Working on Chaplin with Robert Downey Jr. was an
extraordinary experience since Robert is, in my estimation, a
multi-talented genius who has an exceptional ear for accents. The accents
to be created to cover the life of Chaplin were complex and the subtle
variations necessary for someone with an evolving accent meant great care
had to be taken from scene to scene. Although the film was shot - almost -
in chronological order which made the progress of Chaplin's accent
throughout his life easier to track, the task in hand was not an easy one.
Taking into account Chaplin's original accent which was Cockney, which he,
on travelling to America, deliberately modified to something closer to the
Received Pronunciation of the time. Then, later in his life, Chaplin's
accent became influenced by American, particularly in the phase preceding
his exile from America and when he lived in Switzerland. The gradual
transition between these accents meant that the subtle alterations in
accent from one scene to the next were a hard thing for any actor to do
and, in order to avoid any criticism that Robert, an American, was
'slipping' back into his own accent, we selected individually those words
that would betray American influence on Chaplin's adopted speech. Robert
managed this magnificently.
It almost goes without saying - but not quite! - that working with Richard Attenborough was a wonderful and cherished experience and one which I shall never forget. -- Andrew Jack, April 2001
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