Dialects in film

[Laurence Horn]

At 4:15 PM -0700 2/21/05, Ray Villegas wrote:
>
>Nicole Kidman, Jude Law and Rene Zellweger are very believable in a
>lot of movies they do. All three were in Cold Mountain and were able
>to come across quite Southern. You don't realize how strong of an
>Australian accent Nicole has until you hear her in an interview.
>
Indeed.  As it happens, I was just listening to her on the "extras"
CD accompanying Cold Mountain, in which she participated in a staged
reading of passages from the novel and other material, and in that
her accent was far less Southern than in the movie, but not at all
her native Australian (in which she spoke elsewhere on the CD, when
she was talking about her participating in the film, gratitude toward
the director and co-stars, etc.).  More like the accent she uses in
"Eyes Wide Shut" but with maybe a slight coloring of Southern.  Jude
Law used his standard British accent for the readings, or at least
his very nice reading from the Book of Job.

Larry