Hugh Laurie's Accent

Guest   Sun Jun 01, 2008 1:29 pm GMT
Fran Drescher accent is very regional. It would'nt have been tolerated if the show itself hadn't been co-produced by her.

British speaking ''American'' sound either
1. Lakers-like (fronted nasal sound of Chicago/Detroit) or
2. Valley girl-like (relaxed flat sound of southCali girl)

I prefer the 2nd one (Kate Winslett mastered it well)
Barmy   Sun Jun 01, 2008 1:35 pm GMT
Fran Drescher has been in more than just the one show, but you're right; she was more widely accepted after she'd established herself, and there are those who only love her more for the way she speaks. (It's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me, though. :))

My point was, however, that Hugh Laurie, with his fake American accent, fits in better here than Drescher does with her native accent.
KC   Tue Jun 03, 2008 8:07 am GMT
I am not American, and that does not make me an authority on American accents. But, when I heard Hugh on House for the first time yesterday (I dont like dramas on TV at all), I could make out he was slightly off. No problem with the pronunciation (which is the easiest to master when you are trying a different accent), but I could hear him going a bit awry with the intonation (without doubt the hardest part to master). British RP has a lot more variation in the intonation patterns (your voice stress goes up and down a lot) as opposed to American which is more neutral. I could hear Hugh retaining a bit of the RP intonation, which means that his intonation wasnt as flat as it should have been (and not the way the other co-actors were talking).
NOTE: the clip of House I saw yesterday was from 1st season, so probably by now, he would have mastered the intonation bit too.
Guest   Tue Jun 03, 2008 8:09 am GMT
Why do they care so much about faking accents... Why can't Hugh Laurie's character just be a Brit living in the US? There are lots of them.
Damian in Edinburgh   Tue Jun 03, 2008 10:47 am GMT
Guest asked:

***Is Ewan McGregor's accent in 'TRAINSPOTTING' real? ***

Yes - of course it is! In a film set in Scotland and featuring Scottish characters what else would you expect? :-) Ewan comes from a really lovely wee town in Perthshire called Crieff, and when he was old enough he entered the acting profession via a repertory company in nearby Perth (the Scottish, and the original one!, and not the Aussie one). So he was raised with the fairly soft tones of the more rural Scottish accent of Perthshire, a mix of Lowland and Highland Scots.

Trainspotting was, of course, set here in this city of Edinburgh, and featured the seedy life of smackheads and crackheads, a universal problem. Only some of the scenes were filmed in Edinburgh (such as the chase down Princes Street) - all the rest were filmed in and around Glasgow, except for those when the characters went down to London, those scenes being filmed down there.

Many of the actors were from the Glasgow area, so Glaswegian Scottish was the predominant accent, and listening to Ewan in this film it's clear that he adapted his own, more gentle, Perthshire accent to the somewhat harsher, more strident Glasgow accent, more fitting to the part he was playing as an urban, inner city, drug addicted "no hope loser". Not that there aren't some similar victims of addiction in the rolling green hills of rural Scotland - it would be silly to deny that. It's just that statistically there are far fewer of them in rural areas.
Jhocasta   Thu Jun 26, 2008 2:01 am GMT
"Why do they care so much about faking accents... Why can't Hugh Laurie's character just be a Brit living in the US? There are lots of them."

I read somewhere that the producers specifically wanted an American for the character of House because they wanted it to be clear that the character was a jerk and they were afraid if he wasn't American then the audience would think that he was just acting differently because he is foreign. Hugh auditioned with an American accent and they loved him and weren't familiar with his previous work and so had no idea that he was not an American until they were later told.
Damian   Thu Jun 26, 2008 6:37 am GMT
How come they weren't familiar with his work? Hugh Laurie is a very high profile actor after all and widely known and respected as such. Was that yet another example of American parochialism?

As you Americans would (blasphemously) say - Jeez!
JT   Thu Jun 26, 2008 4:09 pm GMT
<<Hugh Laurie is a very high profile actor after all and widely known and respected as such.>>

He wasn't well-known this side of the pond before "House". And what's with all these Brits and Aussies playing Americans on American series television anyway? Minnie Driver, Eddie Izzard, Rachel Griffiths, Mathhew Rhys, Linus Roache, Joely Richardson, Dominic West, Anna Friel are just a few that come to mind. Have we run out of American actors to play these roles?
Damian   Thu Jun 26, 2008 4:22 pm GMT
***Have we run out of American actors to play these roles?***

They're all over here on this side of the Puddle - in high profile roles practising their English English RP accents in films (and on the live stage) - the only UK accent Americans can do well - and some in particular to it more or less perfectly......"Sliding Doors" "Bridget Jones" and "The Other Boleyn Girl" to name just a few. It's the female American actors who are the stars in this respect.

