OK - I'm not one to complain much about this kind of stuff and I usually don't notice things like this - but the "American" accents on this show sometimes drive me nuts. Rose in Season 1 was awful but got better in Season 2.
Selfridge's mother isn't that great in either season.
I wish they could use real American actors. :)
The actress who plays Rose is being directed to over do it, I suspect, in order to sound mid-western. Frances O'Connor is Australian and has done a much lighter American accent in other productions.
In earlier episodes, Mable Normand's accent, and the accent of the Mack Sennett Bathing Beauties, are not unlike Leslie Anne Warren in Victor Victoria. Warren is American and a native New Yorker. That accent is typically used in productions set in earlier periods. To my ears, it's not nearly as bad as Rosie O'Donnell and Madonna in A League of their Own, (and the annoying over-emphasized NJ accents heard in the modern-set The Sopranos).
I can almost always spot an English actor (or Aussie) doing an American acent, but I don't let it bother me (except in Batman! Tom Wilkinson's "gangster" was dire!). I'd rather hear English doing American than an American doing an English accent (and I'm American).
I might add that being American does not preclude one from having an accent from any foreign country from which they immigrated. It would seem logical to cast actors whose native tongue matches the character (with the exception of the caricatured Joisey accent (Jersey), provided they are good actors. It's almost becoming a cliched gimmick to hire actors whose native tongue does not match the character ... giving them a notch on their belt, so to speak. But sometimes it backfires with the viewer is aware of it and they slip on a vowel, breaking the 4th wall.
Then there are some who have a natural gift for accents. That is, they are flawless, i.e. Meryl Streep, Daniel Day Lewis and my own son. Lewis was the best actor to play Lincoln. Vivien Leigh the best actress to play Scarlett O'hara.
I'm American, from Illinois originally, and Rose sounds just fine to me. Not overdone at all.
Rosalie (the daughter) and Harry's mom are horrible though.
Look, it was in a barn. People do a lot of stupid things in barns.
I'm afraid I have to agree!!
shareI have to agree. The one that really stood out as god awful was Selfridge's mother. She sounds like she's doing an American accent with a Scottish brogue. Rose seems to be American one minute, and British the next. On the positive side, Jeremy Piven does a very convincing American accent.
shareMy Irish grandmother grew up in Montreal and therefore spoke French. Then she came to America (Cleveland). When we were young and the grownups were trying to say things not for our ears, they did it in French and that's how I came to hear French spoken with an Irish brogue. I'm sure there are all kinds of mixtures across the world.
shareAnd the "Hollywood stars" in season 2. Even my American accent is better, and I'm Swedish hehe: http://youtu.be/-BbqEoIALVo :P
Dennis Alexis
http://dennisalexis.com
Tell me about it. They're supposed to be from Michigan, yet his mother sounds like Ma Kettle.
shareSelfridge and his mother were both from Ripon, Wisconsin, not Michigan. Harry Selfridge lived in Michigan for a few years when he was a young man, and moved to Chicago, where he lived for the next 25 years, before coming to London. His wife, Rose, was a member of the prominent Buckingham family of Chicago, who donated the famous Buckingham Fountain to the city.
In my experience as a Chicago native who has visited Wisconsin dozens of times, people in south, south-central, and eastern Wisconsin sound like Midwesterners; not all that different from Chicago. Since the locales I just named contain Milwaukee, Madison, Janesville, Kenosha, Waukesha, Racine, Green Bay, Appleton, Oshkosh, West Allis, Sheboygan, and Fond du Lac, among others, I think I've just included about 90% of the population of the state. In general, Chicagoans have a stronger, flatter accent, more guttural vowels, and a bit more of a twang than folks from points north. (The suburb I grew up in, Lincolnwood, and its next-door neighbor where I went to high school, Skokie, gave name to an accent that is mentioned in several studies of accents of the area: the Skokiewood Twang. I used to have it, in spades, but years of living all over the world ended up with me sounding like a Canadian.) Of course, Selfridge speaks very rapidly, as befits his nature and personality, so he sounds more like a Chicagoan - albeit an upper-crust Chicagoan - than he sounds like someone from Michigan. Jeremy Piven, of course, although New York-born, was raised in Evanston, a North Shore suburb of Chicago, and spent the first 25 or so years of his life in Chicago. I was set to study with his parents, famed acting teachers, but I landed a part in a play that went on tour, and by the time I was free, it was too late to join the sessions in progress, and by the next cycle, I had left for college. I'm about eight years older than Jeremy Piven, so while it's entirely possible I met or saw him at his parents' studio, I have no recollection of him. But I used to sound like he sounds - CHICAGO. NOT Michigan.
Pfft. Americans always complain, but they never seem to realise how bad they are at other accents (or even understanding them!).
Meanwhile, Australian actors have been known to audition in the US in American accents and the producers didn't even know they weren't American until the role was given to them.
Come on. Americans know how bad many American actors generally are at foreign accents. Mwe also know that Aussies are the best at doing foreign accents. However, I've rarely seen a British actor do a convincing American accent (except for the late Bob Hoskins, who was amazing, DDL and maybe Helena Bonham Carter - I'm sure there are a few others who are good at is, but none come immediately to mind). It's always regionless or they sound Canadian. Even really amazing British actors tend to be *beep* at it.
The mother on this show is the WORST. It's almost like she's not trying. Frances O'Connor is clearly not American, but her accent isn't dire, just totally regionless. She at least manages not to slip into the wrong vowels. I don't know why she didn't bother doing an Illinois accent. All Midwestern accents do not sound the same. Us accents aren't as varied at British ones, but they are still markedly different from region to region.
