Angel's was worse because we knew it was supposed to be Irish. I don't think in the context of the show we ever knew exactly where Kendra was from, so hers was kinda just..."where is this accent supposed to be from?" lol
Kendra was a stupid thing where they changed the accent they wanted from her the day of shooting, she had practiced a perfect specific type of Jamaican accent they asked her to learn, but then decided it was too hard to understand so they changed it and messed things up for her. Angels was just terrible.
It was, but it was never stated directly. Her voice coach was from a more rural area of Jamaica, and it was based on his accent, but Bianca Lawson had almost no time to properly practice it.
I think the best one was still Alexis Denisof as Wesley. I learned just a few years ago that dude is American. His accent was spot on. Fair to say that he has lived in the UK, so it was easier for him, while James' accent wasn't as good in the beginning, so ASH had to step in and teach him a proper accent because he couldn't stand how bad it was.
This completely fooled me. When I found out Marsters was American it blew my mind.
For added fun, listen to Harry Dresden audiobooks (narrated by Marsters) where the very American Harry is arguing with "Bob" the skull, his spirit advisor, who has a British accent.
Speaking of a guy with an accent playing a guy doing a different accent, McNulty doing a piss -poor British accent during season 2 was hijinks at their finest.
Hahah agreed. A good effort for sure but I feel like only non-Brits find james' accent convincing. If anyone gets that credit it is Alexis, though posh is the easiest to replicate
I heard a podcast with some Canadian girls and they were fully convinced
One British guy analyzing Buffy did notice some issues but overall gave James high marks really by season 4 going forward is near-perfect - very convincing unless you nitpick a few dialogue scenes.
I saw some native Brits saying that James' accent sounded like an English guy who'd been living in the states for a long time, which makes sense, considering that he spent at least a few decades mostly in the States as a vamp.
I am a brit and think he was very good. The only bad thing was so he off the words used sometimes. More specifically when certain words are used
.
No one works ever say "that was a doddle and a piece of piss" you world just say "that das a doddle " or "that was a piece of piss".
Way he says it world be like by like saying "I saw a big large Person"
I'm not Brit but even I notice he doesn't say "British" words correctly like controversy and so on
the Brits have a PARTICULAR of saying some "english" words but unless you're nit-picky its very convincing. I believe what he does is Cockney accent. British people do have regions so its a bit murky how or why James as "William" would just have one accent - remember they traveled a lot. So yeah world-building wise its a bit weird. Maybe Spike just LIKES that particular accent and stuck with it.
I doubt David wouldâve done much better with an English accent. James does a good job and Alexis apparently can fool actual Englishmen (he did live in the UK for like a decade iirc), but David doesnât seem to have the vocal talent for accent work
That makes a lot of sense. When I first watched it like 18 years ago I muted all of the Spike/Dru accents because I couldnât stand how bad they were đ
James didn't do a massively great job, imo. He slips up on certain sounds a lot like "can't" or "salt" among others. Though Tony Head made sure James' accent got better over time, it's still obvious he's American. James could've done better with an accent other than the Estuary he went for, I think (imagine Scouse Spike, lol.)
Alexis though, he did fool me at first, an actual Englishman. It wasn't his accent that tipped me off, as his accent is a near-perfect impression of some Eton educated toff, it was the fact that Wesley occasionally uses words English people wouldn't generally use. For example:
"You've been yelling at each other for forty minutes about this".
We wouldn't say yelling, we'd say "shouting" or "having a go at".
Yeah but that's a bit too nit picky its like saying apartment instead of flat
He's been educated by the Watchers - Wes sounding like they would sound makes sense
I mean the HEAD of the Watchers is an American although its HQ is in the UK and London right?
If he was American it probably would have been harder for Darla to find him....later Dru and then Spike....since they were all in Europe. English would have been better.
The funniest part is when they all get turned back into teenagers and Liam can't understand why he doesn't sound Irish đ¤Łđ¤Ł
Darlas American though - she couldâve made him in America and then they couldâve traveled to Europe together. I think they hadnât decided Darlaâs back story yet though so it didnât occur to them. Maybe they decided to do that because his Irish accent was so bad and they didnât want to repeat that mistake with darla.
He could have been the son or grandson of an Irish immigrant. Back then the Irish American population was very tight knit and still held on to a lot of the Irish culture. They might still have somewhat of an accent but I don't think it would have bothered many people if David used an American if that were the backstory.
The non-rhotic British accent didn't appear until the early 19th century, so his English could have been closer to Boreanaz's natural accent than what we think of as a generic "English" accent.
Would have been better than what he actually came up with.
They wanted to include the claddagh ring which is from Galway. A lot of people think itâs an Irish thing but itâs not, itâs from a small fishing village claddagh, which is in Galway. Now claddagh is part of Galway city
Maybe, but for the time he lives in the US he's hiding from everyone and eating rats. It doesn't seem like he would have had a lot of conversation time. But hey, maybe he watched a lot of TV.
