It can be tricky to master accents, even for our favorite actors and actresses. Despite a gripping storyline and excellent production, a terrible accent can create a jarring experience for movie fans.
We can rely on actors like Tom Hanks to replicate realistic accents. Likewise, we trust actors like the super British Hugh Laurie, who nails the American accent every time. However, some actors on this popular movie list had the worst cringe-worthy accents that toppled the actors’ kudos and often descended into comedic scenes.
1. Fifty Shades of Grey (2015): Jamie Dornan
Irish-born Jamie Dornan struggled to hold the American accent in his part as a billionaire. From one sentence to another and sometimes in the middle, Dornan wavered between a Northern Ireland and American accent.
2. Alexander (2004): Angelina Jolie
Playing the part of Olympias, Angelina Jolie’s accent sounded more Russian than Greek. That said, Colin Farrel’s accent playing Alexander the Great, Olympia’s son, wasn’t much better with what often sounded like a weird British-Irish twang.
3. One Day (2011): Anne Hathaway
Anne Hathaway, a New York-born actress, played Emma Morley, a character with a North Yorkshire accent. Hathaway researched the accent by watching episodes of the long-running British soap Emmerdale, filmed in the Yorkshire Dales.
4. Gangs of New York (2002): Cameron Diaz
Cameron Diaz played an Irish lady in Gangs of New York, a film set in the 19th century. Try as she might, the Irish accent failed to land, and Diaz mostly sounded like her quirky American-born self.
5. P.S. I Love You (2007): Gerard Butler
Gerard Butler often gets cast as an American character in movies such as P.S. I Love You, Chasing Mavericks (2012), and The Bounty Hunter (2010). Butler’s strong Scottish accent doesn’t translate to American, and he somehow manages to have the same accent in almost every movie.
6. The Highlander (1986): Sean Connery and Christopher Lambert
We all love Sean Connery’s silky smooth Scottish accent, so it was baffling that the iconic Scottish actor was cast as the fictional character Juan Sánchez-Villalobos Ramírez, nicknamed The Spaniard. Meantime, Christopher Lambert, a French-American actor, played the lead role of Scottish-born Connor MacLeod. His odd accent had little relationship with the lilting Scottish accent.
7. Robin Hood (2010): Russell Crowe
New Zealand-born Crowe was raised in Australia, so nailing a British accent failed to land. With the vast array of accents in the United Kingdom, perhaps we might forgive him for sometimes speaking like royalty and other times descending into a weird Yorkshire accent.
8. Seven Years in Tibet (1997): Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt, a famous actor born in Oklahoma, played Heinrich Harrer, an Austrian mountaineer. As much as we love to love gorgeous Brad, his Austrian accent was all over the place. If the plan was to mimic Arnie Schwarzenegger, he could be forgiven. However, his accent sounded mostly slurred, weirdly Irish, and unrecognizable from Austrian.
9. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992): Keanu Reeves
Keanu Reeves is a multifaceted and skilled actor, and we don’t enjoy dissing him, but he couldn’t nail the posh British accent in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It sounded like Reeves was preparing for Lamaze breathing with a kind of whooshing sound preceding every word.
10. Varsity Blues (1999): James Van Der Beek
American-born James Van Der Beek weirdly struggled with the Texan accent required for his part as a quarterback based in Texas. To master the Texan accent, Van Der Beek added more syllables to most words. However, the odd accent did not detract from the movie’s popularity.
11. Far and Away (1992): Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman
Australian-born Nicole Kidman and American Tom Cruise were married at the time of the movie’s production. Both chewed up the Dublin accent. It was like the sound of someone running their nails down a blackboard. Painful.
12. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (2001): Nicolas Cage
Nicholas Cage played Antonia Corelli, an Italian army captain, but the actor’s stuttering accent was like watching paint dry. Ev-er-y -word – was – pron-ounc-ed – with – exceed-ing-ly slow delivery. Well done if you managed to get through the movie without throwing something at the screen.
What’s equally embarrassing is that Nicholas Cage has Italian heritage on his father’s side. Could-have-done-better, Nicholas.
13. Anaconda (1997): Jon Voight
Jon Voight, an Oscar winner and father of Angelina Jolie, plays a Paraguayan character in this cult 90s classic. Perhaps the giant Amazonian snake was real, but something made Voight’s accent slip and slide from one scene to another, never landing in Paraguayan territory.
14. The Devil’s Own (1997): Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt plays Frankie McGuire, a Republican Irish terrorist. It didn’t quite work, perhaps because Pitt couldn’t decide which part of Ireland his character originated from.
15. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991): Kevin Costner and Christian Slater
Kevin Costner, playing Robin Hood, shot accents in all the wrong directions. Robin Hood is a fictional character emanating from Nottingham, United Kingdom. Costner wavered between an American lilting English and a mish-mash of British accents. Meanwhile, Christian Slater, playing Will Scarlet, may have based his accent research on Van Dyke’s exaggerated cockney accent in Mary Poppins.
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