Acting with An Accent: British

Some actors are really really good at accents: Daniel Day-Lewis, Meryl Streep, Toni Collette, Kate Winslet, Hugh Laurie, Gwenyth Paltrow, & Johnny Depp–just to name a few. One of the most basic accents that we learn in acting school is the British accent and its many forms: RP (received pronunciation: think the BBC version of the accent) and cockney are probably the first ones we learn. Heck, I was in Oliver! so many times, that if I didn’t learn how to do a cockney accent by the the time I was finished, that would just be sad. There are certain actors, however, who really really need to work on their dialects. They might be fantastic actors, but the minute something false comes out of their mouths like an accent, the illusion of reality is gone.

Keanu Reeves, do yourself a favor and work on your dialects; especially if the general public will be seeing it in a movie. Case in point:

Anne Hathaway did a Yorkshire accent in One Day and has gotten a lot of flack about it. But it’s difficult to master accents in a short period of time. To her credit, at least she tried:

As actors, we have to think about what goes into the preparation of doing an accent before we criticize it. A lot of people simply don’t have an ear for accents. George Clooney told a casting director at an audition that he “doesn’t do accents” and she found that confession honest and refreshing. Actors sometimes want to believe that they can do anything, especially accents. But accents themselves have to be more than mimicry. They have to have some semblance of truth to them. One of my acting coaches, Ken Schatz, recommended a site to me that I use whenever I need to do an accent. Whether it’s some form of British, a twang of the American South or as far away as Iran, I go to the site and listen to people who are from those areas. It’s the International Dialects of English Archives (IDEA) and it utilizes real people from the different areas, of varying education levels and ages. For example, a woman born in the 1930s who has never left their small town in Louisiana will sound vastly different from a woman born in 1984 who is from the same area, left to go to college,  and lives elsewhere currently. Your life really does travel with you in the form of your voice. The archive, is extremely interesting, and not just something to be utilized by actors, but historians as well. Instead of listening to those dialogue CDs, do yourself a favor and save your money. Go to the website and explore. You might find an accent you never knew you could do.

Join The Family Business: Acting with Your Relatives–Marcia Gay Harden & Daughter, Eulala Scheel in “Home” (I) (2008)

Gwenyth Paltrow and mother, Blythe Danner star together in 2003’s “Sylvia,” as mother and daughter.

Joining the family business. For most people, it means working for your father in his small business in town or tagging along during board meetings in an office building. For children of actors, they have another option: act with their parents (and/or relatives in the business.) Did you know that Blythe Danner and Gwenyth Paltrow have appeared together when Gwenyth was still in the womb? Blythe appeared on an episode of Columbo when she was five months pregnant with her daughter. Yep. Some people really do start off young. Subsequently, Blythe Danner and Gwenyth Paltrow have appeared together on stage and screen as mother and daughter numerous times. Most recently in the 2003 biopic of poet, Sylvia Plath, with Gwenyth in the title role. Martin Sheen has appeared on screen with all of his children: Emilio Estevez, Charlie Sheen, Renee Estevez and Ramone Estevez. Before Sofia Coppola was a writer/director in her own right, she appeared in dad, Francis’ movies: The Godfather Trilogy, Peggy Sue Got Married, Rumble Fish, The Cotton Club.) Francis Ford Coppola is rather famous for using family members in nearly all of his films. Actor Campbell Scott, the son of actors George C. Scott and Collen Dewhurst, acted alongside his mother in what was one of her last performances in Dying Young.

Having a famous parent as an actor can even help when casting the “younger” version of a character. Most recently, Tina Fey gave daughter Alice a cameo on 30 Rock where the little one played a pint-sized Liz Lemon. Meryl Streep actually got work due to daughter Mamie Gummer’s involvement in the 2007 film, Evening. They played the same character at different ages. Also in the movie, the late Natasha Richardson playing the daughter of real-life mother, Vanessa Redgrave. How cool is that?

In recent years, a certain film has caught my eye. The movie is called Home, one of several films of the same name that came out in 2008. It stars Oscar-winner, Marcia Gay Harden, and her daughter, Eulala Scheel. I stumbled upon this little gem of a movie because it was streaming on Netflix. I love Marcia Gay Harden’s work, so I decided to check it out and it was fantastic. In fact, it’s not the first time Harden and her daughter have appeared together on screen. The first was in Harden’s Oscar-winning film, Pollack in 2000 when Eulala was two. Then came the made-for-television movie Felicity: An American Girl Adventure, Home, and Whip It (Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut.) In nearly all of her work, she has played her mother’s daughter. This year, she has managed to break the cycle and appear on a few episodes of Workaholics sans mama, Marcia.

From IMDB:

Home (I) (2008): Inga (Academy award winner Marcia Gay Harden) is a poet. She wants to buy and restore a house she is drawn to that reminds her of her childhood home, but her distant husband Hermann sees little value in it or many of the things Inga loves. Inga realizes that many things in her life are coming full circle. Her crumbling marriage is a stark contrast to her relationship with her 8-year-old daughter, with whom she shares her hopes, fears and inner-most thoughts following her recovery from breast cancer.

