What happened to sean connerys voice ?

Denzil2222 · December 2010

In nsna he sounded nothing like he did in Dr no.

Hardyboy · December 2010

For one thing, I think Connery as he got older and more established made fewer attempts to cover his Scottish accent. More than that, in a lot of men as they age their voices get huskier. Today the 80-year-old Connery sounds perpetually hoarse, but I hear he's otherwise in good health.

thesecretagent · December 2010

Connery became bigger than his parts, so to speak. He had done a few things but Bond was his biggest break. As his fame and success grew, Connery just stopped trying. All in all, he's a pretty rubbish actor - if acting is conveying a particular role and "acting" accordingly. He's certainly no Daniel Day-Lewis or Johnny Depp. For the past fifteen years Connery has become a charactiture of himself. He sounds like a bad impressionist doing "Connery". Michael Caine is guilty of exactly the same thing...

Ricardo C. · December 2010

thesecretagent wrote:

Connery became bigger than his parts, so to speak. He had done a few things but Bond was his biggest break. As his fame and success grew, Connery just stopped trying. All in all, he's a pretty rubbish actor - if acting is conveying a particular role and "acting" accordingly. He's certainly no Daniel Day-Lewis or Johnny Depp. For the past fifteen years Connery has become a charactiture of himself. He sounds like a bad impressionist doing "Connery". Michael Caine is guilty of exactly the same thing...

Rubbish ? I have to disagree. Connery isn't a versatile actor and he certainly dosen't make an effort to hide his accent but that dosen't mean he's a bad one. His preformances in The Hill, The Offence, and The Untoucables were all terrific. Few actors can loose themselves in their roles like Depp or Day-Lewis so it's a pretty unfair comparison.

thesecretagent · December 2010

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Connery - but he's not a great actor. Interestingly you quote some pretty old films there. The Hill for example only cements my argument - yes he was good in that. 45 years ago.

Mr Martini · December 2010

Ricardo C. wrote:

thesecretagent wrote:

Connery became bigger than his parts, so to speak. He had done a few things but Bond was his biggest break. As his fame and success grew, Connery just stopped trying. All in all, he's a pretty rubbish actor - if acting is conveying a particular role and "acting" accordingly. He's certainly no Daniel Day-Lewis or Johnny Depp. For the past fifteen years Connery has become a charactiture of himself. He sounds like a bad impressionist doing "Connery". Michael Caine is guilty of exactly the same thing...

Rubbish ? I have to disagree. Connery isn't a versatile actor and he certainly dosen't make an effort to hide his accent but that dosen't mean he's a bad one. His preformances in The Hill, The Offence, and The Untoucables were all terrific. Few actors can loose themselves in their roles like Depp or Day-Lewis so it's a pretty unfair comparison.

Sean Connery even won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance in The Untouchables .

Ricardo C. · December 2010

Mr Martini wrote:

Ricardo C. wrote:

thesecretagent wrote:

Connery became bigger than his parts, so to speak. He had done a few things but Bond was his biggest break. As his fame and success grew, Connery just stopped trying. All in all, he's a pretty rubbish actor - if acting is conveying a particular role and "acting" accordingly. He's certainly no Daniel Day-Lewis or Johnny Depp. For the past fifteen years Connery has become a charactiture of himself. He sounds like a bad impressionist doing "Connery". Michael Caine is guilty of exactly the same thing...

Rubbish ? I have to disagree. Connery isn't a versatile actor and he certainly dosen't make an effort to hide his accent but that dosen't mean he's a bad one. His preformances in The Hill, The Offence, and The Untoucables were all terrific. Few actors can loose themselves in their roles like Depp or Day-Lewis so it's a pretty unfair comparison.

Sean Connery even won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance in The Untouchables .

Yep. He also deserved a best actor Oscar for The Hill and The Offence. Those were really powerhouse preformances.