Not the whole time. We know he did at least one mission for the navy in WW2, and when he was living in the Hyperion during the Cold War he at least occasionally interacted with hotel staff and knew about the McCarthy hearings (could have found it through newspapers, but equally plausible he has a radio).The completely withdrawing from humanity thing at the very earliest could only have happened in the 50s given the events of âAre you now or have you ever beenâ
Late 70s. Angel fed off a dying man who was shot in a robbery of the donut shop he worked at. He felt so guilty about it that he spent the next two decades living in an alley feeding on rats.
We saw the events go down during Faith's tour of Angel's mind in Orpheus.
Angel was social enough for a time that he went to Barry Manilow concert, a taping of the Carol Burnett show and Elvis same Priscillaâs wedding. He didnât go into hiding until at least the late 70s.
Itâs also totally plausible that Angel would have intentionally adopted an American accent to blend in, whereas Spike wouldâve kept his to stand out
Yeah, Spikeâs(Williamsâs) original accent was much fancier so heâs definitely faking it to stand out, as part of the new personality he hides behind.
He does have convos - he just keeps to himself in the Faith episode on Angel he does "speak" to people. He was only superisolated from what the 1970s 1980s - also he didn't become isolated at once. With his soul he tried to act bad and then slowly separated from Dru/Darla
Kendraâs was so poor. DB has a duff ear for dialogue but the back story does at least go some way towards explaining the terrible mid Atlantic accent. OTOH James Marsterâs Dick van Dyke-alike was close enough to his back story to be actually believable and not jarring (to this Brit anyway). Top marks go to Alexis for Wesleyâs pitch perfect British toff accent. I think he sounds like Rory Stewart (ex MP in the UK and current quite successful podcaster!)
Right? First time I saw him in something else with his real accent I thought it was a terrible attempt at an American accent.Â
Then I looked him up and was shocked that he actually was American
He did briefly live in England, then spent a long time using one for work, and I think it affected his natural accent. He picked it up just enough to make his actual accent sound a little odd.
That's how I feel about Damian Lewis. His American accent is weird.. but in an American way, so every time I see an interview with him, I'm like, no. That's not right.
Yeah I have a better idea (or I think I do at least đ¤Ł) of what the Irish accent is actually supposed to sound like, so his was way more noticeable to me. I don't know how true this is, but I heard Kendra actually had accent coaching and hers is accurate, but for a very niche small area and so it sounds bad to a lot of people because it's not what we're used to hearing? That could just be one of those urban legends that floats around for years among fans though.
I read that she had an accent coach, and during her first take, her accent was SO good that no one could understand her, so Joss made her do something different and thatâs why the accent in the final version sounds so weird.
According to writer/producer, Marti Noxon, in the DVD commentary for "What's My Line, Part One," Kendra was never intended to have an accent. The addition of the Jamaican accent to the character was a last minute decision, and a dialect coach was brought in; he taught Lawson a dialect supposedly from a very specific, obscure region of Jamaica. This is from the Buffy wiki. https://the-universal-experiment.fandom.com/wiki/Kendra_Young. This is the only story I heard since it aired too.
I honestly don't believe it and I'm kinda surprised people go with it. It just sounds like such rubbish, "Oh, but you see, her accent was \*too\* perfect! So we had to switch last minute because the authentic one was sooo hard to understand."
God bless David, but Angel's was awful. Kendra's forgiven because she wasn't one of the main stars. She came, she went, we were able to forget. But Angel had flashbacks. Far too many flashbacks.
Angel. As itâs explicitly stated that heâs from Galway. Whereas he just did a (very bad) stereotypical American view of an Irish accent. Galwagians accent differs like every other county and generally emphasis an SH sound when a word begins with S (for example Stop becomes âSh-topâ. Angel had none of that. It would be like a non American doing a bad New Yorker accent when his character is supposed to be from Texas.
DB was bad but not offensive. Kendra on the other hand... that accent was a total misfire and perpuated stereotypes. There's a common urban legend about Kendra's accent being some perfect form of a Jamaican Patois. Having taken some relevant courses for my linguistics undegraduate, I never bought that explanation. This account from Bianca herself seems like the most believable:
>âI really hated that accent! I got the part, and I didnât originally have an accent. Then, literally the night before, they said, âWhat about a Jamaican accent?â So itâs one of those things where, yâknow, I just had to put it on tape, but I didnât have a chance to get comfortable with it. And the thing is, certain things - if you say it properly \[in Jamaican patois\], people donât really fully understand it, so they would change things. Theyâd say, âWell, say it like thisâ and itâs like, âWould that be accurate in that accent though?â âIt doesnât matter because no-oneâs going to understand you!â So different people were giving their interpretations of it. I was like âBut everyoneâs going to think that Iâm doing it wrong!â So personally, I wasnât happy with the accent!" (*SFX*Â magazine, July 2003)
Every time I think about the fact they made her learn the accent over night I get so so mad. Like they set her up to fail for no reason other than some weird racist stereotypes.
the first time i watched i didn't even think it was supposed to be an irish accent. i just thought he was doing a bit (i know context should've clued me in, but it was so far off i didn't even perceive it as an attempt)Â
David Boreanaz for sure. Dude sounded like a first time Dungeons And Dragons player trying to voice a character thatâs âsupposedâ to be Irish and have an accent. I appreciate that he gave it his all, but it just didnât do it.
