Why Can't Americans Do a New Zealand Accent?

"Why cant Americans do a New Zealand accent" *proceeds to use two Brits as an example*

I think Anthony Hopkins accent works a little because Burt was born in 1899 and grew up in the early 1900s when White New Zealanders still tries to speak the queens English. A lot of his generation kind of sounded like that.

Nobody can do an NZ accent, not even New Zealanders.

That didgeridoo music when Steve Gutenberg points to the Kiwi emblem on his tshirt 😂😂😂🤔🤔🤔🙄🙄🙄

When Steve Guttenberg's character tried to do a New Zealand accent my reaction was "That's the worst fake Aussie accent I've ever heard".

That last guy got the New Zealand mullet correct however.

Fastest Indian Anthony Hopkins just sounded english to me, back in the 50s plenty of people living in NZ were born in the UK

I was in a cafe flicking through a magazine and it had a photo of Temuera Morrison. I glanced up randomly and he was sitting outside. Went over and showed him. Talked about 'Aquaman'. He said "Thought I was getting the lead eh, but they gave it to that handsome fulla". Was going to tell him he wasn't in Guatemala anymore but I chickened out lol

If you watch an interview with Burt Munro I think you'll see Sir Anthony was pretty close

Gutenberg was deliberately doing a bad accent because the character is an imposter.

It's like every American thinks we sound British or Australian.

" Don't tell her, it's me" they kept playing an Australian aboriginal didgeridoo while he is explaining Māori customs. Um... completely different cultures from completely different countries.

I wonder why Hollywood wouldn’t cast a New Zealander to play a New Zealander ?

I lived in Germany for a few years in my late teens and when I returned to NZ I had lost my accent so much that new people I met used to ask me where I was from.

In order to do a New Zealand accent, you need to understand our mindset, which can be defined as "She'll be right" when things are good, and "Go Hard" when things are bad. The laid back attitude and the transition to intensity manifests itself within the accent. We speak in a laid back manner, as a result our vowels shift to where they require less physical effort to actually enunciate them, there is less emphasis on pronunciation and more emphasis of efficient communication. This can also be seen is the somewhat low-key hoarse manner of speaker, which is actually more noticeable in women, because most female English speakers outside NZ do not speak in this manner. But, when a speaker wishes to indicate importance, the speed of their speech increases and tonality is emphasized. I heard you do this between 10:57 to 11:09 - both the emphasis on speed, and mid-sentence tonal inflection, is done to indicate importance to the listener. Once this is understood, emulating a general Kiwi accent would become a lot easier, it is an "easy does it" way of behaving, and this is reflected in our speech.

The best Kiwi accent by an American was by Michael J Fox when he was in Wellington, when here for filming Peter Jackson's The Frighteners.

I spotted the word “fast” pronunciation straight away

I always hear a bit of an aussie accent sneaking in when they try to do a NZ accent

my Asian friend who speaks Mandarin but was born here in NZ said his cousins have trouble understanding some of his words when speaking the language they can hear the kiwi influence in his voice, that cracked me up heaps.

My father from Dunedin said fast and dance in the way the USA died and he sounded quite like my father’s generation who was born in 1904. I think if you listened to recordings of men born the late 1800s and early 1900s you would find more similarities in Hopkins take on the accent.