Tom Cruise Tries A Baton Rouge Accent In ‘American Made’ [Video]
American Made is a movie starring Tom Cruise about the (somewhat) true story of Baton Rouge native Barry Seal.
The opening sentence on Wikipedia about Barry Seal is thus:
Adler Berriman "Barry" Seal was an American smuggler of drugs and arms, aircraft pilot, dealer, and money launderer who flew flights for the Medellín Cartel.
That's what most people know of, if anything, about Barry Seal. Between that, and he was an informant for the US government. He was a side character portrayed in the first season of the hit Netflix series Narcos.
This movie, American Made, seemingly portrays Seal's life like an action comedy movie, as he works for the CIA, DEA, and Pablo Escobar at the height of the Medellín Cartel.
Parts of the movie were filmed in New Orleans. You may remember when Tom Cruise was spotted at an LSU game last year. That was around the time the movie was being filmed in Louisiana.
Seal was born, and died in Baton Rouge, La. That would be a pretty good reason for him to have some sort of Baton Rouge accent. From my experience that comes with a little twang. You may be surprised to know that Tom Cruise actually attempted an accent!
If you've seen some of his movies, mainly Valkyrie where he plays Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg during World War II (so, dude was VERY German), he doesn't even ATTEMPT a German accent.
His reasoning was that they had an international cast, and people just get lost in the story, so the lack of accent doesn't matter. Well, I call a load of BS. The Church of Scientology might come after me for this one, but...How about, you're just being a lazy actor?
That being said, while it may not be the best southern accent coming out of Tom Cruise, and I'm willing to bet it's gonna go in and out throughout the movie, I can at least give him an A for effort. At least he attempted it.
American Made hits theaters at the end of the month on September 29th.