"Ned
Kelly" is set in late 19th-century Australia - a
land populated by new immigrants (some of them
transported convicts) from England, Ireland, Scotland
and Wales. Set in an era when Australia was a young,
developing country, the filmmaker's paid special
attention to the accents of the characters in order to
make the movie as authentic as possible.
Irishman
Gerry Grennell was responsible for creating believable
accents in "Ned Kelly" - no mean feat considering
the meld of accents in Australia in the 1800s. To
maintain a sense of Australianness, Grenell avoided
making the accents too specific to any
region.
"In a community where you've got a lot of
Irish people together, and some Scots and some Welsh,
you would then have a diminution of the characteristics,
so we pitched it general Irish, with some rural sounds
in there, and the cast pulled it off
admirably."
Grennell jumped at the chance to come
to Australia and was particularly eager to work with
Heath Ledger again, whom he worked with on "Four
Feathers". "He's a wonderful actor and it was a
great pleasure to work with him. He's a natural
performer, he works very much in a spontaneous
way."
Ledger is equally complimentary of
Grennell: "He is a genius," he says. "He gave a lot of
colour and life to my accent. I truly have a hard time
being taught, but I love to learn, and I let this guy
teach me because I trust him and I love the guy, so I
gained a hell of a lot from him."
The two Irish
members of the cast, Laurence Kinlan (Dan Kelly) and
Kerry Condon (Kate Kelly), were bemused when Grennell
asked them to work on changing their accents for the
film.
"I didn't want them to sound dramatically
Irish," Grennell explains. "If they sounded too specific
to their mother accent, then we wouldn't believe that it
was Australia, or it was a country forming, so I had to
ask them to do a little work as well, which they found
hilarious but they took to it like ducks to water.
They're fantastic people to work with.
"It gave
me a great deal of pleasure to work with the cast on
this film. Rachel Griffiths (Mrs Scott) has that great
sense of humour. Being on a set can be quite stressful,
and in the midst of all that panic, she's a hilarious
woman, and sharp as razorblades, nothing passes that
girl. And she's a damn fine actress.
Coming from
Ireland, Grennell was impressed by the local talent
involved in "Ned Kelly". "The Australian actors
were really the most surprising aspect of it. They're
all so talented, and quick, really sharp people, that
made my life very easy, I can assure
you." | |
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The story of Ned Kelly has been
brought to the screen many times, beginning with The
Story of the Kelly Gang in 1906 - the world’s first
feature film |
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Dialect Coach Gerry Grennell |
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