Tommy Lee Jones bluffs a pretty good brogue as Blown Away's mad bomber, but costar Jeff Bridges, playing an Irish immigrant who's lived in Boston since his younger years, rarely sounds like he's ever been within a thousand miles of Massachusetts. Yet, as these less-than-Streepworthy efforts attest, Bridges is not the first movie actor to wander all over the map in search of the right inflection.
Actor: Laurence Olivier as Neil Diamond's cantor pop in The Jazz Singer (1980). Attempted Accent: Crusty old Jewish guy. What He Sounds Like: Billy Crystal in The Princess Bride. Signature Line: ''I heff no sahn!''
Actor: Al Pacino as Glasgow-born fur trader Tom Dobb in Revolution (1985). Attempted Accent: An 18th-century colonist in New York City. What He Sounds Like:] A time traveler from the modern-day Bronx. Signature Line: When asked what's happened to his land, he says it's been sold ''tudda speckle-ators.''
Actor: Melanie Griffith as mistress Maria Ruskin in The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990). Attempted Accent: Southern belle. What She Sounds Like: Scarlett O'Hara on helium. Signature Line: ''Shuhman, I'm from th' South, an' um beginnin' t'not like this ver' much.''
Actor: Demi Moore in Mortal Thoughts (1991). Attempted Accent: Bayonne, N.J., local. What She Sounds Like: The blaring horn of a Mack truck. Signature Line: ''Aright, Joyce, aright. Yer like a broken rekkid heah.''
Actor: Nick Nolte as a dad trying to cure his sick son in Lorenzo's Oil (1992). Attempted Accent: Italian. What He Sounds Like: Father Guido Sarducci. Signature Line: ''My gosh, heesa learn three languages. How kood he be eyeper-acteef?''
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