, and I've heard horrid imitations before despite not being the overly nitpicky sort when it comes to accent mimicry, I can't confidently tell if he's absolutely terrible or not. I'll leave that up to more seasoned ears. He sounded great singing in there, though.

Lol! Agreed. Fassbender is an outstanding actor and when he's trying to do a British accent he sounds great throughout the film until the end. He really must have just forgot or something because it's ridiculously noticeable. Fassbender was raised in Ireland and you hear that Irish accent.

McAvoy sounds authentic enough most of the time in the accents I've heard him take on that weren't his own. He really amped up the posh here, though. Can't have the guy who would be @SirPatStew sounding like a working class git, I suppose. >.< From what I was able to notice in this movie, his natural Scottish brogue only got the better of him once, during a high tension scene where the young Prof was under a lot of duress and was very desperate, what with the plane about to plunge into the ocean and all.

Happened once or twice in Wanted, too. Also during a very high tension scene. Guess it's hard to keep your natural accent at bay when you're supposed to be oscillating between exhilaration and hyperventilation.

Fassbender grew up in Ireland, and is using his natural accent throughout the movie. It's not the Colin Farrell accent most North Americans think of - sometimes Fassbender's accent sounds more American, with hard R's, or more British, with soft R's - which is what is causing confusion and making it sound to some people like he's being inconsistent. I used to live in the UK and I worked with someone with this sort of Irish accent; unless you know what it is, it does sometimes make you think they're doing an American accent, and sometimes a British accent, when really they're just Irish. There's not one "English accent," and there's not one "Irish accent."

In this movie, Fassbender had to do German, Spanish, and French accents, and those were all well done. Since movies are rarely shot in order from beginning to end, it wouldn't be the case that he's giving up on his English-speaking accent partway through the movie. He does sound more Irish at the end but, as people have pointed out, it's harder to control an accent when you're amped up. (In 12 Years a Slave a bit of Irish creeps into Fassbender's accent when he's yelling at Solomon to whip Patsey.) So it would kind of make sense that his accent gets heavier during the movie's climax.

In an interview for Days of Future Past, Fassbender has said that he changed Erik's accent after listening to a lot of Ian McKellen, since they're both playing Erik in the same movie now, and that he hopes fans aren't too upset by that inconsistency from First Class to Future Past. He's being thoughtful about what accents he's using in these movies, just as he was with his accents in Inglourious Basterds, which he's also discussed in interviews. I think it's just a case of people in North America not necessarily being familiar with the variety of Irish accents that are out there.