10 Worst Accents In Film & TV, According To Reddit | Screen Rant
Oscar Isaac's British accent in Moon Knight from what audiences have seen has not been great. Whether or not this is on purpose due to the nature of the show, Isaac's accent is one of many less than stellar accents to have appeared in both film and television. While the accent could go down in the history of infamously bad accents, there are, presumably, those that are worse. Only time and audience reaction would tell going forward as the series progresses.
However, there are also times when an accent is so bad, it takes the audience out of the film or shows entirely. Movie and television audiences on Reddit have dedicated entire threads to discussing who has had the worst of the worst when it comes to fake accents onscreen.
British accents may seem like the easiest ones, but many actors are known for their particularly bad impressions of the people over the pond. One that stood out to Redditors was Keanu Reeve's accent in the 1993 film Bram Stoker's Dracula, which ironically is one of his best-ranked films, according to Letterboxd.
Reeves plays Jonathan Harker, a British solicitor with Dracula as a client and whose fianceé is believed by Dracula to be the reincarnation of his lost love, Elizabeth. It's an intensely interesting plot but completely offset by Reeves' notoriously botched accent. A Reddit user who's since been deleted wrote, "I don't usually notice bad accents unless they're REALLY bad and he was awful."
A different version of a British accent is the culprit in Charlie Hunman's case. The Reddit critics are hard on the star, with Redditor QuackFan writing, "Charlie Hunman is pretty bad at most accents." Specifically, though, Hunman's character in the film Green Street seems to be the main offender to fans.
Another Redditor who has been deleted wasn't a fan of Hunman's performance either, saying, "Charlie Hunman's attempt at a cockney accent in Green Street is laughable." The Reddit community harshly doubled down on Hunman, with godisanelectricolive replying to QuackFan with, "including his own Geordie accent for some reason." It's pretty bad if fans think that even your natural accent sounds off.
Dominika may rival Katniss Everdeen as one of Jennifer Lawrence's best roles, but some viewers thought that her accent as the Russian ballerina-turned-spy was all over the place. WIRED did a segment about actors replicating real people's voices and featured Lawrence's portrayal of Joy Mangano in Joy, with high praise for her delivery.
However, she received more negative reviews when trying to replicate the more intricate Russian speech pattern. On Reddit, NoImNotJC wrote, "her accent was a bit of a mess. It's like she would start with it, and then steadily lose it all in the same sentence on some of her lines."
Malkovich is another actor whose accent was featured and analyzed in a WIRED YouTube video in the film Rounders. Malkovich plays Teddy KGB, a Russian mobster who runs an underground Texas hold 'em game. While the character may sound intimidating, accent expert Erik Singer commented that Malkovich had too much enthusiasm and emphasis in his tone.
Even the casual viewer was able to pick up that the accent was lacking, however. Redditor zuzzas wrote, "Every single movie that was released in the last century has horrendous Russian accents" to which ChiNdugu replied, "John Malkovich in Rounders kinda takes the cake."
Angel was a 1990s spin-off of the very popular Buffy The Vampire Slayer television show starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. Boreanaz's character, Angel, who is one of the best dual characters on the show, was liked enough to get his series, but fans today cringe at the thought of his "Irish" accent for both shows.
When discussing the worst TV fake accents, one Redditor, Sumjonas, wrote, "Has to be David Boreanaz's sad attempt at an Irish accent in the flashback scenes of Buffy." Weirdly, Angel's accent is missing for the majority of the show and only pops up when they want to remind the audience that he's supposed to be Irish.
In a show where the titular character and their country of origin is the main focus, the character must be believably from that country. Unfortunately for the Starz series, viewers were unimpressed with Hope's attempt at an accent and were scathing in their review.
Redditor yazzy1233 complained, "Dear god, that was the worst Spanish accent I have ever heard in my life. Every time she opened her mouth, it took me out of the show and she was the bloody main character! I honestly couldn't finish watching it because it was so bad."
Early in Jason Statham's career, he decided to abandon his notorious--and well-loved--accent for a role in the time-travel action flick The One with decently disastrous results. Instead of an American accent, as Statham intended, the accent ended up being some sort of combined and inconsistent accent that doesn't exist.
Many Redditors listed his performance as a notably bad accent. Specifically, StudBoi69 wrote, "After all this time, I still don't know if he was attempting an accent or not." Expert or not, an accent is pretty terrible if the audience can't figure out if an actor is doing one or not.
Fiona may have some of the best-ranked quotes on Burn Notice, but those quotes could have been said in a bad Irish accent instead of the British actor's more believable American one. According to the show, Fiona's accent faded away to lay low and fit in in Miami, but fans have other opinions.
On Reddit, Anwar got criticism for her accent work, with phyneas saying, "Gabrielle Anwar's Irish accent in Burn Notice was so bad that they dropped it after one episode." The judgment is harsh, but with the accent seemingly disappearing overnight, they may be right.
Fans are unsure of what exactly Angelina Jolie was trying to do for her role in Alexander. Jolie plays Olympias, Queen, and mother to Alexander. She's supposed to be Greek and other actors in the film are doing various other confusing accents. There are many underrated Jolie performances, but this one seems to leave fans puzzled.
In the Reddit discussion, Nuker_Fridgerson articulated, "It's not just bad, it's confusing as f***! Why the h*** is she rocking the most over-the-top Greekish accent ever in this movie where NO ONE else is speaking with that accent? I can't figure it out."
Fans aren't sure why Chris O'Dowd needed an American accent for his role on Girls as Jessa's love interest and brief husband, Thomas-John, but what they can agree on is that is it barely an American accent. Supposedly a native New Yorker, O'Dowd was constantly on the cusp of his usual Irish accent.
One Redditor, carolinemathildes, was particularly brutal about the accent, saying, "Chris O'Dowd's American accent on Girls is horrendous." If fans get a chance to watch back his scenes, they'll see just what Caroline was talking about.