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October 12

Angela Lansbury's accent

Did Angela Lansbury speak with a English, Irish or American accent? See her interviews on Youtube. 86.133.195.73 (talk) 19:53, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Who says it has to be only one of those? --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:19, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

She had her own idiolect of course, and it did drift and change throughout her life (as most people's do). I would classify her later-life accent as the Mid-Atlantic accent (not to be confused with Mid-Atlantic American English, to which it is unrelated). Which is to say it is somewhere about halfway between RP and General American. --Jayron 32 10:46, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

When I watched some of the interviews, she said can't the way Irish people pronounce it, rather than English or American. 86.133.195.73 (talk) 22:25, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If so, that's an idiosyncratic thing; she has (to my knowledge) never lived in Ireland for any extended period of time. Her mother was born and raised in Belfast prior to the division of the island into Northern and Republic portions, so if that had any influence on Lansbury's manner of speech, I do not know, but Lansbury was raised and lived most of the earliest part of her life (when a person's dialect and accent is generally most fixed) in and around Greater London, and given her family's middle-to-upper-middle social class, probably spoke something like Non-U Received Pronunciation, which would have been the most likely dialect spoken in her social circle, and she would have been hearing at school and amongst her peers. As an actor working both sides of the pond, her ability to switch between dialects was likely useful, and her use of the Mid-Atlantic accent made her blend well with the dialect spoken by other actors working during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Of course, every person speaks with an entirely unique idiolect, and not every single peculiarity of a person's speech pattern is entirely explainable. --Jayron 32 12:01, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

See this interview with closed captions (cc) on. So her accent was Mid-Atlantic, which is between British and American? And that's how she was Irish-British and American? 86.133.195.73 (talk) 19:39, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

She was only half Irish, and her mother came from Belfast. The accent used in Northern Ireland is radically different from that found in the south of the island and is rather closer to Lowland Scottish - see Ulster English for details. Personally, I can't hear any Irish influence in her speech, but I'm no expert. Alansplodge (talk) 10:47, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What about her Mid-Atlantic accent, which blends British and American? Is that why she sounds like that? 86.133.195.73 (talk) 21:20, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I imagine so. She grew up in London but lived almost exclusively in the USA from 1940. Alansplodge (talk) 13:24, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This reputable British newspaper says that for the part of Jessica Fletcher, supposedly a native of New England, "she lightly Americanised an accent that remained audibly English off-screen throughout her life". Alansplodge (talk) 13:32, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It is well to bear in mind that actors are trained to use different accents, and may do so both consciously while on camera/microphone, and consciously or unconsciously in off-screen life. I recently saw an interview (on The Late Show?) with an Irish actor who has family in both Ireland and the USA. He said he unconsciously speaks with an American accent in the USA, and reverts to his original one in Ireland. Many non-actors do something similar, as I do myself when visiting Scotland, where as an Englishman I lived for several years. It is, I am sure, a normal human phenomenon worldwide. See Code-switching and Sociolect. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.195.172.49 (talk) 19:43, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

French actresses in hair-cut protest video

This BBC video shows many famous French women cutting their hair to protest the death of Mahsa Amini (I think the same video is also on a number of other websites too). The accompanying text only identifies Juliette Binoche and Marion Cotillard (although I don't recognise Cotillard in the video). Can anyone help figure out who everyone is? So far I only identify:

0:00 Juliette Binoche

0:07 ?

0:18 ?

0:19 ?

0:20 ?

0:21 ?

0:22 ?

0:23 ?

0:24 ?

0:29 Abir Al-Sahlani

0:34 ?

0:35 ?

0:37 ?

0:39 Jane Birkin and Charlotte Gainsbourg

0:40 ?

0:41

0:42 Abir Al-Sahlani again

0:55 Mahsa Amini

1:08 Ravina Shamdasani

1:20 ?

1:21 ?

1:22 Mélanie Laurent, I think

1:23 Charlotte Rampling

and then lots of people in quick succession 51.7.144.172 (talk) 23:30, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I can't find a full list, but various articles about the video also mention Isabelle Hupert, Isabelle Adjani, Julie Gayet and Pomme as other participants. This article [1] includes a list of twitter addresses for the participants; that should help you identify some of the others. Xuxl (talk) 14:23, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

0:18 looks like Amy Adams. Staecker (talk) 21:14, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Huppert is at 0:22. --Viennese Waltz 10:53, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]