Member-only story
ST. DAVID’S DAY SPECIAL!
Robert Downey Jr’s performance as Dolittle is amazing. And he does it with a Welsh accent.
…I think it’s fair to say, though, that the accent RDJ uses in Dolittle has had a mixed response.
And since today is St. David’s day — and I never lose a chance to talk about Wales and being Welsh — what better time to discuss it?!
I loved this film in general — it’s so random and so fun and so amazing!
…But I don’t think the American market got it.
I think RDJ has been hanging around with British people too much, cos the reviews from Americans that I’ve seen are like… you didn’t get this at all, did you?
You know the great thing about Dolittle?
It’s good — it’s simply good.
It’s good and fun and sweet and big-stakes but small-stakes, and it has Robert Downey Junior using a Welsh accent!
Choosing a Welsh accent isn’t something actors do.
(Except Bill Nighy occasionally, because studios think they have to hire him if they want a Welsh guy…? I don’t know why, he’s improved but… it tends to be a li’l caricature-y.)
In fact, most Welsh actors — Michael Sheen, Catherine Zeta Jones, Taron Egerton, Iwan Rheon, Rhys Ifans, Ioan Grufudd, etc. — end up flattening and Anglicising/Americanising their accents in a lot of parts.
(Ironically, Michael Sheen is playing an English dude in this film.)
One criticism of RDJ’s accent that I’ve seen, and that I hate, is that it’s ‘stupid.’ The thing is… the accent is accurate. (Imho.)
And our accents get described as ‘stupid’ — we get described as ‘stupid’ — unless we make ourselves sound English.
So a smart — in fact, a genius — character, with a distinctively Welsh accent? When so often we are described as being, essentially, a cultural wasteland? THANK YOU!
