Question: Why attempt Russian accents in a film that is purely Russian? The star, Harrison Ford, doesn't even pretend to be Russian. Why should anyone else?
Charles Austin Miller
16th Jul 2018
K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)
2nd Mar 2016
K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)
Trivia: In real life, the K-19 was never nick-named "The Widowmaker," and its cursed history was entirely fictional, fabricated for the film. After the fact of the nuclear meltdown, the Soviet military actually nick-named the K-19 "Hiroshima," alluding to the first city ever destroyed by a nuclear weapon.
2nd Mar 2016
K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)
Trivia: There was never a mutiny aboard the real "K-19" as depicted in the film. In real life, the captain ordered all firearms to be thrown overboard, to avoid a mutiny.
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Answer: Harrison Ford does attempt a Russian accent in this film. It's a very slight, very bad attempt but he's definitely trying. Audiences come to expect accents in films such as these for a heightened sense of immersion. Hearing American accents from supposedly Russian characters can sometimes be jarring to an audience, even if the characters are speaking English. This of course isn't always the case and plenty of films have actors speaking in their natural accents while they are playing foreign characters. The director of this film chose to have his actors speak with Russian accents, with extremely poor results pretty much all around.
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