The movie "Black Mass" has been filming in Boston and Cambridge for the last couple of weeks, with the list of actors slowly emerging. Just as important as transforming Johnny Depp into Whitey Bulger is getting him to talk like him- like a Bostonian. It’s one thing to film a movie in Boston; it’s another to get the accent right. And a bad Boston accent can ruin a movie.
There are only a few great Boston accents in films. Take The Departed, for example. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson worked with Hollywood dialect coach Tim Monich to affect the 1980s South Boston accent:
And the infamous pack of sisters from the movie The Fighter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCp3nEO3ttU
And it probably helped that one of those sisters, Erica McDermott, is from Cambridge, but there have been some terrible Boston accents. Diane Lane in A Perfect Storm, pretending to be a resident of Gloucester:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNpbZ_oVHxE
Julianne Moore on 30 Rock:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij0_V-Vk9kE
And then there’s the practice of getting rid of the Boston accent. Leonard Nemoy talked about that on Boston Public Radio last week (05:45):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJH3ezwBMHE#t=347
No doubt Nemoy could turn his accent back on if he filmed here. And given state tax credits, more movies are taking place in Boston than ever before.
