The worst fake accents ever heard on film

Acting is a complex craft, but mastering an accent? That's a unique challenge. It often takes hundreds of hours of work with a dialect coach, something not every production can afford. Other actors just fail to catch the music of an accent or take it way over the top, despite a lot of work. Either way, grab your popcorn, because here are some of the most hilariously cringe-worthy accent attempts in history!

While Cage is a brilliant actor, he is not always applauded for his spot-on accents. But many say the worst one of all was his highly exaggerated Italian accent: “just-a talk-a like-a dis, si?” Roger Ebert suggested the film might have worked better with subtitles, pointing out the absurdity of one scene "where something is said in English pronounced with one accent, and a character asks, What did he say? and he is told -- in English pronounced with another accent."

Image: Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (2001), Universal Pictures

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It took some guts for Travolta to go in full drag to play Tracy’s mom in the remake of the John Waters classic. While he explained that he put a lot of care into perfecting a Baltimore accent, local resident Dr. Sarah Eason tweeted that it was pretty cringy and “sounded oddly like Dr. Evil.”

Image: Hairspray, (2007), New Line Cinema

This movie was full of English speakers using an Italian accent in English (and Italian) throughout the film, and a lot of them got fair amounts of criticism. But dialect expert Garrett Strommen told Slate that Irons was the worst since he “sounded very English” and like he just totally dropped the accent. After Irons, the next worst was Adam Driver, followed by a three-way tie between Al Pacino, Lady Gaga, and Jared Leto.

Image: House of Gucci, Universal Pictures All-Access, Youtube

The Irish accent is also a hard one to crack (see: Cameron Diaz in ‘Gangs of New York’ and Julia Roberts in ‘Mary Reilly’), Cruise in this 1992 film is one of the worst offenders. “Playing Irish immigrant Joseph Donnelly in the 90s attempt at a western, Tom manages to hammer home every top-of-the-morning cliché but barely keeps his voice the same. How Nicole Kidman coped, we don’t know,” writes Ireland’s District Magazine.

But District Magazine said this film is Hollywood’s all-time worst imagining of Ireland and its accent. “Set on a mystical Irish farm in a weird mashup of the 1960s and 2010s, the film features a cast of incredibly talented A-listers with Irish accents that make your skin crawl,” it says, adding that Christopher Walken’s “pirate version” of Irish is one of the worst, though it has no kind words for Emily Blunt and Jamie Dornan either.

Image: WILD MOUNTAIN THYME (2021), Bleecker Street, Youtube

While Wayne was hardly trying to put on an accent in this Howard Hughes-produced film, it is hilarious to hear him play Ghengis Khan in his signature drawl. Serious critics have ranked it as the worst film ever made and Wayne posthumously received a Golden Turkey Award in the "Worst Casting" category for his performance.

Image: ‘The Conqueror’ (1956), RKO Radio Pictures

Cuban actress Ana de Armas had her work cut out for her when she signed up to portray one of the most iconic actresses in Hollywood history. While de Armas captures Monroe’s glamour and look, her Spanish accent still comes through at times. This is despite her having studied nine months of dialect coaching.

Image: ‘Blonde,’ (2022), Netflix

Connery is known and loved for his Scottish accent, but tended to have trouble straying from it. “Whether he's a Russian sub captain (The Hunt For Red October) or even an English king (First Knight and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves), always that baritone Highland burr remains,” Empire wrote. In fact, his Irish accent in the 1987 film ‘The Untouchables’ was voted worst accent ever by the magazine… though that didn't keep him from winning an Oscar for his performance!

Image: The Untouchables (1987), Paramount Pictures

Ford is another iconic actor whose bad accent didn’t get in the way of him starring in a film. In K-19, he played a Russian Cold War captain. As Entertainment Weekly put it at the time: “ “[Ford] speaks with an accent so slight it’s like the speech equivalent of a fake mustache.” Though Liam Neeson’s accent in the film also remained quite Irish.

Image: K-19: The Widowmaker (2002), Paramount Pictures

This brilliant actress has also been slammed for her Ukranian accent in the fourth installment of ‘Indiana Jones.’ While she gets credit for trying, observers point out that there’s nothing Ukrainian about her accent or presence, and it’s more of a Hollywood version of “vaguely Russian.”

Image: ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ (2008), Paramount Pictures

This accident belonging to a cockney chimney sweep is iconically brutal. But in 2023, the actor even joked about it, saying an Irish man taught him and then explaining how he used to lie about it saying: ‘It wasn’t cockney: it’s from a little obscure county in the north of England. A few cockneys moved up there in the 1800s. You probably never hear it again.”

Image: Mary Poppins (1964), Buena Vista Pictures

Voted by The Guardian as the worst Australian accent on film ever, critics say it’s very hard to make out that he’s trying to be an Aussie blogger preaching the truth about the cure for a pandemic. “I’d describe it as worthy of official trade sanctions against the US and UK,” writes Australian film critic Clem Bastow.

Image: ‘Contagion,’ (2011), Warner Bros

Another beloved actor who is infamously bad at accents, this may be his absolute worst. Director Francis Ford Coppola even acknowledged as much: "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. I tried to get him to just relax with it and not do it so fastidiously. So maybe I wasn't as critical of him, but that's because I like him personally so much,” he told Entertainment Weekly.

Image: Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Colombia Pictures

While the young actress is one of the most accomplished actresses of her generation, even she admitted that her American accent was wonky at times… to say the least. "My accent? I was really nervous. I think it sounded terrible!" she told MTV News.

Image: ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower,’ Rotten Tomatoes Coming Soon, Youtube

Although this 90s classic wasn’t exactly meant to be taken seriously, Voight’s accent playing a Paraguyanan snake hunter is extra ridiculous. For his work, Vought was even nominated for that year’s Razzie for worst actor.

Image: Anaconda (1997), Sony Pictures Releasing

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