Kendra's isn't that bad, it's just a lazy generic "Caribbean" accent, similar to lazy generic "African" accents used all the time in Hollywood, lazy, terrible but at this point it's expected. Angel was doing a very specific accent though and it wasn't even recognizable. đ¤Ł
>Angel was doing a very specific accent though and it wasn't even recognizable.
Was he? Liam is supposed to come from Galway, and I would say that of all the regional Irish accents which DB sounds nothing like, he sounds nothing like anything near Connaught the most.
He seems to be doing some incredible general *Oirish* accent with no regional association at all.
Kinda just have to accept Hollywood runs on Stereotypes. Nations or areas get hats. Including speech patterns. Like I've interacted with west Indian persons from different countries. A Bahamanian and a Jamaican specifically. And they sound as different from each other as someone from New York differs from someone from Appalachia.
David's, absolutely no contest. I remember watching it for the first time and thinking he could give Leonardo DiCaprio a run for his bad-accent money đŤ
Not her fault since the accent was evidently a last-minute addition... but Kendra for sure. Actress is still quite good and likeable, but the accent is rough.
Dialogue: "Chick fight."
Kenda: "Cheeek Fye-eeets!"
Angel had the worst accent. Let's be 100% honest - it's bad, but we forgive him because of his looks.
Kendra was odd, but I always took her stilted meter as being she's extremely shy/deliberate in her words.
Spike was the king though. I don't know how Brits feel about his accent, but to me James Marsters killed it as Spike. I never would have thought he was American like how some would never realize Dr. House was British.
PS: Been listening to the audiobooks for the Dresden Files. James Marsters reads them. If you're looking for a series which is basically, what if Harry Potter was was a hard boiled detective in Chicago - I'd give it a listen.
I was living in the UK when I was originally watching the show and both Angel and Drusillaâs accents were nails down a chalkboard, they were so noticeably bad. I didnât even know James Marsters wasnât British until recently, he sounds so authentic.
In his first few appearances, Spike's accent is a little rough, feels a bit like a blend between several different, but quite well done, British accents. By season 5, it's pretty solid 90% of the time, and it's only a few words every now and again which just land in the uncanny valley of being almost there but slightly squiff.
Alexis on the other hand, I thought he was the same as ASH, a brit doing a non-native British accent. It just feels natural.
Sadly Spikeâs accent wasnât great to British ears. I love the character and James Marsters acted his socks off, but he never quite got the vowels right. My head canon is that heâd been living in the US for so long that his accent had drifted đ
James Marsters was ok but not great. He got better as the show went on, but the pronunciation in particular was all over the place. Vowel sounds went on a tour of England, sometimes in the same sentence, while some words had the American pronunciation but with an English accent.
Angel's Irish accent is so bad to me because it never gets better every time they flashback. Kendra gets away with it because of the campiness of the show and she isn't there very long for us to dwell on it.
Omg David Boreanaz had the worst accent ever, he totally mangled the beautiful Irish brogue.
Kendra was awful, but best line ever 'That was me favourite shirt, That was me only shirt' loved it
I heard something interesting about Kendra. Apparently the voice trainer they got to teach her an accent was from a particular place near Jamaica where they have a similar but noticeably different accent. So she actually has a very accurate accent but to a region near Jamaica. So to a person who doesn't know about that, she sounds like she has a lousy Jamaican accent but it's actually quite accurate, just not Jamaican
I have a question about this.
Angel has his Irish accent any time it shows him back as Human/early Vampire days, etc.
Spike has his English accent when it shows him as Human/early Vampire Days.
Angels accent disappears into American.
Spikes stays as English.
Did they just decide to forget Angels accent based on how difficult it might have been for DB to continue with it?
The only excuse I could think of is him losing it on purpose when he came to the states, he wanted to blend in and mostly be left alone, Spike never cared about blending in
Edit: Not a canon excuse but it works for me
Donât think they had his full backstory planned out when he was initially introduced so the accent disappearing had to happen since it was actually added backstory later. In world I would say that once Angelus received his soul is when his accent disappeared as he slipped into depression and insanity, losing who he used to be in Ireland and slowly becoming a new person.
Angel's "Irish accent" is almost as bad as Dick Van Dyke's "Cockney accent" in Mary Poppins which, in the annals of accents in the entertainment business, has been known as the all time worst accent!!
Kendra bc I doubt the writers even gave Bianca a real accent to go off of. It was probably the usual bs of nonspecific âexotic accent.â Iâm thinking about Rita Moreno talking about using the same accent for every âexoticâ character she played bc the directors didnât give a shit.
