The 10 worst accents in cinema history
Hollywood may be full of some of the finest actors of contemporary life, but this is not to say that each one is a complete master of their craft, susceptible to the same pitfalls as any of us mere viewers. Such becomes clear when performers try to pull off an accent that isn’t their own, with even the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci looking a little silly when they poorly try to emulate the accent of another.
Whether it’s Americans who can’t pull off an English accent, English actors who can’t execute an American accent or even English performers who can’t speak in a convincing English accent, the movie industry is crammed full of bad impressions and laughable attempts at authenticity. Indeed, whilst such actors may seem like they’re on top of the world, they are not all perfect, with accents being one of the hardest aspects of performance to pull off.
With that considered, we’ve decided to name and shame the very worst accents of cinema history, with our list uncovering the very worst culprits, including classic actors and contemporary award-winners. We haven’t stuck to critical and commercial bombs either, with our list including some great movies, including Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained and Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula.
Take a look at our list below and bask in the worst accents of cinema history.
The 10 worst accents in cinema history
10. Anne Hathaway – One Day (Lone Scherfig, 2011)
Back in 2011, Lone Scherfig’s One Day was a hot ticket for any fan of the book of the same name written by David Nicholls. Telling the story of two blossoming lovers who spend a night together on the evening of their college graduation, the film returns to them on an annual basis to see where their lives have taken them – sometimes they’re together, often they’re apart, and always does Anne Hathaway have an awful Yorkshire accent.
Playing Emma, one of the two lovebirds, Hathaway tries desperately hard to do a Yorkshire accent but comes embarrassingly short, with her tone often slipping back into American.
9. Quentin Tarantino – Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)
Why does filmmaker Quentin Tarantino feel the need to cameo in his feature films? Sure, he doesn’t appear in each and every one of them, but the ones he does show his face in are memorable for all the wrong reasons. In his revenge flick Django Unchained, which follows Django (Jamie Foxx) and his search to recover his wife from a despicable plantation owner named Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), Tarantino pops up to give the film an unneeded dose of comedy.
Playing an Australian rancher named LeQuint Dickey, Tarantino delivers a mess of an accent. Bizarrely, he only chose to take on the accent after failing to pull off the dulcet tones of Southern American, forcing us to think about why he chose to appear in the film.
8. Tom Cruise – Far and Away (Ron Howard, 1992)
No matter how good you might be at it, just about everyone knows how to do a stereotypical Irish accent. However, the difference between an average Joe doing it and superstar Tom Cruise doing it is that many of us are not stupid enough to do it in front of a camera. This is exactly what the Mission: Impossible star decided to do in 1992 for the Ron Howard romance flick, Far and Away.
Appearing alongside Nicole Kidman and genuine Irishman Colm Meaney, we’re surprised the latter didn’t knock Cruise out for his borderline offensive accent that is too laughable to be taken seriously.
7. Sean Connery – Highlander (Russell Mulcahy, 1986)
This entry is a strange one. So far on our list, we’ve shamed the actors who were unable to pull off their required accents, but what of performers who don’t even try? This is the case for Sean Connery (and Christopher Lambert) in the 1986 cult favourite Highlander, which follows an immortal Scottish swordsman who is forced to confront an indestructible opponent to claim a fabled and fantastical prize.
Whilst Lambert’s Scottish accent is bad enough, Connery’s attempt to embody the Spanish Juan Sánchez-Villalobos Ramírez is truly embarrassing, failing to even try, with any whiff of the accent sounding tragic.
6. Keanu Reeves – Bram Stoker’s Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola, 1992)
He may be a fan favourite, but Keanu Reeves’ accent in Francis Ford Coppola’s curious 1992 fantasy flick is bizarre, to say the least. Playing Jonathan Harker, a solicitor who becomes embroiled in Dracula’s nightmare, we’re not entirely sure what accent Reeves is even going for, with his voice transitioning from British to American to Australian and back to British again. It’s so bad that it’s almost charming.
As the filmmaker told Entertainment Weekly in 2015, “He tried so hard. That was the problem, actually — he wanted to do it perfectly and in trying to do it perfectly it came off as stilted”.
5. Kevin Costner – Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (Kevin Reynolds, 1991)
The accent that was so bad it became an industry in-joke, Kevin Costner’s turn as Robin Hood in Kevin Reynolds’ Prince of Thieves is an utter disaster. Starring in the movie alongside the likes of Alan Rickman, Christian Slater and Morgan Freeman, Costner gives a pretty poor attempt at an English accent, trying to mimic the mannerisms of the fictional icon of British folklore.
Seemingly giving up on the accent halfway through, Costner makes the robber who steals from the rich to give to the poor seem like a complete joke.
4. Dick Van Dyke – Mary Poppins (Robert Stevenson, 1964)
Speaking of iconically awful accents, what would this list be without an obligatory reference to Dick Van Dyke’s turn as Bert Dawes in Disney’s 1964 flick Mary Poppins. Originating the cliché cockney accent, Dyke uses every trick in the playbook to deliver one of the most generic London dialects ever put to cinema. Even then, his American twang is constantly slipping through.
More recently, when talking to Conan O’Brien, Dyke admitted, “it’s the worst cockney accent ever done,” before making an excuse for himself when revealing, “the guy who taught me was an Irishman”.
3. Nicolas Cage – Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (John Madden, 2001)
The American actor Nicolas Cage is all too often associated with being a terrible actor, but this is far from the actual truth, with the Oscar-winner having produced a great number of hits. With that being said, it’s fair to say that Captain Corelli’s Mandolin was not one of them. The 2001 flick, directed by John Madden, sees Cage star as Captain Antonio Corelli, an Italian commander, who barely pulls off the accent thanks to the actor.
Bordering on parody, Cage’s accent is totally laughable, imitating the accent with almost no attempt to make his performance authentic. All this just two years before his Oscar-nominated role in Adaptation too.
2. Charlie Hunnam – Green Street (Lexi Alexander, 2005)
The only thing more unforgivable than a bad cockney accent is a bad cockney accent performed by someone who’s actually from Great Britain, even if he is a Geordie. Charlie Hunnam commits this unforgivable sin in Lexi Alexander’s hooligan drama Green Street, in which the actor stars as Pete Dunham, a Stone Island-wearing yob who recruits his distant relative Matt (Elijah Wood), who’s visiting overseas, to join the group.
Hilariously poor, Hunnam’s accent makes the movie an instant joke, making it seem more like a trashy b-movie than a legitimate drama worthy of respect.
1. Jared Leto – House of Gucci (Ridley Scott, 2021)
There are countless rubbish accents from across the world of cinema, but for our money, the most flagrantly flabbergasting of the bunch is Jared Leto’s Italian impression in Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci. Whilst the film, following backstabbing, betrayal and decadence in the Gucci family, is far from a masterpiece, its legitimacy is knocked down a few pegs or two thanks to Letos’ unbelievable accent.
Looking and sounding like a bad caricature, Leto’s accent and performance are made even worse by the fact that he dedicated so much time to the role, once again going through an idiotic process of ‘method acting’, snorting “lines of Arrabbiata sauce” in a futile attempt to better his portrayal.
