Acting in the Thick of Accents

An imposing figure in a long, black military coat studded with brass buttons appears on deck. His men salute, addressing him as “comrade captain.” He barks orders in a stern Russian accent that sweeps viewers back to the Cold War era.

Who is that tough Red navy officer with the stiff, bureaucratic air and the voice as frosty as a Siberian winter? It’s Harrison Ford, that quintessentially American star who with his latest role as a Russian submarine commander in “K-19: The Widowmaker” hopes to surprise fans with a previously undiscovered talent--his ability to flesh out his character with a foreign accent.

It’s a risky move for a marquee name with an established career, says David Alan Stern, a former Hollywood dialect coach, now professor of dramatic arts at the University of Connecticut. “If your career and your public persona is based on a very strong identity, certain elements of which never change, basically you’re perceived as a personality more than you’re perceived as an actor. It’s always a huge risk if the public is going to accept you, regardless of whether it’s performed well.”

Almost every review of the film, which opened last weekend to a disappointing fourth-place finish at the box office ($13.1 million), made note of Ford’s accent, some in a mocking manner: Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman wrote that “[Ford] speaks with an accent so slight it’s like the speech equivalent of a fake mustache.” Desson Howe of the Washington Post wrote, “His Russian accent works at the beginning of his sentences, then the American brogue creeps back in.”

Critics and audiences expect far more from American actors than they once did. Decades ago, Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, John Wayne and other top actors kept their heroic personas, no matter the role. “It would have been surprising and a risk if they had played a British lord or a Southern sharecropper,” Stern said.

It was beyond surprising when Clark Gable donned a dubious Irish accent for “Parnell” (1937) and stunning when Spencer Tracy won an Oscar for playing Manuel, a Portuguese fisherman with a not-so-authentic accent in “Captains Courageous” (1937).

But today’s movie stars must leap into all kinds of parts requiring accents. In general, American actresses such as Meryl Streep and Gwyneth Paltrow have had more success than their male counterparts. Consider: Brad Pitt’s severe Austrian accent in “Seven Years in Tibet” (mein Gott!), Nicolas Cage’s over-the-top Italian in “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin” (mamma mia!) and Kevin Costner’s British accent in “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” (crikey!)--a performance described as “More Sherman Oaks than Sherwood Forest” by one critic.

Accents spin actors out onto thin ice, but when rendered articulately they can be critical to the story line and add as much atmosphere as location shoots and special effects. For “K-19,” the producer, star and dialect coach agreed that Russian accents were necessary because of the film’s global casting.

“I felt it was the best decision,” said dialect coach Howard Samuelsohn. “We had British and Canadian and Icelandic actors and a couple of real Russians, and Liam Neeson’s Irish and Harrison is all-American. Kathryn [Bigelow, the director-producer] thought they should all sound like they’re from the same world.” (As opposed to those old World War II movies in which the Yanks sounded like themselves and the Nazis sounded like Prince Charles’ polo team. Or as in last year’s “Enemy at the Gates,” another military tale in which some of the Russian and German officers had accents but the Red army heroes spoke like Brits--Joseph Fiennes sounded like he went to Oxford; Jude Law sounded like he went to a few pubs.)

Another reason for the accent in “K-19” was that Ford felt it would help him play the character, Samuelsohn said.

“I said, ‘Do a little of what your idea of a Russian accent is,’ and I heard him and thought, ‘He can do this.’ And he said ‘It’s my grandmother.’ So I felt confident all the way through.”

Samuelsohn and Bigelow agreed that the Russian accents should sound as natural as possible. There would be no rolled Rs and no confusion of Vs with Ws. (No Ensign Chekov from “Star Trek.”)

“I used Harrison as kind of the center of the wheel,” Samuelsohn said. “He was the guy that I wanted everyone to sound like whether they were from Britain or Scotland, and if I couldn’t get them to be as Russian as I would have liked, I would err on the side of them sounding more American, like Harrison.”

Neeson, who has worked extensively on stage and in Hollywood, garnered an Academy Award nomination for his German-accented role in “Schindler’s List.” (1993). Stern has also coached Neeson and describes his natural northern Irish dialect as “Irish pronunciation with Scottish inflection.” Those listening very carefully might hear it popping out occasionally in “K-19.” They’re probably Americans, said Samuelsohn. “You don’t hear the American accent because to people who live in America, that is a neutral sound.”

Accents and elocution have always been a significant part of traditional British dramatic training. But the U.S. has caught up. The American regional theater movement, which spread like wildfire in the ‘60s and ‘70s, created a demand for stage and screen actors with sophisticated training. Colleges, universities and conservatories have strengthened their programs in that area, and today’s actors are the proof. Streep’s note-perfect performances in “Sophie’s Choice” (1982), “A Cry in the Dark” (1988), “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” (1981) and other films have raised the bar in Hollywood.

Streep studied at the Yale School of Drama. But on a movie set, there’s no time for Ivy League instruction. So, dialect coaches are hired, sometimes to the tune of $7,000 to $10,000 a week.

Brutal shooting schedules force coaches into tight deadlines; they might get only a couple of sessions or rehearsals with the actors--if there are rehearsals at all.

Once filming begins, the coach usually disappears, unless an actor has tremendous clout. In that case, the coach might be allowed on set to listen carefully, giving notes between takes, as long as he or she stays out of the way of the director.

Some coaches do extensive historical and sociolinguistic research to create the perfect accent. Gary Oldman’s creepy speech in “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (1992) was invented by the actor and dialect coach Jessica Drake based on the historical figure Vlad the Impaler. “He was a Magyar Hungarian kidnapped by the Turks as a child. He didn’t escape until he was 12.... The accent was Hungarian, Turkish and Romanian. It was completely made up. But who’s gonna argue when none of us were there?”A small percentage of actors can learn simply by hearing and repeating. Comedians and those with a gift for mimicry master accents quickly, Stern noted.

Today, American and Canadian actors with comedic roots fearlessly tackle accents. In “Austin Powers in Goldmember,” Mike Myers’ speech zigzags from Britain to Scotland, Belgium to Holland. Robin Williams went Russian in “Moscow on the Hudson” (1984) and Bostonian in “Good Will Hunting” (1997). Dan Aykroyd headed for the Deep South in “Driving Miss Daisy” (1989). Tom Hanks talked Alabama in “Forrest Gump” (1994), Louisiana in “The Green Mile” (1999).

If the actor isn’t a great mimic, smart dialect coaches capitalize on other abilities, said Robert Easton, an actor and longtime accent coach who calls himself “The Henry Higgins of Hollywood.” “Some are kinesthetic. I had a girl who was an American who had never done an English accent. I watched the way she moved and said, ‘You’re a dancer,’ and she said yes, she had studied since she was 5. So I worked with her on the physicality of the accent: Round the lips, open the mouth, vibrate the vocal cords.”

Easton, a stammerer in childhood, believes anyone who wants to work seriously is trainable.

Samuelsohn says most movie stars will train like mad because they think of themselves as actors first. Like Harrison Ford in “K-19,” they crave the challenge, he said.

“He didn’t want to do ‘Indy Jones in the Submarine of Doom’; he wanted to play the part.”

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Times staff writer Susan King contributed to this report.