DaltonFan1 · December 2010

I think Connery puts on the pronunshiation of his "s"/sh to get attention. It is something very distinctive about him and everyone seems to forget that he didn't do it in the earlier part of his career. Of course, it may well be the case that this just comes with age.

thesecretagent · December 2010

Mr Martini wrote:

Ricardo C. wrote:

thesecretagent wrote:

Connery became bigger than his parts, so to speak. He had done a few things but Bond was his biggest break. As his fame and success grew, Connery just stopped trying. All in all, he's a pretty rubbish actor - if acting is conveying a particular role and "acting" accordingly. He's certainly no Daniel Day-Lewis or Johnny Depp. For the past fifteen years Connery has become a charactiture of himself. He sounds like a bad impressionist doing "Connery". Michael Caine is guilty of exactly the same thing...

Rubbish ? I have to disagree. Connery isn't a versatile actor and he certainly dosen't make an effort to hide his accent but that dosen't mean he's a bad one. His preformances in The Hill, The Offence, and The Untoucables were all terrific. Few actors can loose themselves in their roles like Depp or Day-Lewis so it's a pretty unfair comparison.

Sean Connery even won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance in The Untouchables .

Absolutely, and I agree he played a great part. But it was Sean Connery - if you closed your eyes you would know it was Sean Connery in an instant. Also note this is pretty much the time when Sean Connery started to completely drop any effort to talk any different. I think he had a great dialogue, script and direction in that film. He also worked with Costner who at that time could do no wrong in the movie industry. This post is about what happened to his voice - and my opinion is that as Connery grew to be a mega-star (I like the guy's films BTW) he dropped his efforts to act, and just became "Sean Connery". As I wrote earlier, Michael Caine has done exactly the same thing. Look at his films now, and in the sixties, and his voice is completely different. He doesn't even attempt to tone down his accent.

mrbain007 · December 2010

I loved Connery in The Rock but that was admittingly a chariciture of himself. In the film he was even said to have being caught in 1962 and escaped in '63 8-)

Q and M · December 2010

ny1 notice nyting different bout his voice at the start of diamonds are forever

Ricardo C. · December 2010

thesecretagent wrote:

Mr Martini wrote:

Ricardo C. wrote:

Rubbish ? I have to disagree. Connery isn't a versatile actor and he certainly dosen't make an effort to hide his accent but that dosen't mean he's a bad one. His preformances in The Hill, The Offence, and The Untoucables were all terrific. Few actors can loose themselves in their roles like Depp or Day-Lewis so it's a pretty unfair comparison.

Sean Connery even won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance in The Untouchables .

Absolutely, and I agree he played a great part. But it was Sean Connery - if you closed your eyes you would know it was Sean Connery in an instant. Also note this is pretty much the time when Sean Connery started to completely drop any effort to talk any different. I think he had a great dialogue, script and direction in that film. He also worked with Costner who at that time could do no wrong in the movie industry. This post is about what happened to his voice - and my opinion is that as Connery grew to be a mega-star (I like the guy's films BTW) he dropped his efforts to act, and just became "Sean Connery". As I wrote earlier, Michael Caine has done exactly the same thing. Look at his films now, and in the sixties, and his voice is completely different. He doesn't even attempt to tone down his accent.

You can really say that about any actor really. Also what good is an actor if he has no good material ? Of course he was supported by a good script and director.

zaphod · December 2010

Ricardo C. wrote:

thesecretagent wrote:

Connery became bigger than his parts, so to speak. He had done a few things but Bond was his biggest break. As his fame and success grew, Connery just stopped trying. All in all, he's a pretty rubbish actor - if acting is conveying a particular role and "acting" accordingly. He's certainly no Daniel Day-Lewis or Johnny Depp. For the past fifteen years Connery has become a charactiture of himself. He sounds like a bad impressionist doing "Connery". Michael Caine is guilty of exactly the same thing...

