The Wire - McNulty's Fake English Accent

[AmericansMakeMeSick]

Shitty Americans

[CreamMonkey]

Sheeeeeeeeeeeit ! stringer bell is also british.

[csmac30]

@ketchledge New York and Minnesota are states while England and Scotland may be apart of Britian but they are 2 completely different countries

[tfn105]

@csmac30 Nations, not countries. One of Alex Salmond's many bones of contention

[Stevo985]

Spot On!

[TheseCitiesOurGraves]

what about the flaming drongo part?

[ketchledge]

English and Scottish are both British.  It'd be like, "You do any accents? Minnesota, American, New Yorker?" Seems like a weird mistake for Lester to make.

[jankobdd]

lol did he say Stepney? its the ghetto where my dorm is

[watermellony]

Meta

[stikerhapi]

mcnulty and freamon's fucking faces at 00:27 hahaha hilarious!!

[squealyparsuperstar]

@stikerhapi haha their only after a blunt

[weeleon81]

mcnulty was a fuckin ira bitch

[Thomaxius]

an English guy playing a American character who is trying to fake an English accent.

WIRECEPTION

[OlderG0ds]

@Thomaxius And the added bonus, he's playing an Irish-American (McNulty). "The English fuck who stole my ancestors land" haha

This scene almost hurts my brain.

[TheFriendlyGod]

Love the line about the rock songs--he's referring to "Play With Fire" by Rolling Stones, which contains the line "Now she gets her kicks in Stepney, not in Knightsbridge anymore."

[yungyacht]

"Crikey" is an Aussie term.

[sarangipani]

@yungyacht Since when? Where do you think the Aussies got it from?

[cleverandrew123]

@yungyacht - Nope. As with most Aussie slang, it originated in Britain.

[LordGeorgeRodney]

I haven't seen a fake English accent by an English actor since the days of Allo Allo! when Arthur Bostrum played an English born French policemen in occupied France in WWII when he was talking French BUT in an English accent!

He came out with legendary phrases like ...

''I was just pissing by'' & ''Good moaning''

A rarity!

[anlashock]

@LordGeorgeRodney "I have a massage for you"

lol

[FischscaleBricks]

In Soviet Russia, accents impersonate you.

[Fezziekid]

Dominic West's apparently of Irish extraction, so it's really an Irish guy pretending to be a posh English guy pretending to be an American cop trying to be an irish guy trying to be an English guy.

[trollfinger]

@Fezziekid

He has Irish parents, but he was born and raised in England. He would never have had an Irish accent.

[Vinnieification]

"Can you do any accents? English, British, Scottish, something like that?"

I don't even.

[Embrace731]

British actors/actresses rule! On BOTH sides of the pond!

[GuitarSlingerJ]

Holy shit he's British?! And people thought the dude from house was amazing for his "American" accent.

[GotNextVideo]

@GuitarSlingerJ His Baltimore accent isn't very good, but in fairness, the Baltimore/Philly accent confounds most American actors too.

There are a few good Bmore accents on the The Wire, like Valchek, Dennis Mello, and Assistant Principal Donnelly, but they're all Baltimore or Philly actors. It's a pretty tough accent for anyone who didn't grow up with it.

[TheAnxietyCloset]

@GotNextVideo in Mello's case, he's the real Jay Landsman. 100% genuine Baltimore cop.

[Enkiaswad]

I wanna see Carcetti trying to sound Irish XD

[squamish4244]

"English fuck" pretty much sums up Cromwell. Btw I'm not from Ireland, although some ancestors were.

[LordGeorgeRodney]

@squamish4244 that's funny!!

Dominic West portrayed Oliver Cromwell in ''The Devils Whore.''

[squamish4244]

@LordGeorgeRodney That's even funnier. Lol!

[johnfitz441992]

"the english fuck who stole my ancestors land" he's talking about oliver cromwell who came over to ireland and planted most of the country.

[BIoodrunk]

It sounds like he's trying to sound Australian

[mussa1984]

He did that well. Didn't know he was english till today, means 2 of the best characters in the show are played by english actors. Him and stringer.

[TheGravitationist]

@mussa1984

and Mayor Carcetti is played by an Irishman.

[CssAfc]

He's actually impersonating Americans trying to impersonate English people, haha.

[xance1]

I think it's funny that he actually ended up playing oliver cromwell in a brit tv show a few years after this

[juicylucy73]

haha, fab impression of most Americans I know trying to do a British accent. Dominic rules!

[ericharris1999]

Great actor i wonder if he will nail Fred West's accent in the upcoming drama about the real life serial killer .The westcountry bumpkin accent is hillarious be interesting to see how Dominic handles it.

[DemonSmiter16]

Not only is it funny cause he really is English (and that was a BAD accent), but he also played the English fuck who stole his ancestors land :)

[Jgjekaj]

@DemonSmiter16 you have at least 4 pages worth of people making the same comments lol

[nebhuskers923]

@peteradaniel just so you know, most people from Maryland don't have an accent. Most people, like myself, just have a normal American accent

[JacobMorgan1]

@nebhuskers923

You just contradicted yourself.