You know, I'd always had the impression that most actors work very hard to strip their speech, as much as was possible, of any discernible accent. For one thing, it makes a wider range of roles possible for them because their accent doesn't automatically scream "I'm an actor who comes from a completely different place than my character!" For another, it makes what they say more understandable to a wider audience.
Frankly, having actors that I can understand without resorting to subtitles when they are speaking my native language seems more important than having actors who have the exact accents that their characters should have.
You're not American, are you? Asking, because several of the British actors are hard to understand at times, but it doesn't bother me at all. A genuine Midwestern accent is not hard to understand for a non-American, so if they actually went authentic, you should not have a problem - it wouldn't make a difference. The East/South London accents are quite hard to fathom for those unfamiliar with them (I've been married to an Englishman for 13 yrs, and though he understands all of it, he was laughing at the awfulness of the American accents as well).
It actually makes a big difference. How can you take a character from New York seriously with a thick Southern accent? I was watching Band of Brothers again the other day, and while the acting was superb, there were so many accents that just sounded so weird it took me out of it. Most English actors seem to settle on New York or Southern - or lapse into a weird Mid-Atlantic drawl from the 20's. I also recently watched Warm Bodies, and Nick Hoult is amazing at the accent, has the cadence down and everything. Completely forgot he was English, which is how it should be if you're not playing an English person.
I appreciate that Aggie speaks with a working class accent, and Lady Mae a high class one. There are connotations attached to the way a person speaks, it's a big part of their character, IMO. If Lady Mae sounded like she was from South of Brixton or a Jordy, it would be out of place. That's how I feel when I listen to Selfridge's mom struggle though what she must believe is a Midwestern accent. She sounds like she's attempting a rural Oklahoma farm accent, but they are from one of the the most urban cities in the country. And she doesn't sound like a women who has money.
It's kind of lazy to hire these people, considering there are probably tons of unknown British actors who might actually know how to do it well. I would personally rather not completely understand everything an actor says in lieu of authenticity.
Daniel Day Lewis's accent in Gangs of New York was so strange and wonderful, that it was a major part of the performance. I don't understand how it could NOT matter to people, but I guess everybody is different?
No. I'm American. I have difficulties understanding most accents that are strong, American or British.
I agree that having an accent that does not fit the character destroys immersion. I made that exact point in my earlier post. But there's a difference between having a general lack of accent and a markedly incorrect accent. Do you know what else destroys immersion? Having to turn on subtitles to read my native language or constantly rewind in order to figure out what people are saying. A hint of the correct accent can go a long way to making a character more believable, but I'd rather have none at all than too much.
As for English actors settling on southern accents, they don't. I AM southern, and only once in my life have I heard someone pull off a genuine southern accent without being born to it. Generally speaking, people shouldn't even try. The accents of the entire cast of Gone with the Wind are laughable to anyone who has actually spent any time in the deep south. Vivien Leigh was lovely and captured Scarlet O'Hara's personality, but she did NOT sound southern. Ever.
But if it were so important to the show for the Selfridges to have authentic accents, then it would have made more sense to have hired people from the actual area. Yes, it's a British production, but it would only have been a few actors in an extensive cast. Of course, it probably wouldn't have been worthwhile for American actors to move to Britain to play bit parts such as Harry's mother or children. However, the actress playing Harry's mother is onscreen so briefly and has so few lines that I never particularly noticed her accent. Of course I also didn't make it past the first season.
I will say that it was rather jarring to hear Roddy Temple ask Rose if he detected an American accent. 'Coz when he said that, I went "Huh?!" When the script actually has the actors referencing a character's accent, then it really ought to be on the mark.
Another to add to the list of Brits doing American accents in Ed Westwick, who played 'Chuck Bass' on Gossip Girl for 5 or 6 yrs, from the age of 19-24. Considering his age, he did great too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7lPctte6Bw
OMG I love Chuck Bass. Usually I like the British accents, but when it comes to him I prefer his American one.
shareOMG I love Chuck Bass. Usually I like the British accents, but when it comes to him I prefer his American one.
You're absolutely right. I'd go further and say Brits in general are horrible trying to talk American. They're really just caricatures! It's embarrassing and annoying. Aussies bring it off well, like Guy Pierce, Mel Gibson, Russell Crowe, Robert Taylor (Longmire). And some Brits succeed as Americans not because they sound American but because you don't care, like Cary Grant or Roddy McDowell or Ronald Coleman or Claude Rains or George Sanders. As for the ladies, the person complaining about Vivian Leigh is full of it. I'm a native of Atlanta, and Vivian brought it off fine.
One of UK's favorite "Brits" was Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., a Yank! Americans can do fine with British accents, far better than vice-versa! As if Meryl Streep can't!
The.real atrocities are current Brits in British productions trying to ape Americans. They are clowns that ruin the show. I suspect it has to do with union rules over there. They must hire Brits, If a Brit has a good enough American accent, then he or she goes to America. Why should they stick around dreary UK, that pays crap scale, when they could get far better work in USA, especially when Brits are great actors in the first place?
If you were speaking of me, I'd like to point out that I was born and raised in the south, and that I have lived and worked in Atlanta. It's possible that I have a more sensitive ear for such things.
I'd also like to point out that I said that Vivien Leigh was lovely and gave a fine performance. Just because I said that I didn't think she pulled off the accent, I wouldn't call that "complaining about [her]".