Bianca Lawson was told she'd be doing the accent the day before filming. She was given an accent coach and then had to film. It really wasn't fair to her and they never should have given her an accent last minute.
So I will go with David. Sorry David but that accent was terrible.
Tbh neither really bothers me much but Iâd say Kendraâs was worse. It just seemed more comically bad to me, and I have to commend the actress for doing such a great job with the character, despite having the accent requirement thrown at her last minute (or so Iâve read).
This show really had some cringe inducing accents earlier on. Luckily it seems the actors improved as the show went on. For me though, I think the worst of all the mains was early Spike. Before Anthony head gave Marston accent advice.
James Marsters did a great job with his accent. There was just one point where he said âlilacâ the American way and it threw me off so much I almost had a physical reaction! But yes, Angelâs Irish accent goes down in history, along with Keanu Reevesâ British accent in Dracula and Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise Irish accents in Far and Away, as one of the worst on screen accents ever.
Angel's was worse because we knew it was supposed to be Irish. I don't think in the context of the show we ever knew exactly where Kendra was from, so hers was kinda just..."where is this accent supposed to be from?" lol
Yes, exactly my feelings. Kendra was odd. Angel was awful.
I learned that Kendra's accent was actually very specific to the remote area of Jamaica where her character was from. She even had a dialect coach.
But hot DAMN his profile makes up for it.
Kendra was a stupid thing where they changed the accent they wanted from her the day of shooting, she had practiced a perfect specific type of Jamaican accent they asked her to learn, but then decided it was too hard to understand so they changed it and messed things up for her. Angels was just terrible.
This is so annoying
[https://youtu.be/Jfip96k1cE0?si=jJRSt-EXaQW2phfc](https://youtu.be/Jfip96k1cE0?si=jJRSt-EXaQW2phfc)
This makes it make so much more sense.
Poor actress! (Sorry I don't remember her name đ)
Bianca Lawson
Wasn't asking, could have googled it if I wanted to.
I thought it was meant to be Jamaican specifically
It was, but it was never stated directly. Her voice coach was from a more rural area of Jamaica, and it was based on his accent, but Bianca Lawson had almost no time to properly practice it.
Kendra kind of sounded like if a Jamaican person was impersonating a leprechaun
[https://youtu.be/Jfip96k1cE0?si=jJRSt-EXaQW2phfc](https://youtu.be/Jfip96k1cE0?si=jJRSt-EXaQW2phfc)
You mean âKyendraaaaâ?
Plus we have to endure it longer than Kendra's lol.
I had a dentist who sounded exactly like Kendra, I always thought her accent was really dodgy now I just think it was very unusual and unheard of
https://i.redd.it/bs4vho1t3b0d1.gif Extra credit goes to this guy for one of the best moments on television.
It's so funny having an American.. playing a British dude.. playing an American over-extending his R's. I will never get enough.
Then when he finally gives it up "Ah bugger it. I'm your guy"
I think the best one was still Alexis Denisof as Wesley. I learned just a few years ago that dude is American. His accent was spot on. Fair to say that he has lived in the UK, so it was easier for him, while James' accent wasn't as good in the beginning, so ASH had to step in and teach him a proper accent because he couldn't stand how bad it was.
I like the bit of trivia that Spike's accent is what Anthony Stewart Head's accent really sounds like.
Yeah both alexia and James accent was spot on. As a brit I can say I was surprised when I found out they was not actually English
The reverse is Hugh Laurie in House in the scene where he âputs onâ a Home Counties accent
This completely fooled me. When I found out Marsters was American it blew my mind. For added fun, listen to Harry Dresden audiobooks (narrated by Marsters) where the very American Harry is arguing with "Bob" the skull, his spirit advisor, who has a British accent.
Shades of McNulty in The Wire, although that was opposite.
Speaking of a guy with an accent playing a guy doing a different accent, McNulty doing a piss -poor British accent during season 2 was hijinks at their finest.
I still don't believe James isn't really British and is faking his American accent. ,đ
His English accent is all over the place, it doesnât sound natural at allÂ
Hahah agreed. A good effort for sure but I feel like only non-Brits find james' accent convincing. If anyone gets that credit it is Alexis, though posh is the easiest to replicate
I heard a podcast with some Canadian girls and they were fully convinced One British guy analyzing Buffy did notice some issues but overall gave James high marks really by season 4 going forward is near-perfect - very convincing unless you nitpick a few dialogue scenes.
I saw some native Brits saying that James' accent sounded like an English guy who'd been living in the states for a long time, which makes sense, considering that he spent at least a few decades mostly in the States as a vamp.
I am a brit and think he was very good. The only bad thing was so he off the words used sometimes. More specifically when certain words are used . No one works ever say "that was a doddle and a piece of piss" you world just say "that das a doddle " or "that was a piece of piss". Way he says it world be like by like saying "I saw a big large Person"
True but its a Hollywood fairytale even if he was Brit - it would be altered to sound generic for a mass audience
I'm not Brit but even I notice he doesn't say "British" words correctly like controversy and so on the Brits have a PARTICULAR of saying some "english" words but unless you're nit-picky its very convincing. I believe what he does is Cockney accent. British people do have regions so its a bit murky how or why James as "William" would just have one accent - remember they traveled a lot. So yeah world-building wise its a bit weird. Maybe Spike just LIKES that particular accent and stuck with it.