Apart from Hugh Laurie, I can't speak for all the other British actors using their skills, or lack of, in the general American accent - I'm not qualified to pass any comment on all this for obvious reasons.

When I watch Hugh Laurie in "House" it really is difficult to believe that he is actually a guy native to Oxford, England, but who went to uni at rival Cambridge, England, for reasons best known to himself.
Benny   Thu Jun 26, 2008 4:34 pm GMT
I hear a certain softness in Hugh Laurie's accent that doesn't quite fit and I agree with KC above, there's an intonation difference you can hear. But it's very very slight and he does a great job.

Regarding British actors taking roles as Americans, Jhocasta makes good points above. But in general, casting directors and producers will cast an actor in a part for many reasons that have nothing to do with the actor's nationality. It may be the right look, personality, the way he or she pulls off the role and depending on the situation the character may speak in the actor's natural accent or a specific accent may be required.

Having said all that, I still have never been able to figure out why Renee Zellwiger was cast in the role of Bridget Jones. I found her annoying, but I respect Damien's comment that her accent was good (I wouldn't have been able to tell if it were not unless it had been as bad as Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins).
Jennifer   Mon Jul 21, 2008 11:47 am GMT
I am american and Mr Laurie accent is very good for the region of america his character is supposed to be from. Also, America has many other accents other than ones from California or Detroit. English people do southern accents well. Espically proper southern acccents. There are some extremley nasal accents on the east coast. A texas accent is not necessarily how a southern person would sound. Americans trying to be English is harlious sometimes becuse the try to be too posh or too pikey! LOL..
Damian in Edinburgh   Mon Jul 21, 2008 1:21 pm GMT
I think there will always be flaws in our respective Transatlantic attempts to replicate each other's accents. I cannot comment on the British actors' efforts at American as I am not qualified to pass any kind of judgement, even though they sound reasonably accurate to me much of the time, especially Hugh Laurie and Christian Bale.

What I can say though is that full marks just have to be given to both Gwyneth Paltrow and Renee Zellweger for their English English accents. Doing the English English thing is just fine, but.......please, please, please....don't let any American actor/actress attempt to take on a Scottish English accent! It just doesn't work! Stick to the English English, guys! While we're on this topic - the same applies to English actors/actresses - it doesn't work too well with them either.
Trawicks   Mon Jul 21, 2008 3:16 pm GMT
<<don't let any American actor/actress attempt to take on a Scottish English accent! It just doesn't work! Stick to the English English, guys! While we're on this topic - the same applies to English actors/actresses - it doesn't work too well with them either>>

Well, I can have a hard time judging the authenticity of someone trying to do a Scottish (or Irish or Welsh) accent, because those are dialects that historically arose from other languages (or in the case of most Scottish dialects, an earlier form of English), and tend to vary a good deal for this reason. There are many native Irish accents that you would think were wildly unrealistic if an actor did them, and I'd guess that the same would be true of a number of native Scottish accents as well.
George   Mon Jul 21, 2008 4:15 pm GMT
<<don't let any American actor/actress attempt to take on a Scottish English accent! It just doesn't work! Stick to the English English, guys! While we're on this topic - the same applies to English actors/actresses - it doesn't work too well with them either>>

Probably the only reason you think no non-Scot can imitate a Scot's accent well is because it's your native accent. While Renee Zellweger did a good job, I remember realising she was not English as she slipped up very occasionally although it I didn't notice at first. Such small errors can only really be noticed by a native, that's why it's such a hard thing to do.

I'm sure Hugh Laurie makes mistakes, but I do know one of the producers thought he was American while they were interviewing for the role (I remember someone saying that on the extras of a House DVD). Equally he fooled my flatmates in the States and they were very amused when they heard him speak naturally as they imagined him as an American. :)

<<Fran Drescher accent is very regional. It would'nt have been tolerated if the show itself hadn't been co-produced by her.>>

Accents should always be tolerated. They form part of our identity and make the English language all the richer. To discriminate against someone because of their accent is a form of racism.

This is one reason actors emulate them --- they are an important aspect of a character.