Quote Originally Posted by Coog View Post
I can remember how amazed I was when I was a kid hearing her speak with her own English accent after watching her in "Gone With The Wind." There seem to be a lot of British and Australian actors and actresses that can perform in movies and television and use various American accents convincingly. It seems like I'd be used to it by now but it still amazed me after watching a few episodes of "The Walking Dead" and then hearing some of the cast, particularly the main character, speaking with a British accent. When I watch most American actors who try or tried to do the opposite in movies, its laughable.
To do an accent properly, one must not only listen (in order to hear how it sounds), but not force it -- which is where most American actors fail.

Once, I was waiting in line at the local Barnes & Noble, and one of the cashiers had a full-bore Scottish accent. By the time I reached the top of the stack -- and guess which cashier I got? :) -- I was sounding like Sean Connery. She actually asked me which town in Scotland I was born in; the look on her face when I told her I was originally from Southern California, but had a talent for voice-mimicry....

(It gets worse: I'm a fan of the original _Iron Chef_. I've seen the episodes where everyone is dubbed *except* Chairman Kaga; so I can now do a solid mimicry of his voice. And it's transferred to my feeble attempts to speak Japanese -- Kaga has an "accent" which causes him to smash the end of words ending in vowel-sounds, so "tofu" comes out "tof'" -- so not only don't I speak Japanese, I don't speak Japanese *with an accent*.)