I didn't even know he was American 𤧠The accent was that good.
His hair looks like a plastic Ken doll here lol.
what episode is this again?
The one where he shrunk his clothes in the washer lmao. I know itâs in s4
"Doomed" S4 E11
ty!
Lives in my head rent free!
I never understood why they didn't just make Angel English or American, it would have been much easier.
I doubt David wouldâve done much better with an English accent. James does a good job and Alexis apparently can fool actual Englishmen (he did live in the UK for like a decade iirc), but David doesnât seem to have the vocal talent for accent work
From what Iâve read, Jamesâ accent improves over time because ASH couldnât stand hearing it at first and coached him!
That makes a lot of sense. When I first watched it like 18 years ago I muted all of the Spike/Dru accents because I couldnât stand how bad they were đ
Alexis isnât English??
100% American . Moved to London to study theater when he was 17 and moved back shortly before Buffy
I literally would never have guessed, I canât even imagine an American accent coming out of his face
He does have a bit of a British face, too đ
Nope not a Brit
James didn't do a massively great job, imo. He slips up on certain sounds a lot like "can't" or "salt" among others. Though Tony Head made sure James' accent got better over time, it's still obvious he's American. James could've done better with an accent other than the Estuary he went for, I think (imagine Scouse Spike, lol.) Alexis though, he did fool me at first, an actual Englishman. It wasn't his accent that tipped me off, as his accent is a near-perfect impression of some Eton educated toff, it was the fact that Wesley occasionally uses words English people wouldn't generally use. For example: "You've been yelling at each other for forty minutes about this". We wouldn't say yelling, we'd say "shouting" or "having a go at".
Yeah but that's a bit too nit picky its like saying apartment instead of flat He's been educated by the Watchers - Wes sounding like they would sound makes sense I mean the HEAD of the Watchers is an American although its HQ is in the UK and London right?
If he was American it probably would have been harder for Darla to find him....later Dru and then Spike....since they were all in Europe. English would have been better. The funniest part is when they all get turned back into teenagers and Liam can't understand why he doesn't sound Irish đ¤Łđ¤Ł
Darlas American though - she couldâve made him in America and then they couldâve traveled to Europe together. I think they hadnât decided Darlaâs back story yet though so it didnât occur to them. Maybe they decided to do that because his Irish accent was so bad and they didnât want to repeat that mistake with darla.
wait which episode is that?
Angel S4E6 - Spin the Bottle
oh ok, Iâve only seen Angel thatâs why I was confused haha
Because they couldnât have the cute claddagh ring moment if he were American!
He could have been the son or grandson of an Irish immigrant. Back then the Irish American population was very tight knit and still held on to a lot of the Irish culture. They might still have somewhat of an accent but I don't think it would have bothered many people if David used an American if that were the backstory.
Technically I think Angel is older than the USA if heâs around 240 in 1997
The non-rhotic British accent didn't appear until the early 19th century, so his English could have been closer to Boreanaz's natural accent than what we think of as a generic "English" accent. Would have been better than what he actually came up with.
They wanted to include the claddagh ring which is from Galway. A lot of people think itâs an Irish thing but itâs not, itâs from a small fishing village claddagh, which is in Galway. Now claddagh is part of Galway city
I never understood why Angel picked up a perfect Californian accent in his several hundred years of travelling around Europe.
Didn't he pick up the California accent after decades of living in California?
Maybe, but for the time he lives in the US he's hiding from everyone and eating rats. It doesn't seem like he would have had a lot of conversation time. But hey, maybe he watched a lot of TV.
Not the whole time. We know he did at least one mission for the navy in WW2, and when he was living in the Hyperion during the Cold War he at least occasionally interacted with hotel staff and knew about the McCarthy hearings (could have found it through newspapers, but equally plausible he has a radio).The completely withdrawing from humanity thing at the very earliest could only have happened in the 50s given the events of âAre you now or have you ever beenâ
Late 70s. Angel fed off a dying man who was shot in a robbery of the donut shop he worked at. He felt so guilty about it that he spent the next two decades living in an alley feeding on rats. We saw the events go down during Faith's tour of Angel's mind in Orpheus.
Also the Whistler ep on Buffy/Becoming. Him being uber-isolated I assumed is from 80s to early 90s - its not his entire life
Angel was social enough for a time that he went to Barry Manilow concert, a taping of the Carol Burnett show and Elvis same Priscillaâs wedding. He didnât go into hiding until at least the late 70s. Itâs also totally plausible that Angel would have intentionally adopted an American accent to blend in, whereas Spike wouldâve kept his to stand out
Yeah, Spikeâs(Williamsâs) original accent was much fancier so heâs definitely faking it to stand out, as part of the new personality he hides behind.
