h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Let's list some movies in which the bad guy has a britsh accent. This is for an entry I'm writing.

Titanic,The Patriot,Braveheart for starters.

Incog twirling her moustache.

Okay, it's TV, but loads of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' villains have British accents. Well, English ones, anyway.

Anthony Hopkins in 'the Silence of the Lambs' - everyone's favourite Welsh baddie.

Alan Rickman's sheriff of Nottingham in Costner's version of 'Robin Hood' - and I think this one's pertinent seeing as nearly all the goodies have American accents.

Christopher Lee/Peter Cushing in anything in which either of them appeared...

Thanks for those.

I'm sticking with movies for now, though...

Having just watched the remake of Rear Window with Christopher Reeves - the baddy was suprise suprise - English.

Eddie Izzard does a great sketch about this, i think in Dress to Kill, about the historic / cultural reasons for this.

Jemery Ions (SP?) in the lion king.

I'll come back with more. There are so many

All the Empire folk (except Darth Vader) in the old Star Wars movies, 101Dalmations dognappers (in the cartoon), and Tim Curry in an assortment of kids movies.

Yankee-shoes

But Anthony Hopkins had an American accent in Silence of the Lambs. At least, it was supposed to be an American accent. I thought it was quite good.

Alan Rickman in "The Last Picture Hero"

Jeremy Irons in "The Lion King"

The (supposedly) Cockney explosives expert in Oceans Eleven

the actor ( ) is worthy of a Dick van Dyk award
and the director is worthy of

Sorry, that should have been:

Alan Rickman in "The Last Action Hero"

Others are:

Shere Khan the Tiger in Disney's The Jungle Book
The Butler (can't remember his name) in Disney's The Aristocats

Bit surpised no-one has mentioned Die Hard yet.

Alan Rickman does get a lot of these parts, doesn't he?

Geggs

Bobby Carlyle (and most of the other characters) in Trainspotting.

I don't think you can count a film where all the people in the film are British, such as Trainspotting. Or is it Oxford English accent we're talking here?

Alan Rickman in 'Die Hard' and Jeremy Irons in 'Die Hard With A Vengeance'. Yes, Alan Rickman does get a lot of these parts, but then he's so good at them.

Ian Ogilvy (who played a baddie in some American TV show) asked why so many baddies are English. The answer: "It's the only ethnic group we can use that is guaranteed not to object." Having said that, in 'Enemy at the Gates', the "good guys" (i.e, Russians) mostly had English accents (Jude Law, Joseph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Bob Hoskins) and the "bad guys" (I.e., Germans) had American accents (Ed Harris had coaching to tone his down).

Whoever did the voice for Shere Khan in the Jungle Book - still up there as one of my favourite films ever...

...it was Charles Dance in Last Action Hero.

And Rickman and Irons are both German characters in the Die Hards Hans and Simon Gruber I believe.

Shere Khan's voice was provided by George Sanders, famous for playing urbane villains. Perfect casting. Love that film.

Well, yes, Rickman and Irons were playing German characters in the Die Hard films.

But they still had clearly british accents.


Geggs

If Bobby Carlyle from Trainspotting is no good, How about Mr and Mrs Tweedy in Chicken Run (not ALL of the characters are british in that one!).

Nah, it's Mel Gibson would isn't British in that. And he's an Aussie.

That's a point. How many Aussie accents have turned up in internationally famous films?


Geggs