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x_losNicole Kidman, and Jude Law are in no way Southern. Watching Cold Mountain has taught me an invaluable truth: The Brits and their ilk should in no way believe that just because their accent deviates from the American, flat as a pancake midstream, another accent that also deviates from this will be easier to imitate.
I came to appreciate exactly how difficult it was to achieve an English accent while playing Mrs. Pearce in Shaw's Pygmalion. The challenge is in building a consistent, personal accent for your character that matches their personality and background- whereas one can 'do a British accent' for 5 min, it's just that, an accent, not an approximation of a British person's specific and consistent voice.
The dialog tapes we used explained that British speaking in high in the throat, involving a lot more lip and general mouth muscle contortion than general American speech, which is lower, less enunciated, and less intense in terms of the amount of movement required to speak, also lacking in tonal shadings giving by the british via lilting emphasis within a single word.
Put your hand on your throat. Say 'hello' in your very best Southern accent. Say it in your standard, middle-American. Say it in your best general, non-cockney British. Feel the upward trend and the increase in speed and activity? In addition to putting strain on very different parts of the throat, Southern speaking is slower and more of a drawl, with less enunciation. It's actually much more of a jump than from standard-class British to regular American.
I read on Television Without Pity that some Brits use a Southern accent to disguise their inability to speak in regular American. Who told them this was a good idea?! It's like running before you can quite walk! Southerners never think Nicole, Jude, etc. sound like they are indeed from the land of Dixie. They sound awkward, exaggerated, and like they think the Mason-Dixon line is some little known fall collection from an obscure designer!
Only East and West Coasters, who may, lacking the familiarity with Southern accents possessed by actual Southerners (by the way, there isn't simply one, there's hundreds of regional variations of a Southern, whereas the Brits don't sound from anywhere, they just sound like an amalgamation of stereotypes), think those kooky Brits are managing a bang-up job. When these are exclusively American made and marketed films, you've got to wonder why they didn't just rent-a-belle who would have sounded like she belonged in Tennessee.
I came to appreciate exactly how difficult it was to achieve an English accent while playing Mrs. Pearce in Shaw's Pygmalion. The challenge is in building a consistent, personal accent for your character that matches their personality and background- whereas one can 'do a British accent' for 5 min, it's just that, an accent, not an approximation of a British person's specific and consistent voice.
The dialog tapes we used explained that British speaking in high in the throat, involving a lot more lip and general mouth muscle contortion than general American speech, which is lower, less enunciated, and less intense in terms of the amount of movement required to speak, also lacking in tonal shadings giving by the british via lilting emphasis within a single word.
Put your hand on your throat. Say 'hello' in your very best Southern accent. Say it in your standard, middle-American. Say it in your best general, non-cockney British. Feel the upward trend and the increase in speed and activity? In addition to putting strain on very different parts of the throat, Southern speaking is slower and more of a drawl, with less enunciation. It's actually much more of a jump than from standard-class British to regular American.
I read on Television Without Pity that some Brits use a Southern accent to disguise their inability to speak in regular American. Who told them this was a good idea?! It's like running before you can quite walk! Southerners never think Nicole, Jude, etc. sound like they are indeed from the land of Dixie. They sound awkward, exaggerated, and like they think the Mason-Dixon line is some little known fall collection from an obscure designer!
Only East and West Coasters, who may, lacking the familiarity with Southern accents possessed by actual Southerners (by the way, there isn't simply one, there's hundreds of regional variations of a Southern, whereas the Brits don't sound from anywhere, they just sound like an amalgamation of stereotypes), think those kooky Brits are managing a bang-up job. When these are exclusively American made and marketed films, you've got to wonder why they didn't just rent-a-belle who would have sounded like she belonged in Tennessee.