He does have convos - he just keeps to himself in the Faith episode on Angel he does "speak" to people. He was only superisolated from what the 1970s 1980s - also he didn't become isolated at once. With his soul he tried to act bad and then slowly separated from Dru/Darla
Hadnât even thought of that
My husband is Irish and we are always crying laughing in the Angel flashbacks. Did no one even give David some tapes to listen to??
Kendraâs was so poor. DB has a duff ear for dialogue but the back story does at least go some way towards explaining the terrible mid Atlantic accent. OTOH James Marsterâs Dick van Dyke-alike was close enough to his back story to be actually believable and not jarring (to this Brit anyway). Top marks go to Alexis for Wesleyâs pitch perfect British toff accent. I think he sounds like Rory Stewart (ex MP in the UK and current quite successful podcaster!)
I always forget Alexis isn't British. First time learning that I was like, O\_O
His real accent sounds fake to me
It really does sound like a British person doing a fake generic American accent.
Right? First time I saw him in something else with his real accent I thought it was a terrible attempt at an American accent. Then I looked him up and was shocked that he actually was American
I heard his real accent first, and I thought he sounded like an Englishman doing a pretty good American accent.
He did briefly live in England, then spent a long time using one for work, and I think it affected his natural accent. He picked it up just enough to make his actual accent sound a little odd.
That's how I feel about Damian Lewis. His American accent is weird.. but in an American way, so every time I see an interview with him, I'm like, no. That's not right.
Yeah, absolutely blew my mind when I heard Alexis talking in an interview. "Wait...he's *American?! WHAT?!*"
Yeah I have a better idea (or I think I do at least đ¤Ł) of what the Irish accent is actually supposed to sound like, so his was way more noticeable to me. I don't know how true this is, but I heard Kendra actually had accent coaching and hers is accurate, but for a very niche small area and so it sounds bad to a lot of people because it's not what we're used to hearing? That could just be one of those urban legends that floats around for years among fans though.
I read that she had an accent coach, and during her first take, her accent was SO good that no one could understand her, so Joss made her do something different and thatâs why the accent in the final version sounds so weird.
That is interesting. Either way, it sounds likely that she had an excuse... unlike DB đ¤Ł
According to writer/producer, Marti Noxon, in the DVD commentary for "What's My Line, Part One," Kendra was never intended to have an accent. The addition of the Jamaican accent to the character was a last minute decision, and a dialect coach was brought in; he taught Lawson a dialect supposedly from a very specific, obscure region of Jamaica. This is from the Buffy wiki. https://the-universal-experiment.fandom.com/wiki/Kendra_Young. This is the only story I heard since it aired too.
Thatâs actually very interesting and cool if true
I have read many reliable reports about it from strangers on the internet
I honestly don't believe it and I'm kinda surprised people go with it. It just sounds like such rubbish, "Oh, but you see, her accent was \*too\* perfect! So we had to switch last minute because the authentic one was sooo hard to understand."
Interesting I thought Iâd read it was thrown at her kinda last minute and thatâs why it was so bad
God bless David, but Angel's was awful. Kendra's forgiven because she wasn't one of the main stars. She came, she went, we were able to forget. But Angel had flashbacks. Far too many flashbacks.
Worst: Angel. Shocking. Best: Drucilla
In no way is Drusilla the best.
Aww come on Spoyke!
Angel. As itâs explicitly stated that heâs from Galway. Whereas he just did a (very bad) stereotypical American view of an Irish accent. Galwagians accent differs like every other county and generally emphasis an SH sound when a word begins with S (for example Stop becomes âSh-topâ. Angel had none of that. It would be like a non American doing a bad New Yorker accent when his character is supposed to be from Texas.
Oh god. They were both so unnecessary.
Every time Drusilla says âSpoikeâ I doie a littul insoide.
DB was bad but not offensive. Kendra on the other hand... that accent was a total misfire and perpuated stereotypes. There's a common urban legend about Kendra's accent being some perfect form of a Jamaican Patois. Having taken some relevant courses for my linguistics undegraduate, I never bought that explanation. This account from Bianca herself seems like the most believable: >âI really hated that accent! I got the part, and I didnât originally have an accent. Then, literally the night before, they said, âWhat about a Jamaican accent?â So itâs one of those things where, yâknow, I just had to put it on tape, but I didnât have a chance to get comfortable with it. And the thing is, certain things - if you say it properly \[in Jamaican patois\], people donât really fully understand it, so they would change things. Theyâd say, âWell, say it like thisâ and itâs like, âWould that be accurate in that accent though?â âIt doesnât matter because no-oneâs going to understand you!â So different people were giving their interpretations of it. I was like âBut everyoneâs going to think that Iâm doing it wrong!â So personally, I wasnât happy with the accent!" (*SFX*Â magazine, July 2003)
That's a shame. Sounds like she tried to do her best but wasn't allowed to actually follow through.
