Emma Watson went to Brown University in the United States and has lived in the country on and off throughout the past decade. Does that mean she can put on an American accent?
Emma Watson can do an American accent. In the film The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Watson spoke in an American accent. She has used it a few times since. Her use of an American accent was most recently seen in the remake and adaptation of the popular book Little Women, where she played the role of Meg March.
You can read more below about when Emma learned to do an American accent and the different films she has starred in using an American accent.
Emma Learns to Do an American Accent
How does a person learn how to put on a proper accent for a place they aren’t from? They hire a speech coach. In 2012, Watson starred in the film The Perks of Being a Wallflower where she was required to have an American accent.
In The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Emma plays Sam, the stepsister of Ezra Miller’s character, Patrick, and the love interest of Logan Lerman’s character, Charlie. The film is an adaptation of the book of the same name and takes place in Pennsylvania. So Watson definitely needed to learn how to do an American accent.
In an interview with MTV, Watson was adamant that her co-stars were key in helping her tackle the American accent. She said “ These guys were very supportive and they told me when I said things that didn’t really sound right. I worked with a coach and I hung out.”
Sadly, her accent wasn’t well received by some American fans. On the Goodreads Forum, fans of the book gave their opinions. A user named Carlota said “It wasn’t the worst accent ever but it wasn’t the best either. She did have a lot of difficulty with it and it ended up turning out okay so I don’t hate it or anything.” While another user named Katie asked “Did anyone else find her American accent totally inauthentic??”
Taking on the Famous Cali Accent in The Bling Ring
After her role in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Emma Watson’s American accent was not put to rest as she was able to land more roles playing an American character. The next up was her role in the 2013 film The Bling Ring. The movie was based on the real life gang who called themselves Bling Ring and were notorious for finding the location of celebrities homes and then robbing them.
Watson played Nicolette “Nicki” Moore, a character based off of real life gang member Alexis Neiers. For the role, Watson had to learn how to do a different dialect of American English, which is commonly referred to as speaking like a “valley girl.”
Follow the below YouTube link to watch Emma talking about how she learned to do the infamous Calabasas accent by watching Paris Hilton and Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
Emma Watson’s Recent American Roles
Other than The Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Bling Ring, Emma Watson has had to put on her American accent again. In 2015, she starred along Ethan Hawke in the psychological thriller Regression as a Minnesotan teen. Then in the 2017 dystopian film The Circle, Watson starred alongside Tom Hanks as the main character, an American named Mae Holland.
Emma’s most recent role, in the remake and adaptation film Little Women, once again required her to put on an American accent. Set in 1860s Massachusetts, Watson played the eldest sister in the famous March family, Margaret “Meg” March. When trailers for the film came out, fans were quick to hate on Watson’s American accent once again as this Popbuzz article points out.
It takes a lot of effort and can be near impossible to create an accent that will fool a native speaker. With that frame of reference, Watson has done a pretty great job with hers.