How come Keeley Hawes is so posh?
SparkleBabe
Posts: 17,065 Forum Member
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She is the star of Ashes to Ashes and Spooks. I always assumed that she came from a well to do middle class background because she speaks with such a perfect cut glass accent. So I was really surpised to read recently that her background is actually very humble and working class.
Apparently her dad is or was a London cabbie and she grew up in a council flat in a tower block on quite a rough estate. The article I read atributed her plummy voice to her time at Sylvia Young's Stage School. But lets be honest, Denise Van Outen, Emma Bunton, Daniella Westbrook etc do not talk like that.
Is she ashamed of being working class?
Apparently her dad is or was a London cabbie and she grew up in a council flat in a tower block on quite a rough estate. The article I read atributed her plummy voice to her time at Sylvia Young's Stage School. But lets be honest, Denise Van Outen, Emma Bunton, Daniella Westbrook etc do not talk like that.
Is she ashamed of being working class?
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Yeah but why did she need a posh accent? She could have been just as succesful with her natural cockney voice (I assume she must have had a cockney accent at some point).
Sad that it happens, but it seems people prefer posh - look at Will Young, Hugh Grant, etc etc
I don't see why speaking well should label her as being ashamed of being working class. Diana Dors, who Keeley played in the early part of "Blonde Bombshell", also spoke very well. Being able to speak well will give her a wider range of roles to play. Unlike others like Patsy Palmer who obviously went back to DeadEnders because she wasn't offered anything else. I think it is sad when someone is criticised for speaking properly.
Totally agree. So just because of her background means she can't speak how she speaks
Thanks, I thought I was on my own here. It is almost like inverted snobbery, just like the wealthy celebrities who walk around looking like tramps just to show that they are just like everyone else. That is why so much of the glamour went out of Show Business, if I want to look at the girl next door, I'll go next door. I am all for anyone wanting to improve themselves, whether it is their appearance or accent.
Thats just what I meant about inverted snobbery.:rolleyes:
I suspect some of them have already posted in this thread
My accent is very broad and I would love to speak properly without having to think about speaking properly!
If you see what I mean.
Tara Fitzgerald would have been a far better choice IMHO
That's why the likes of Danny Dyer only do 'cockernee geezer roles'
The exception to the rule seems to be Scots, Welsh and Irish (eg James McAvoy, Colin Farell - who is actually middle class, and Ioan Gufford etc)
If you are working class then you have to change your accept - Daniel Craig is a scouser! He only moved to London when he was 16, where did the scouse go. Would he have landed Bond if he kept the original accent? No!
Its not a posh accent at all. When you go to drama school the first thing they teach you is proper pronounciation, the Queens'/Shakespeare English. Of course she could have reverted back to her cockney accent after leaving but then probably would have found herself only ever cast in Eastenders or Mike Leigh films. And whose to say that in home personal life she isn't as rough as hell? Her business is her looks and voice and she's making the most of it.
I'm born and bred Canning Town but I don't speak in a 'cockney' accent, I have a London accent but still speak properly, besides if I did speak like that no one in my working life would take me seriously. They is nothing wrong with speaking properly, we don't all want to sound like Danny Dyer or Pat Butcher .
That's an awful thing to say.
How is she 'denigrating' her roots? that statement makes no sense.
I'm from Canning Town but I don't speak with a cockney accent, does that make me a betrayer of the working classes? How very Aurther Scargill...:rolleyes:
Ray Winstone Bob Hoskins and Sean Bean seem to have done ok with regional/working class accents, but then all of them are capable of losing their accents when the need arises.
If an actor is good enough they will be able to lose their own accents when they need to, could it be that the likes of McCutcheon, Palmer, Dyer etc are just not good enough as actors to be given other roles.
I also think that Hollywood likes "posh" English accents because their is still a perception amongst large swathes of the US public that all English/British people are posh.
I agree, I thought that was an absurd statement to make.
Lily Allen
Alright derr la, derr namez Bond, Jimmy Bond
Craig grew up on the Wirral, so he wouldn't have a strong accent (some people do, but not the ones from West Kirby!)
Wasn't it different in the 60's, when the Beatles were popular everyone wanted to be working class, John Peel was the very posh John Ravenscroft. No doubt some will think he denegrated his roots changing his name :rolleyes:
I remember Julian Fellowes saying on Richard and Judy that he struggled to get parts as a young actor because he was so posh - thats how he became a writer.