"Better get rid of your accent."

The Guardian recently railed against bad accents on film and on stage. Why not dispense with the whole messy business of accents, the paper suggested? Now I am not one to hate on actors who aren't gifted at accents. Many factors go into casting, and accent proficiency should not be the prime one, or even in the top five.

"The constabile's responstable."

But compared to analyzing scripts and motivations, as well as physical appearance, chemistry with costars, the accent's bottom-drawer. Films about historical events or celebrities require the accent: Cate Blanchett as the inimitable Katherine Hepburn (The Aviator), Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote. But sometimes actors use them as a crutch. Meryl Streep couldn't have pulled off Julia Child without her distinctive chirp, but did she need such a heavy cloud of Bronx dialect hovering over Doubt?

If your characters are Europeans speaking, presumably, in German, don't have them pull out the bier-und-bratwurst. Amadeus is a wonderful example of Austrian/German/Italian characters all speaking in their natural Standard American--because why should they do otherwise?

All I ask is that actors be consistent. Devise whatever Scandinavian dialect you like, but don't slip in and out of it. Or going halfway then giving up (like Kevin Costner's in-out British Robin Hood). It's easy to cite Sean Connery for his Scottish brogue no matter what role he plays; but I don't want to spend the film cringing as he butchers other dialects needlessly. Did Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, or Bette Davis let it get them down? Their own peculiar speech patterns were good enough.

Some general trends: Brits tend to think Americans hail from North Carolina. Australians are accent pros. Every movie set in Boston seems to require the whole cast to chomp through each scene like it were chowdah from the hahbah.

Memorable accents attempted gone askew:

Dick van Dyke, Mary Poppins (Cockney).
Michael Caine, The Cider House Rules (New England).
Keanu Reeves, Bram Stoker's Dracula (British). Prime example of someone who should have just gone American.
Eddie Izzard, The Riches (Southern).
Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond (South African).
Julianne Moore, 30 Rock (Boston).

Some actors are more adept, from Vivien Leigh to Kate Winslet. Toni Collette, Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, all from Down Under. Meryl Streep by sheer volume.