Director Lasse Hallstrom bought it. Rumor had it Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt almost got into a knock down drag out over Pitt s Irish accent as an IRA mole in The Devil s Own. Hah, says Pitt, who concocted an unintelligible Irish gypsy gibberish accent for his current action picture Snatch. The Gift, starring Australia s Cate Blanchett as a Southern psychic. The cast had a voice coach training everyone to speak the same Southern dialect so it sounded as if they all were from the same town, says Reeves.
Accents seem to be an acid test for many actors.
We always got a kick that the two quintessential American cop leads from L.A. Confidential were played by foreigners. Witness the great botched job by Jodie Foster as an English nanny in Anna and the King or Claire Danes as Cosette in Les Miserables. London s Emma Thompson totally Hilary Clinton-esque in Primary Colors. From Nottingham, England, Samantha Morton plays an Iowa junkie opposite Billy Crudup in the must-see movie Jesus Son. Ralph Fiennes was quintessential American WASP Charles Van Doren in Quiz Show.