[creamedcornallday]

@nebhuskers923 Baltimore has some type of accent. you guys talk this. ::Refernence a Prop Joe quote::

Just dew as you dew.

if you want to hear good Balitmore accents on the show, listen to Sherod and Marla Daniels.

[HueyRocks23]

I didn't know he was English until I turned on the TV last week and saw a Sandra Bullock movie with him in it. I stood there asking myself, "why would they get an American to play an Englishman"? Then I learned the truth through Wikipedia. What an actor!

[stikerhapi]

mcnulty and freamon look fucking high when they went to daniel's office xD

[stikerhapi]

@imbobsaget i noticed that too and rewinded it again when i first saw this episode! mcnulty's fucking grin, man!! LOL

[Sandra3594]

LOL

[imbobsaget]

lol i love how mcnulty and freamon are so happy when the walk into the office and then daniels is like "wtf is this shit"

[Roodosutaa]

Isn't James Cromwell that really tall old geezer?

This is like Diane Kruger in Inglourious Basterds playing a German actress speaking English with a German accent

[knaan163]

@IrishGary ironic cos he actually played cromwell in some other tv series

[JohnBrody23]

His American accent wasn't that great, stringers wasn't that great either. Sometimes it just slipped completely for sentences. Like string in that copy shop. Still brilliant actors in this though.

[AdamskiNior]

He's from Sheffield in the North of England and the differences between Northern and Southern accents is just about the same as the differences between English and American accents.

[DontGoQuietly]

Indeed, although if you've heard Dominic West speak, he doesn't have a particularly strong Sheffield accent.

[MrPathfinder808]

pmsl this is class..... top actor

[philyburkhill1]

90 percent of english people can put on a fake accent just by putting on a cockney accent on cause most people in london are foreign

[stig781]

"fuck who stole my ancestor's land" yes after the civil war what with cromwell making himself chief-high this or that of England, I can imagine lol

[gg0u1239]

can yanks tell when a brit does an american accent?

[hiropro2000]

@gg0u1239

Not when it's done as well as Dominic West in this series... The man nails the regional accent better than I could, as an American.

[Ardenwolfe]

@hiropro2000 I'm saying. It's crazy that he has a heavy, English accent in real life. Never would've guessed it.

[Liface]

@gg0u1239 I've never been able to tell.

[funkmike]

I would have liked it if the madam at the brothel got suspicious of his "accent", and asked McNulty to imitate an American accent just to test him...and of course, he'd have to speak "American" in the shittiest way possible to prove that he's a "real" Brit.

So then he'd be a Brit imitating an American, (badly) imitating a Brit, then (even more badly) trying to imitate an American. And in front a whore doing a fake Russian accent.

[imbobsaget]

Daniels was like WTF

[vlkisef]

Excuse me? lol

[FallenFromGrace90]

"Work on it son, work on it."

[kierang06]

credit where its due dominic can do a good bad american doing english accent lol

[rockabillychickee]

crikey! lmao

[outdoorkunu]

In the words of the great Senator Clay Davis.."Shiiiiiiiiiiiit."

[mf1932]

Genius in-joke.

[paraparrot]

in the german translation they gave mcnulty a french accent...wich is horrible, man.

but the worst thing is that method man s german dubbing voice sounds like theo huxtable s dubbing voice =((

apart from this: best show EVER !!

[R0undAboutMidnight]

haha, he's played by an Englishman but his fake English accent is worse than his fake American accent.

[DeadlyPoisonedCandy]

fucking cromwell

[malleymyster]

i think it's supposed to be austrialian

[kriminalcollective]

I'd be interested to hear from any native Baltimor(ions?) how good Dominic West's Baltimore accent is?

I'm from Scotland and even I can sometimes hear that it's not quite right, but it's convincing enough that I'm not bothered by it.

Idris Elbar (sp) is also from England and I'd never have guessed he was putting on an accent.

But I'm not really going to notice as much since it's all forgien to me anyway.

[peteradaniel]

@kriminalcollective I'm from Manchester and after sitting through the first season of The Wire fully convinced that McNulty's Baltimore accent was spot on, as well as the rest of the main cast, I was suprised to hear that he, and for the most part they, was no were near the Maryland twang. John Travolta in Hairspray gets it bang on on the other hand. It is a wonderfully localised accent and truly represents the 'Border State, which is Maryland.

[PlayboiX122]

"work on it son, work on it"

lmao

[daveibukun]

He is English.

[AlanTTT3]

Ha ha Englishmen haven't spoken like that since 1940 and thats the joke. Now days our speech is full of Americanisms - we call each other guys, not blokes or chaps, we say can I get - not may I have, kids are even starting to call their mothers mom instead of mum.

And as for swearing - who do you think invented it - you dumb arsed mother fuckers.

[LauritZenc]

@AlanTTT3 That's completely untrue.

[stig781]

@AlanTTT3 "guy" isn't an americanism. And swearing? You mean to say for the 500 years of english before 'americans' existing we didn't develop swearing? Heh not quite right. Do americans even have a word for 'wanker'?

