Accent Work on Soaps: The Good, The Bad, and The Godawful

[Chris B]

Tammin Sursok who was woefully miscast as Colleen Carlton on Y&R, couldn’t do an American accent to save her life. 

[YRfan23]

Emily O’Briens British accent is always spot on and it’s crazy that IRL she has an American accent. I know she was born in England but she doesn’t have an accent. 

[Taoboi]

I would say that Joseph Mascolo was the standard.

 

From the moment he made it to the studio until he left, he stayed in his accents. So much so that even co-stars did not know his real voice or even that he was American. That is just excellent and flawless. People STILL have stories of this they mention in interviews. 

OMG! Really? Woooow. I am shocked. 

[ChickenNuggetz92]

Melrose Place's Sandy Harling. Not that I thought it was bad - she was far more convincing than whatever accent MEK thinks he's doing on GH. She went from having a southern accent to a super southern accent to having no accent at all in a span of like 5 episodes.

 

Special mention goes to Brenda Dickson's transatlantic theatrical accent she put on Jill on the tail end of her run on Y&R.

Edited March 18, 2021 by ChickenNuggetz92

[Forever8]

She's been living in the U.S. since she was 7 or 9 in San Diego I believe. 

[YRfan23]

Thanks! I figured her lack of an accent had to do with her growing up in America, but it’s crazy for a while I really thought she spoke like that! 

[Forever8]

I didn't know that either until I read about it. It surprised me and so did when I found out Fiona Hutchison was born in the states but her accent on both One Life To Live and Guiding Light was seamless as well. Probably because her parents were British. 

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Fiona Hutchison actually spent part of her formative years living in Jamaica and when I listened to her during her time on GL, I can actually hear it in her British-y speech patterns in the formation of certain words.

[MinnaH]

My mind immediately went to her. Losing Adrienne Leon for Sursok was a raw deal.

 

I generally find Australian actors unconvincing as Americans. Ingo Rademacher didn’t fare much better as B&B’s Thorne. 

[janea4old]

 

Not sure to whom you're referring.

on Y&R, Victor caused Jack to be imprisoned on an island.  Victor replaced Jack with a criminal look-alike named Marco Annicelli that Victor had found in a Peruvian jail.

Actress Sofia Pernas played the character Marisa Sierras on Y&R. That character was the one that Real Jack met on the ship when he escaped from the island.  Marisa had previously been involved with Marco but decided to help Jack when she met Jack.

In real life, actress Sofia Pernas was born in Morocco and raised in the USA.  She speaks four languages: Arabic, English, Spanish and German.  (Her mother is from Morocco, and her father is from Spain and both of them speak more than one language.). When Sofia was hired at Y&R, her character Marisa was supposed to have an accent from a Spanish-speaking country.  Sofia incorporated that into her character Marisa, as directed. However, after she'd been airing on the show for a little while, ThePowersThatBe told her to drop the accent immediately because they thought the CBS daytime audience wouldn't like it, so she dropped it as directed and began speaking American English with no accent. 

 

(fyi, after she left Y&R, Sofia Pernas starred in "The Brave" and then in "Blood and Treasure".  I watched both series and I thought she did a good job in both roles, but they were each cancelled or not renewed.  She's now dating Justin Hartley.)

[Vee]

Typical CBS.

[Faulkner]

Doesn’t that just say it all?

[Fevuh]

That's her.  I just think it's stupid when they have an accent and then suddenly lose it.  Same with Zoe and Xander on B&B.  

[Cat]

 

WELL HELLO! 

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  In a weird way, and as OTT as that accent was, it worked for me. It worked within the confines of Y&R as one of the most glamorous, lush and old-school melodramatic soaps on air. It worked in terms of Jill pretending she was to the manor born when the audience knew full well she was not. It also worked when things went wrong for Jill and there was this comedic aspect to it. I personally loved how committed Brenda Dickson -- and by extension, Jill -- was to keeping the accent going, even in intimate scenes with family. It was like Jill had reinvented herself root and branch in order to 'make it' and there was no going back to Jill Foster.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Cat

[DramatistDreamer]

 

This was the way I saw it too. It was as if she were asserting her new identity (people really do this IRL, think of Madonna or Andre Leon Tally), that she was no longer the same woman who did manicures for rich ladies...she was now the rich lady and she would never let anyone (including herself) forget this.

 

It's like a really meta actor who is always in character.

Edited March 19, 2021 by DramatistDreamer