Knightley to adopt English accent for Anna Karenina (Reuters)

TORONTO (Reuters) – Keira Knightley will speak with an English accent when she plays the classic Russian character of Anna Karenina, the actress said on Sunday at the Toronto Film Festival.

The British actress, who is at Toronto promoting her role in "A Dangerous Method" -- in which she also plays a Russian character -- told Reuters in an interview on Sunday that for her biggest role yet, in the upcoming "Anna Karenina," director Joe Wright and a cast including Jude Law had decided to speak with English rather than Russian accents.

"It's going to be an English accent. It's always very tricky when you are doing something that is meant to be in another language. Because you are like, what accent should it be, should you do that? Well, if you've got a Russian accent, why aren't you speaking Russian? It's an English-language film. So we have taken the decision that it's an English accent," she said.

The film, adapted from Leo Tolstoy's novel, considered one of the greatest of all time, will start shooting in a week's time. The cast already has completed three weeks of rehearsal, Knightley said.

"I've been reading the book now, for about two months, three months, poring through it, trying to pick pieces out of it, trying to figure it out. And then a couple of history books of that era in Russia, which is fascinating," the 26-year-old actress said.

Knightley has received some praise for her turn in David Cronenberg's "A Dangerous Method" -- which premiered at Toronto on Saturday -- in which she plays Russian patient Sabina Spielrein, who comes between psychoanalysts Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. In that film she does use a Russian accent.

But looking ahead, she said her mind was tuned to the late-19th-century Russian high society of "Anna Karenina," as she follows the likes of Greta Garbo in the title role.

"It's a big boy," she said about the role. "It's very challenging, it's very very exciting ... hopefully it will all come together."

(Reporting by Christine Kearney, editing by Sheri Linden)

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Hathaway mocked for Yorkshire accent in "One Day" (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) – British film critics have poured scorn on U.S. actress Anne Hathaway for her northern English accent in the movie "One Day," calling it variously "another Hollywood stinker" and "all over the shop."

"The Devil Wears Prada" and "Rachel Getting Married" star said she had worked with a dialect coach to get the voice of Yorkshire "lass" Emma right in the film based on David Nicholls' popular novel.

She also told the BBC that she watched the popular British television soap opera "Emmerdale," set in Yorkshire, to train for the part.

The preparation did not pay off in many viewers' eyes, however, as critics queued up to pounce on her pronunciation of a notoriously tricky accent.

"The Oscar-nominated actress's every line is masked by one of the most honkingly rubbish Yorkshire accents you've ever heard," wrote Robbie Collin in the Telegraph newspaper.

The review drew comparisons between Hathaway as Emma and Dick Van Dyke as Bert the London cockney in "Mary Poppins," deemed one of the worst ever offenses against a British accent on the big screen.

Jan Moir of the Daily Mail questioned Hathaway's suitability for the role in One Day, arguing that she is far too glamorous to pull it off.

As for the accent, she added: "Just like nothing can camouflage Hathaway's incandescent beauty in One Day, nothing can hide the awfulness of her fake Yorkshire accent.

"Really, it is quite something to behold. For it is a nomadic accent - it was born under a wandering star. It's all over the shop."

Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian was kinder on Hathaway's delivery, saying "it's not as terrible as all that" in a two-out-of-five star review.

But he went on to liken the actress to "Geoff Boycott in drag," a reference to the famous former Yorkshire cricketer renowned for his thick accent and gruff demeanor.

Some commentators have stuck up for Hathaway, with the Evening Standard's Henry Hitchings arguing that British audiences are too proprietorial about their accents.

He also said that Hathaway's "nomadic" accent could be a deliberate way of portraying her character's "anxieties about her fragile, transitional existence."

Last year Hollywood star Russell Crowe was the target of some derision for his accent in blockbuster "Robin Hood," and walked out of a radio interview after it was suggested his character sounded like "an Irishman who took frequent holidays in Australia."

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Steve Addison)

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