[Thelookoutslookout]

@stig781 "Jackoff"

[Juustokauppias]

hanky spanky :P

[hux2000]

I have to say that Dominic West's American-doing-a-bad-English-a­ccent sounds a lot more genuine than the American accent he does when he's playing McNulty, where you can still hear his native English accent coming through occasionally.

Oh and of course that American accent is *nothing* like the Baltimore accent it's supposed to be! ;-)

[lithfrasir]

The major divide in the accent across the whole of britain is the divide between "rhotic" & "nonrhotic" speakers.This has to do with how you pronounce r sounds. non-rhotic speakers pronounce /r/ only if it is followed by a vowel sound.

Lots of people in the south east of england pronounce the "th" sound from the front of their mouths & it comes out like an "F". its also common for them to miss out h's & t's. saying "ard" insteadof "hard" or "wor - ah" instead of water.

[lithfrasir]

most americans seem to think that all the english talk in this way. truth is its an accent that rich people from a very elite background have. most people have their own regional accent. Although i think lots of middle class southern people have a particular way of talking which sort of crosses regional boundaries. Although even they must pick up different inflections in speech from the people around them.

[john1boon]

You've got to realise that an old Etonian accent is very marginal and distinctive (i.e. freaky), and you wouldn't want to go out of your millionaire's playground with an Eton accent, and everybody who goes through Eton ends up with an Etonian accent. After all why would you pay all that money if you weren't getting something for it. So, for survival in the big wide world, you are forced to adopt a street-cred accent . It is probably where his talent for accents comes from.

[smukles]

I think any time cops do bad accents on The Wire is hilarious. Lester calling Marlo about pepper steak in season 5 and Carver calling D pretending to be a Korean counterman in season 1 are both great as well.

[bakayurei]

hugh laurie couldnt do that.. house's english accent is too convincing to convince me he's playing an american

[Toxineatsyou]

he plays cromwell in the devil's whore

[VengaboysRbackINtown]

Lol. An English actor playing an American who's doing a bad English accent. Inspired. :-)

[CPGallagher89]

@VengaboysRbackINtown

The scary thing is his real accent does sound like an American doing a bad English accent.

Still love him though

[loggereh]

@VengaboysRbackINtown we must go deeper

[osbert]

@VengaboysRbackINtown INCEPTION

we must go derper

[poopmcscoopface]

@osbert damn you beat me

[britnic34]

Idris Elba is also English (born in London) - he's the actor who plays Russell 'Stringer' Bell in The Wire.

[britnic34]

Dominic West: an Englishman acting as an American trying to an English accent...cool!! :D Yeah, he's from Sheffield (Northern England).

Btw, i'd like to know how convincing his Baltimore accent is to any Americans here (i'm english).

[bootymanager]

McNulty's not British. Don't bullshit. He sounds like he's from the North-East. Maybe Jersey. He does a pretty good job of an English accent though. I might check out the imdb. That is usually pretty accurate. You'll find he's from Jersey, maybe Maryland or DC.

[connorhodgy]

Dominic West The Man That Plays Him Is English but i dno where McNulty is from it probably says in the wire sometime

[chefawkes]

dumbass he's irish

[diseasefaktory]

maybe you should do as you said and check imdb before making a fool of yourself.

[bootymanager]

Yeah, I am joking. You didn't really think I didn't know those guys were English, did you?

[catchfree84]

lol you took a L there big guy

[finnmaster]

naa hes english same for stringer bell :)

[bakayurei]

thankyou, this gives me confidence that i'm not going crazy.. i remembered seeing stringer in some soap a few years back, i was sure it was him but convinced myself it wasnt

[Dannyb0y24]

hes irish ethnically but english

[liamuk08]

@bootymanager

The Character McNulty is not from Britain.

The actor, Dominic West, who plays McNulty is from England, which is in Britain, which is in Europe.

Gotta make it easy for you.

[bootymanager]

I was actually just joking. I know he's English.

[Shearnster]

its oliver not james

[ZimM804]

its seems like its easy for forigners to do american accents than vice versa

[t5y665yrty56]

lester is also british or he has lived in britain for the last 20 years.

[TheAnxiousMan]

Nope, he is not.

[mtnlogistics]

um the actor who plays mcnulty really IS a brit. listen to him talk in the dvd commentary

[fordy83]

Meta.

[Gooderz21]

Its like an american trying to do an english accent that doesnt sound like dick van dyke in mary poppins

[smashadmns]

its so funny cause he IS a brit. so really he's a englishman acting with an american baltimore accent trying to act with a British accent.

[MrMikeyboy1002]

@smashadmns Wow, that is amazing! I never knew he was british. I was shocked when I found out stringer was, they do an American accent so damn good!

[SonnyA89]

@smashadmns lolol thanks Einstein!

[poopmcscoopface]

@smashadmns Inception.

[zippyman818]

Born in Sheffield, Yorkshire.

[dovestones]

Yeah, for all those Americans...a Yorkshire accent is nothing like a London one.

[pepski111]

Though being an old Etonian he doesn't speak with a yorkshire accent, just a posh one.

[honey0474]

truly funny,considering he is playing cromwell in devil's whore.

[kulgan18]

lol

[RealityBites1990]

Thanks for posting! I love these scenes xD