I’ve been trying to find a specific clip from the film to put with the article, but it doesn’t seem to be found online on its own. It truly shows the power that real-life relationships can bring to a film. As with any real-life on-screen pairing, truth is achieved with ease and not manufactured (most of the time.) That’s because there is a history, a relationship that the actors have with each other that they can bring to the screen. Eulala is confronting her mother Marcia as her character, but it’s so real and raw from the two actors, I wonder how they felt at the end of that shooting day. The film as a whole is emotional, true to life and extremely under the radar. It’s worth seeing.

On another note, not everyone related to someone in the industry goes into the family business. There’s a certain celebrity chef who has made a name for herself all on her own: Giada De Laurentis, granddaughter of legendary film producer, Dino De Lauurentis (La Strada, Hannibal.) But, for those who have acted with their relatives, more power to you. I don’t know what I would do if I were Mamie Gummer. Living up to Meryl Streep’s acting ability is quite a challenge. I wonder if Daniel Day-Lewis’ kids will follow in his footsteps too. Who knows.

Reward Rewind: Oscars 2013

Anne Hathaway showed too much nipple;  Jennifer Lawrence didn’t show any; And Oscar host Seth MacFarlane sang a song about it all. Oh, and Daniel Day-Lewis won. Surprise! <—We DID see Jennifer Lawrence trip on her way up to accepting the Best Actress award for her work in Silver Linings Playbook and the internet went crazy creating memes, gifs and bad jokes related to the Hunger Games.  Granted, if I was dressed like I was a bride-to-be on my wedding day, I’d probably trip too. Nonetheless, Jennifer Lawrence handled it with grace and humor like she always does even at the tender age of 22. She even gave a shout-out to fellow nominee Emmanuelle Riva who was celebrating her 86th birthday on Oscar night (making her as old as the Academy Awards themselves.)

Daniel Day-Lewis became the first actor EVER to win 3 Oscars in the Lead Actor category for his work in Lincoln. Even though no one was surprised, what I found the most heart-warming was the gracious, humorous and utterly breath-taking acceptance speech that DDL gave. Not surprising, given the fact that he’s won every major award for that role this season, he’s probably had a lot of practice and time to think about what he’d say on Oscar night.

Anne Hathaway took home an Oscar for Les Miserables which surprised no one as well. The fellow nominees in that category were actually looking directly at  Hathaway the entire time the category was being announced. Everybody knew. No one was shocked. Sally Field was really happy for Anne. Awesome. Did anyone notice that it was Captain von Trapp who presented the award to Fantine? Yep.

Christoph Waltz took home Oscar number two in 3 years,becoming one of the most bad-ass Oscar winners ever in my book, for his stellar work in Django Unchained.

What was most surprising of the night was the win for Best Director. The upset over that category was already brewing due to the fact that Argo director Ben Affleck was snubbed and everybody knew it. Ang Lee took home the statue for his CGI-heavy direction of Life of Pi, shocking everyone, even Lee himself.  Life of Pi, unbeknownst to me, has been the subject of quite a controversy.Since my own knowledge on the subject is foggy, you may read more about it here.

Argo won Best Picture (again, not really surprising, but really really awesome) and Ben Affleck finally got to get back up on the Oscar stage. What I find most surprising, and I’m going to play devil’s advocate at the moment, is that the First Lady, Michelle Obama, helped announce the winner for Best Picture. Ironic? I think not. Some have even been saying that Argo is a propaganda film and to be quite honest, I can see why. I can also see that had Argo NOT won, the First Lady would have been in quite an awkward position and it might have been a tad uncomfortable.

All in all, the awards were good. Not great. But good. There was a solid opening by Seth MacFarlane who ending up hosting quite a long show. For those of us on the east coast, it got over the next day, but it was still fun to watch. Something tells me he’s going to be getting a lot of calls from Broadway producers in these next few weeks due to his kick-ass singing voice.

Speaking of singing, Shirley Bassey brought down the house and showed us all what a real DIVA can sing like with the tribute to James Bond. Side note: Where were all the Bonds? I mean, they had the perfect opportunity to bring them out onto one stage.  Jennifer Hudson showed us just why she got an Oscar for her first film and Catherine Zeta-Jones tried to relive her glory days by re-creating and lip synching to “All That Jazz” from Chicago. Adele is reaching for EGOT status with her win for penning and adding her sweet vocals to the theme from Skyfall. All she needs now are the Tony and Emmy awards. Barbara Streisand matched the backdrop as she sang “The Way We Were” during the  In Memorium segment. Like Michael Buckley said in his recap, “The mirror has two face-lifts, and I like them both.” Truth. She can still sing and she looks good while doing it.

The most awkward moment of the night was when those who won awards in the minor categories seemed to come out of the wood-work. Literally. Did they shove them all in the coat room? What was with the booths to the sides? Were they not worthy enough to sit in the main area? Come on.

Kristin Chenoweth should also host the Oscars next year simply due to the fact that I wanted to hear her sing more. They truly save the best for last, and her send-off duet with Seth MacFarlane was the best.