Nailing an accent can make or break a performance. Here’s a list of actors who stunned us with their accent game and a few who didn’t quite hit the right notes.

Nailing an accent can make or break a performance. Here’s a list of actors who stunned us with their accent game and a few who didn’t quite hit the right notes.By :Pragya Jha | Updated at : 05 Jul 2025 02:03 PM (IST)

Hollywood’s Accent Report Card: A+ to WTH?!Source : IMDb

An actor’s performance can be greatly influenced by his accent. Some Hollywood actors find that adopting a foreign accent is second nature, which allows them to give their characters more depth and realism. On the other hand, for others, it becomes a hindrance, diverting attention away from the performance and perhaps eliciting more criticism than praise.

Here we focus on actors who were masters of accents and who brought their parts to life, as well as those who, despite their best efforts, failed to convince us with their accent.

Actors Who Mastered the Accent

Kate Winslet in ‘The Reader’ Accent: German

Kate Winslet has always been fearless onstage, and her use of accents is no exception. She won an Oscar for her portrayal of a German concentration camp guard in ‘The Reader’, so it must have been a top pick.

She acknowledged the “extremely difficult” accent and its unique difficulties throughout the film’s promotions. Even the German actors all had the same dialect coach, which helped them all sound the same.

Although her vowel accuracy has been criticised by some native speakers, her dedication to her German accent garnered her widespread accolades and an Oscar.

Christian Bale in ‘The Fighter’ Accent: Boston

This Welsh-born actor is well-known for successfully passing himself off as American in a number of roles, all because of his impeccable accent work. Christian Bale utterly submerged into Dicky Eklund’s character in sports drama ‘The Fighter’. He won an Oscar for his performance and a convincingly rough, nasal Boston accent.

At the same time, his grimy Batman voice shows that he has an excellent ear and is quite prepared.

Benedict Cumberbatch in ‘Black Mass’Accent: South Boston

In the 2015 crime film ‘Black Mass,’ the renowned British actor gave a terrifyingly convincing portrayal as Billy Bulger, the strong brother of gangster Whitey Bulger. Cumberbatch’s impeccable Boston accent in the film garnered a lot of accolades, demonstrating how well he prepared and how he could totally change his voice to reflect the place where his character was born.

Daniel Day-Lewis in ‘There Will Be Blood’Accent: American, Irish

Daniel Day-Lewis, widely considered the master of method acting. As a Brit who always gets the American accent right, Day-Lewis’s performance in historical drama ‘There Will Be Blood’was spot-on and engrossing.

Meanwhile, in 1997 film ‘The Boxer’, the character required Daniel Day-Lewis to train intensively as a boxer and speak with a Northern Irish accent, which he masterfully executed in one of his finest films.

Meryl Streep Every Accent

Without the queen of transformations, no list is complete. Whether it’s her British accent in ‘The Iron Lady’ or her Polish accent in ‘Sophie’s Choice’, Meryl Streep has really mastered dialect acting.

Meryl also played an Australian with an accent in the 1988 film ‘A Cry in the Dark’. They had to give the characters an Australian accent since the plot takes place in Australia. Much as in her previous films, Meryl was flawless in this role.

The Bronx area of the United States is known for its distinctive accent. In the critically acclaimed 2008 film ‘Doubt’, Meryl Streep adopts a Bronx accent as well.

Actors Who Struggled With Accents

Anne Hathaway in ‘One Day’Accent: Yorkshire

The American actress really tried to pull off a realistic Yorkshire accent when she played the role of Emma Morley in the 2011 film ‘One Day,’ co-starring Jim Sturgess. Critics were less impressed with Hathaway’s portrayal of the regional accent, even if the film was well-received overall.

She went on to disclose her nontraditional approach to attempting to understand the local accent. “It was really hard. I worked with a dialect coach and in the evenings I watched Emmerdale a lot,” she confessed to the BBC.

Don Cheadle in ‘Ocean’s Eleven’Accent: Cockney

Even though Don Cheadle is a phenomenal actor, the film was a critical and commercial failure due to his overdone and inconsistent Cockney accent.

Keanu Reeves in ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’ Accent: British

Keanu Reeves as Jonathan Harker in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 gothic horror film ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’ has frequently been singled out, despite his renowned mesmerising screen presence. Viewers often found fault with his inconsistent delivery, which contrasted with his co-stars’ more genuine portrayals.

Despite Reeves’s adoration for numerous roles, the pop culture world still finds humour in his awkward English accent from this classic.

Julia Roberts in ‘Mary Reilly’Accent: Irish

Not even Julia Roberts, who is a Hollywood superstar, finds accent work easy.  Her portrayal of an Irishwoman in the 1996 historical drama ‘Mary Reilly’ was heavily criticised for its false accent, which reviewers and spectators alike felt detracted from the film’s intended mood.