Rubbish ? I have to disagree. Connery isn't a versatile actor and he certainly dosen't make an effort to hide his accent but that dosen't mean he's a bad one. His preformances in The Hill, The Offence, and The Untoucables were all terrific. Few actors can loose themselves in their roles like Depp or Day-Lewis so it's a pretty unfair comparison.

I can see both sides here. I agree that Connery is a good actor, or at the very least one with a huge cinematic prescence who tends to command whatever scene he is in. However in later years he did descend into self parody.

Napoleon Plural · December 2010

Well, back to his voice. I started a thread like this on his imdb listing.

Something happens around 1982, he acquires that distinctive lisp that gets sent up all the time now. It isn't there in Wrong is Right, around 1983, or in Outland, but sadly it turns up in NSNA, just in time for his Bond swansong. It sounds awful really, very ageing.

It could be bad dentures or something. Nobody has questioned him about it. BBC newsreader Anna Ford had the same thing happen in her 50s. I suppose it fitted his older roles, but I dislike it in NSNA as it's another thing that ages him in that movie unnecessarily.

Ricardo C. · December 2010

Napoleon Plural wrote:

Well, back to his voice. I started a thread like this on his imdb listing.

Something happens around 1982, he acquires that distinctive lisp that gets sent up all the time now. It isn't there in Wrong is Right, around 1983, or in Outland, but sadly it turns up in NSNA, just in time for his Bond swansong. It sounds awful really, very ageing.

It could be bad dentures or something. Nobody has questioned him about it. BBC newsreader Anna Ford had the same thing happen in her 50s. I suppose it fitted his older roles, but I dislike it in NSNA as it's another thing that ages him in that movie unnecessarily.

Personally, I never really noticed anything wrong with Sean's voice NSNA. A change yes but nothing really wrong. Now what REALLY was a mistake was Connery supplying the voice of Bond in the From Russia With Love video game.

PPK 7.65mm · December 2010

I am in agreement with Hardyboy, Connery's voice just changed as got older. Granted it is alot more noticeabile now than it was in the past. It still does not take away from his performances for me thought. Even in From Russia With Love the video game, I did not mind his voice had changed after all aging effects everybody.

Gebruder Gumbold · December 2010

Saltzman and Broccoli sent Connery out for voice lessons in the early '60's, which he resented. I read somewhere that Fleming himself suggested that after meeting him.
If you watch the GF DVD, where in b+w, Connery does an advert on the Fort Knox set, and his accent is very measured, and British.
You can tell in DAF that, yes, he stopped trying to cover up his Scottishness, and the profits for the film went to Scottish Trust.
I noticed the lisp beginning in DAF, and was definitely there in Robin and Marian, and Wind and the Lion, both around '75-76.
I even noticed it in Murder/Express, but I figured he was playing a character who would have that lisp.
Watch Woman of Straw, and Connery's real accent comes out in that film more that in Marnie of GF, both made the same year. WOS, I think, came out in '65.
On the aging thing- remember, Connery smoked for many years, and did have a throat cancer scare somehere in his '60s.
As you age, the throat muscles and jaw muscles will sag a bit, like the rest of the body, and speech impediments can become greater. I see my mother bungling some words now at 86, and only remember her doing that a bit at 56.
Our generation will lose both Connery and Moore in the next decade, and that will be a huge, huge loss!
I heard a recent interview with George Lazenby, and he sounded too American! Oh well...

osris · December 2010

As others have said, his Scottish accent is more prominent in DAF. In the early Bond films he spoke with a “posh” Edinburgh accent, tinged with a transatlantic flavour. Notice how he always pronounced words like "last" and "fast" with a short vowel sound (like Americans do), rather than with the long vowel sound of the southern English accent.

He also acted the part more menacingly than he did in DAF and NSNA. In the latter, he seems as if he’s been too influenced by Moore’s Bond—very amiable, with little edge.

What happened to sean connerys voice ?

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