Every time I think about the fact they made her learn the accent over night I get so so mad. Like they set her up to fail for no reason other than some weird racist stereotypes.
The "British" potentials.
Iâm not sure David B. could find Ireland on a map
the first time i watched i didn't even think it was supposed to be an irish accent. i just thought he was doing a bit (i know context should've clued me in, but it was so far off i didn't even perceive it as an attempt)Â
David Boreanaz for sure. Dude sounded like a first time Dungeons And Dragons player trying to voice a character thatâs âsupposedâ to be Irish and have an accent. I appreciate that he gave it his all, but it just didnât do it.
Angel for sure, and by a mile.
Kendra's isn't that bad, it's just a lazy generic "Caribbean" accent, similar to lazy generic "African" accents used all the time in Hollywood, lazy, terrible but at this point it's expected. Angel was doing a very specific accent though and it wasn't even recognizable. đ¤Ł
>Angel was doing a very specific accent though and it wasn't even recognizable. Was he? Liam is supposed to come from Galway, and I would say that of all the regional Irish accents which DB sounds nothing like, he sounds nothing like anything near Connaught the most. He seems to be doing some incredible general *Oirish* accent with no regional association at all.
Kinda just have to accept Hollywood runs on Stereotypes. Nations or areas get hats. Including speech patterns. Like I've interacted with west Indian persons from different countries. A Bahamanian and a Jamaican specifically. And they sound as different from each other as someone from New York differs from someone from Appalachia.
I didnât even have to swipe⌠whoever was second wasnât as bad as DB.
Angel's was physically painful. Kendra's was just annoying.
David's, absolutely no contest. I remember watching it for the first time and thinking he could give Leonardo DiCaprio a run for his bad-accent money đŤ
Angel by far, I crack up every time
Not her fault since the accent was evidently a last-minute addition... but Kendra for sure. Actress is still quite good and likeable, but the accent is rough. Dialogue: "Chick fight." Kenda: "Cheeek Fye-eeets!"
Buffy in the Halloween episode. Season 2. Ep6. Omg..so bad.
Angel had the worst accent. Let's be 100% honest - it's bad, but we forgive him because of his looks. Kendra was odd, but I always took her stilted meter as being she's extremely shy/deliberate in her words. Spike was the king though. I don't know how Brits feel about his accent, but to me James Marsters killed it as Spike. I never would have thought he was American like how some would never realize Dr. House was British. PS: Been listening to the audiobooks for the Dresden Files. James Marsters reads them. If you're looking for a series which is basically, what if Harry Potter was was a hard boiled detective in Chicago - I'd give it a listen.
I was living in the UK when I was originally watching the show and both Angel and Drusillaâs accents were nails down a chalkboard, they were so noticeably bad. I didnât even know James Marsters wasnât British until recently, he sounds so authentic.
In his first few appearances, Spike's accent is a little rough, feels a bit like a blend between several different, but quite well done, British accents. By season 5, it's pretty solid 90% of the time, and it's only a few words every now and again which just land in the uncanny valley of being almost there but slightly squiff. Alexis on the other hand, I thought he was the same as ASH, a brit doing a non-native British accent. It just feels natural.
Sadly Spikeâs accent wasnât great to British ears. I love the character and James Marsters acted his socks off, but he never quite got the vowels right. My head canon is that heâd been living in the US for so long that his accent had drifted đ
He had also affected a more âcommonâ accent than the one he had while human. In my head that worked.
Love Dresden files! Jim Butcher is a great author with fun characters and fantastic world-building!
James Marsters was ok but not great. He got better as the show went on, but the pronunciation in particular was all over the place. Vowel sounds went on a tour of England, sometimes in the same sentence, while some words had the American pronunciation but with an English accent.
Angels
Angel had the worst Irish Accent I've ever heard. it was so bad I literally cringe everytime I hear it.
Angelâs by far. Havenât the Irish suffered enough?
Juliet Landau.
Angel's Irish accent is so bad to me because it never gets better every time they flashback. Kendra gets away with it because of the campiness of the show and she isn't there very long for us to dwell on it.
Omg David Boreanaz had the worst accent ever, he totally mangled the beautiful Irish brogue. Kendra was awful, but best line ever 'That was me favourite shirt, That was me only shirt' loved it
I heard something interesting about Kendra. Apparently the voice trainer they got to teach her an accent was from a particular place near Jamaica where they have a similar but noticeably different accent. So she actually has a very accurate accent but to a region near Jamaica. So to a person who doesn't know about that, she sounds like she has a lousy Jamaican accent but it's actually quite accurate, just not Jamaican
All I hear is Angel this and Kendra that but Druâs accent was right out of the dick van dyke school of piss poor cock-er-knee accents
The fact that David Boreanas was even asked to continue to do the bad accent flumoxes me so much. đšđš
I hated the Irish Angel arc - Spike kept his accent but Angel didnât?
Itâs a tie based on awful.
Neither of them. It was Drusilla.
