How silly does it sound?

September 18, 2011 2:47 PM

Quick one for the British among us: how decent are the accents really in Tim Burton's version of "Sweeney Todd"?

Non-native accents are difficult to fake, of course. So, how good a job did Mr. Depp and Ms. Bonham-Carter actually do? Does their delivery make you wince? I am far too American to tell. Thanks in advance for satisfying my staggeringly random curiosity!

posted by Because to Media & Arts (15 answers total)

Helena Bonham Carter is born in London.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 2:50 PM on September 18, 2011

Helena Bonham-Carter is English, so not sure why she'd have to fake an accent.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:50 PM on September 18, 2011

Probably nitpicking, but...

Accurate as English accents, or accurate as mid-19th Century London English accents?

A lot of American accents in the 1840s wouldn't sound convincing now to a modern American. UK English has also changed a lot over that time.
posted by BinaryApe at 2:59 PM on September 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

Bonham-Carter's natural accent is a far cry from what Mrs. Lovett sounded like. She sounds vaguely Cockney, but nothing like what either Patti LuPone or Angela Lansbury sounded like.

And as for Depp--contrast and compare how he sounds in Sweeney Todd with his other accented roles:
Victor Van Dort in Corpse Bride, John Wilmot in The Libertine, J.M. Barrie in Finding Neverland, Inspector Frederick Abberline in From Hell (sounds quite a bit like Sweeney Todd), Captain Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean series, Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow and the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland.

Neil Swain was the dialect coach for Sweeney Todd. American actors who can't do accents.
posted by Ideefixe at 3:00 PM on September 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Well, everyone played it freakishly cartoonish, in a way that seems fitting to the source material. The yanks fit in with the hamming-it-up brits pretty well.
posted by Artw at 3:13 PM on September 18, 2011

Bonham-Carter's ... sounds vaguely Cockney

Erm....only if you categorize British accents as either RP or "Cockney".

Her natural accent is very typical of contemporary upper class Londoners.
posted by wutangclan at 3:31 PM on September 18, 2011

Bonham-Carter's natural accent doesn't sound like her accent in The King's Speech nor her accent in Toast (which isn't very convincing as a Wolverhampton lmc accent) nor her accent in the previously mentioned Sweeney Todd. In that last film, I do think she tried to throw in some vague tribute to the East End circa 1850s--it's most pronounced when she sings, esp. in A Little Priest.

I think she uses her own in Room with a View, which sounds upper class and actorish.
posted by Ideefixe at 4:16 PM on September 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ideefixe, are you English? I have to disagree with you: Helena Bonham-Carter's natural accent does not have a trace of Cockney.

I'm American, but I lived in England for a few years (my husband is English), and I think Artw's nailed it. BinaryApe's made a good point as well.
posted by Specklet at 5:21 PM on September 18, 2011

I'm not saying her natural accent is Cockney--only in Sweeney Todd is there a trace, and mostly when singing. Worked for British newspaper for a number of years.
posted by Ideefixe at 7:48 PM on September 18, 2011

Best answer: Native Englishman, naturalised Australian here: I kept thinking that Depp sounded like David Bowie in that movie, particularly when singing. There was a theatrical ostentation to the accent, but it didn't sound unrealistic in a bad/unconvincing way.
posted by cogat at 8:20 PM on September 18, 2011

Best answer: It's also worth thinking of Sweeney Todd, accent-wise, as a collision between London-based gangster film, Victorian costume drama, and Broadway musical, where verisimilitude generally flies out of the window like a pie of dubious origin.

In that context, I didn't find the accents winceworthy: there's a broadish spectrum of "stage Cockernee" and both Depp and Bonham Carter register in the same vicinity -- near Eliza in My Fair Lady and the urchins of Oliver!, but well away from Dick van Dyke knaw-off-your-limbs territory. And I think cogat's right about the Bowie thing -- perhaps better to call it "Bowie as caricatured".
posted by holgate at 10:24 PM on September 18, 2011

Aaah, Ideefixe, I get you now. I misread your original comments to mean that HBC's natural accent is slightly "cockney"-ish.
posted by wutangclan at 11:37 PM on September 18, 2011

I was golfing once with a guy from the UK (where in the UK, exactly, I couldn't say). He was rooting-around some bushes, looking for an errant ball when he started making a commotion about a big, huge spider. However, to my midwestern ears, I had no idea what he was yelling about. To me, it sounded like "spoiler". I kept asking him "A what?" over and over until he let-loose a dead-on perfect midwestern US "A spider!" It was the funniest thing I'd ever heard, for him to jump from his heavy English accent to this pitch-perfect US sound.

It's often made me wonder if it's easier for Brits to mimic US english, than the other way around?
posted by Thorzdad at 2:57 AM on September 19, 2011

Response by poster: Ha! Well now I feel silly. I did forget that Ms Bonham-Carter was English, I suspect because of the cartoonish element to the accents here. (And, I suppose, because my Base Role for her is Marla Singer from Fight Club, which just tells me she must play a pretty good American.) I guess that's what I was hearing and identifying as "off", but, having even less experience with stagey accents than normal ones, I didn't know what to make of it. Thank you for your answers!
posted by Because at 4:37 AM on September 19, 2011

I think it must be easier for Brits to imitate US English than the other way round, because we're exposed to more of it, through films and TV. If you watch a lot of British TV, you might have a better idea than most Americans of what British accents actually sound like.
posted by salmacis at 9:09 AM on September 19, 2011