Once upon a time, whereas shopping the aisles of Los Angeles’ now dearly departed Samuel French Bookshop, a sweet retailer for actors and writers, I got here throughout an educational CD. It claimed to help the aspiring Oscar winner in mastering the Australian accent, which the CD had handily damaged down into roughly a dozen totally different “Australian” archetypes (together with, I'm very sorry to say to these in Aotearoa, a single “New Zealand” accent).
Having seen many attempt, and fail, to nail an Aussie accent on movie, I gathered that it was up there with the trickiest accents an American or British actor may try – like nineteenth century Irish (RIP Tom Cruise) or no matter pan-London accent Don Cheadle was providing in Ocean’s Eleven. What, I puzzled, had been the cornerstones of its teachings? Studying to sing the true lyrics of Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Once more? Ordering a pie and sauce on the milk bar?
Because the Victorian Faculty of the Arts’ head of voice and motion, Leith McPherson, explains on this very entertaining video: “There isn't any one Australian accent.” Such is the thriller of the Australian accent to actors; regardless of myriad variations in our accents, dialects and idiolects (generally throughout the similar metropolis, not to mention totally different states), Hollywood’s Australian accents usually find yourself occupying the identical uncanny valley. It might be a matter of preparation time, the dialect coach, and whether or not anybody on the manufacturing has, the truth is, ever heard an Australian converse.
So, who nailed it and who failed dismally? Let’s take a strained journey by means of ring-in Strine, from the ridiculous to the chic.
10. Jude Legislation, Contagion (2011)
Jude Legislation’s accent as nefarious “Fact Serum” blogger Alan Krumwiede was so baffling it took years for me to grasp, regardless of having watched Contagion roughly 45 instances, that he was meant to be Australian. One critic, Luke Holland, described it as an accent “the likes of which is usually reserved for inter-country Ashes mockery”. I’d describe it as worthy of official commerce sanctions in opposition to the US and UK.
9. Robert Kazinsky and Max Martini, Pacific Rim (2013)
On this rock ’em sock ’em sci fi fantasy, Kazinsky (from Sussex, England) and Martini (New York, New York) pilot a large robotic Jaeger, the “evocatively” named Striker Eureka. Although each are allegedly from Sydney, their accents fall someplace between Dick Van Dyke and a local New Yorker. It’s sufficient to make you wish to see an enormous alien monster take out the Opera Home. And simply whereas we’re on it, why is their group mascot a British bulldog? Ever heard of Crimson Canine? Or for that matter, the place Australia is?!
8.Robert Downey Jr, Pure Born Killers (1994)
There’s rather a lot happening right here, and most of it means that Downey spent his prep time for Oliver Stone’s cOnTrOvErSiAL thriller tossing again double shot espressos and watching that one episode of The Simpsons. (Which, for the report, is not going to be showing on this Sorted record, thanks largely to the variety of instances I've been compelled to smile and nod whereas having it quoted at me.) Downey went again for a second serving in Tropic Thunder, the favorite movie of “you may’t say something nowadays!!” individuals in feedback sections.
7. Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained (2012)
Everyone knows Tarantino loves Ozsploitation, so it was maybe unsurprising that he’d ultimately embody Australian characters in one in every of his movies – we simply didn’t anticipate him to play one in every of them. Regardless of having marinated in Australian cinema for years, the director finally ends up sounding as if he’s quoting Richard Roxburgh’s “South African” Hugo Stamp in Mission: Inconceivable 2. Oh properly, at the very least he will get his comeuppance.
6. Elisabeth Moss, Prime of the Lake (2013)
OK, look, I do know that Detective Robin Griffin was meant to have been born in Aotearoa New Zealand then moved to Sydney at a younger age, but when there was any sense that Moss was consciously “doing” a Sam Neill or Russell Crowe right here, it will have been positive. As a substitute, Griffin’s accent exists in a spooky netherworld between Australian and American. I assume it provides to the general unsettling vibe of the sequence? Unhealthy information: issues didn’t enhance within the 2017 sequel, Prime of the Lake: China Woman, however at the very least Moss’s accent was overpowered by Nicole Kidman’s wig and faux tooth.
5. Liev Schreiber, Psychological (2012)
Wow, 2012-13 positive was a banner period for faux Aussie accents, huh? PJ Hogan’s tender if, uh, broad household comedy of psychological sickness options Toni Collette doing an accent so Strine that Schreiber’s, as shark professional Trevor, doesn’t appear so dangerous by comparability. He was nonetheless in a relationship with Our Naomi Watts on the time, so it’s doable that a few of his accent was influenced by publicity to “Aussies who bought out”.
4. Benedict Cumberbatch, The Fifth Property (2013)
Enjoying the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, Benadryl Cucumberbundt’s accent and idiolect are fairly good! (His lace-front wig, alternatively, is the boot of all boots.) He has a few of Assange’s vocal fry and vowel sounds down – take heed to him say “one ethical man, one whistleblower” – and for probably the most half doesn’t look like continually fascinated by the accent. For his half, Assange described the expertise of listening to the efficiency as “grating”, although he appreciated the actor’s refusal to play Assange as (per director Invoice Condon’s suggestion) a “sociopathic megalomaniac”. Did anybody truly see this film?
3. Kate Winslet, Holy Smoke! (1999)
La Winslet’s first crack at an Australian accent got here in Jane Campion’s excessive satire of faith and intercourse. Enjoying Ruth, who has been strong-armed into deprogramming by her household after falling into a brand new age cult in India, Winslet is each bit the Sans Souci backpacker turned too-good-for-you spiritualist. In a 2000 interview with the Guardian, Winslet described Ruth as “such a fucking little cow – though she was much more vile within the script. I needed to be over-the-top and but put a lid on her and make her plausible.”
2. Dev Patel, Lion (2016)
Patel’s accent as Saroo Brierley is so convincing that I left the film theatre fairly positive I had as soon as had a dialog with him at a Fitzroy home celebration in 2007. Simply take heed to him yelling “What it’s like” and “25!” at Rooney Mara. If he sometimes slips right into a London vowel sound in moments of excessive emotion, it’s forgivable, even logical – in spite of everything, his adoptive mum is Nicole “mid-Atlantic” Kidman.
1. Kate Winslet, The Dressmaker (2015)
Right here she is, of us, the queen of Australian accents, going toe to toe with the mighty Judy Davis in full flight. Thanks in no small half to the work of dialect coach Victoria Mielewska, Winslet takes the teachings discovered on the set of Holy Smoke! and spins them into a totally embodied efficiency as Myrtle “Tilly” Dunnage in Jocelyn Moorhouse’s alternately hysterical and heartbreaking Australian gothic basic. “I’m again, you bastards!”
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