Originally Posted by ChristineCB

Kelp, I'll keep firing questions - you haven't bored me yet! (You keep trying, though, eh?!! ha ha)

Have you incorrectly learned an accent or characterization, only to discover the superior nuances later? If so, how did that occur? Did you visit that locale and immerse yourself?

This would be useful, perhaps, in accents, and not necessarily in your characterizations - which are beasts all unto their own, I suspect - something of an accent but more painted onto a character you take over or you created.

My idea for "writers should change the story" comes from the use of English actors in American films. Basil Rathbone hardly needed ANY story change or acknowledgement that his accent EXISTED in films. Nor Ronald Colman, who was playing "small town American college professors' in PEOPLE WILL TALK but no one ever explained his accent, nor did he disguise it. "Just do it" and let the audience worry about it.

Which I greatly prefer than seeing failed or floppy faux-accents (the Kevin Costner ROBIN HOOD crap). Jeepers - it would have been better if he'd just mumbled his way thru - we'd have laughed at his appearance in that role anyway, but now we laugh at his performance AND make fun of his accent attempt).

Or in the American SILVERADO, where John Cleese is given a one-sentence line of explanation for his English accent in the American wild west. Writers CAN do that, I think...just explain it away. It takes a sentence or two - and it's a WHOLE lot better than faux accents.

Originally Posted by gollum4

Different in film though- some of the greats have been mumblers, adding to the naturalism...

Originally Posted by gollum4

...while the acclaimed stage actors can often seem rather hammy.

Originally Posted by Steve Crook

Check out Jennifer Jones in Gone to Earth (1950). For an American lady who had just done Duel in the Sun, she does a very good English Midlands / Welsh Marches accent. When we showed the film in Much Wenlock in 2002 I made a point of asking the locals what they thought of her accent and use of local idiom. They all said that she'd caught it very well.

While they were making the film, everyone said that she was "very friendly and would talk to all the extras (all locals)". Was she just honing that accent?

Steve