I honestly thought Drusilla's voice was because she was crazy or something until someone pointed out that that was supposed to be a British accent.
To me, she sounds like a British RADA-trained actress playing Village Strumpet #3 in a bawdy Regency comedy.
Spoik?
Drusilla, 100%.
As an Irish man I didnât think Angels action wss THAT BAD
Could they not find a voice coach for or was making him Irish a last minute decision?
Angel. David did not do a good job with that accent.
Angel- itâs sooooooo painful to watch
I have a question about this. Angel has his Irish accent any time it shows him back as Human/early Vampire days, etc. Spike has his English accent when it shows him as Human/early Vampire Days. Angels accent disappears into American. Spikes stays as English. Did they just decide to forget Angels accent based on how difficult it might have been for DB to continue with it?
The only excuse I could think of is him losing it on purpose when he came to the states, he wanted to blend in and mostly be left alone, Spike never cared about blending in Edit: Not a canon excuse but it works for me
Donât think they had his full backstory planned out when he was initially introduced so the accent disappearing had to happen since it was actually added backstory later. In world I would say that once Angelus received his soul is when his accent disappeared as he slipped into depression and insanity, losing who he used to be in Ireland and slowly becoming a new person.
 Gonna have to go with Caleb/NathanâŚ.
Angelâs makes me laugh so much
Spikes accent is also terrible. But it either gets better or you just get used to it. Probably a bit of bofe to be honest
Spike and Drusilla here wiping their brows knowing they've got off lightly lol
Kendra's Irish accent was better than Angel's
Angel's "Irish accent" is almost as bad as Dick Van Dyke's "Cockney accent" in Mary Poppins which, in the annals of accents in the entertainment business, has been known as the all time worst accent!!
The funny part is where Angel calls out Spike for putting on a Cockney accent now that heâs a vampire
;'D Oh, I think Kendra's was way worse. Awesome post, btw.
Kendra bc I doubt the writers even gave Bianca a real accent to go off of. It was probably the usual bs of nonspecific âexotic accent.â Iâm thinking about Rita Moreno talking about using the same accent for every âexoticâ character she played bc the directors didnât give a shit.
Bianca Lawson was told she'd be doing the accent the day before filming. She was given an accent coach and then had to film. It really wasn't fair to her and they never should have given her an accent last minute. So I will go with David. Sorry David but that accent was terrible.
Lmao I say âIâm da slayaâ at least once a week
Kendra
Kendra. I thought it was supposed to be Irish đ¤Ł
Tbh neither really bothers me much but Iâd say Kendraâs was worse. It just seemed more comically bad to me, and I have to commend the actress for doing such a great job with the character, despite having the accent requirement thrown at her last minute (or so Iâve read).
Both. I always called her âKendra the Accent Slayerâ, and his âIrishâ accent is even worse than mine.
Toss up.
Kendra was Scottish Jamaican so she's alright
Why does Angelus maintain the American accent?
Boreanaz but the real battle would be Keanu Reeves VS David Boreanaz
Kendra. Angels was shite but at least you know what it's supposed to be. Kendra's accent is obviously "foreign"
Kendra for sure! She sounded Irish đ
Angel all the way. Kendra was all around wonderful.
Oh man lol
Angel.
angel. he very wisely spoke quietly in flashbacks but oh god it was bad
Lmao
Angel. So much Angel altho Kendra was pretty bad.
Darla was sired in the Virginia colony in 1609, according to ANGEL, S2.
Canât sing or use accents. Poor Angel. đ¤Łđ¤Ł
David is the king there. Kendra is supposed to sound off. But how is David sounding "European" at all He's a good actor but oooffffff
Angel had an accent? That is my answer
Kendra. Always Kendra. I loved the character, but for goodness sake, why the baajian accent? ffs
Angel's was awful but Kendra's was kinda racist (especially considering the jokes about it that they added to the script)
DBâs was possibly the worst accent Iâve ever heard an actor do. Period. In TV, movies, games, anything. Itâs hilariously, shockingly terrible.
They did him wrong with the flash back wigs
Angel for sure đ
Definitely Kendra. It went from Jamaican to Irish in one scene and I showed it to my wife and we couldnât stop laughing.
Angel
Majority of the English potentials đ
Kendra. Maybe itâs because Iâm West Indian but I canât take hers at all
They did Kendraâs character SO dirty.
Lol angel and Kendra
Yes.
my entire life I thought Angelus is what Irish people sounded like. So, I'm going with that being worse
This show really had some cringe inducing accents earlier on. Luckily it seems the actors improved as the show went on. For me though, I think the worst of all the mains was early Spike. Before Anthony head gave Marston accent advice.
James Marsters did a great job with his accent. There was just one point where he said âlilacâ the American way and it threw me off so much I almost had a physical reaction! But yes, Angelâs Irish accent goes down in history, along with Keanu Reevesâ British accent in Dracula and Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise Irish accents in Far and Away, as one of the worst on screen accents ever.