House of Gucci’s accents ranked: Who nailed it and who sounds more like Mario?

Whose accent is the least distracting - and whose takes its cues from a certain cartoon plumber?
1/12

Father, son and a spectacular array of Italian-ish accents: the cast of House of Gucci’s vocal acrobatics have become even more talked about than the film’s extravagant fashions and wild plot.

In Ridley Scott’s high camp, hugely enjoyable true-crime epic, a bunch of Hollywood big-hitters - including Lady Gaga, who apparently spent nine months speaking in character even when the cameras weren’t rolling, alongside Al Pacino and Jared Leto - channel their best Dolmio advert characters to portray the various key players in the fashion dynasty, with Gaga leading the pack as Patrizia Reggiani, who married Gucci heir Maurizio (Adam Driver) and was later charged with arranging his murder. What happens in between involves a lot of “talking like-a this-a.”

In a crowded field, whose accent is the least distracting and whose is the most heavily influenced by the oeuvre of Nintendo’s in-house plumber Mario? Here’s your entirely subjective league table, ranking the stars’ efforts from best to worst...

Salma Hayek - Pina Auriemma

Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures

As Patrizia’s psychic confidante Pina, Salma Hayek gets to pull off some of House of Gucci’s best lines, and her vocal work is among the film’s most convincing. Is it entirely, authentically Italian? Maybe not. Does it still have some Mexican inflections? Perhaps, yes, but it’s still perfectly calibrated for the tone of her character, and of the movie, making Hayek our winner.

Lady Gaga - Patrizia Reggiani

Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures

Lady Gaga is a woman who constantly operates at 150 percent. Whether she is being hatched from an egg during a major awards show or living in character for 18 whole months to prepare for a film role, she can be relied upon to truly commit. That’s precisely why her take on Reggiani’s accent ranks highly. Yes, one voice coach who worked on the movie (Hayek’s, in fact) said she “sound[s] more Russian” than Italian, but her efforts are consistent, and don’t detract from her overall performance.

Jack Huston - Domenico de Sole

Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures

As Rodolfo’s right-hand man and the Gucci family’s slippery lawyer, Jack Huston often seems to be acting in a different film entirely to some of his co-stars (ahem, Jared Leto) - a less operatic, more naturalistic version. His accent work is similarly muted, but crucially he does sound like an Italian person speaking English (that might sound like an extremely basic achievement to tick off, and yet...) and like Gaga, he uses the same voice throughout (again, a rare feat in the House of Gucci soundscape).

Camille Cottin - Paola Franchi

Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures

Cottin is best known for playing the extremely Gallic, no-bulls**t agent Andrea Martel in Call My Agent! so she boasts the major advantage of actually being European. She also sounds more Italian than French (win!) and it’s somehow obvious that her character, who later supplants Patrizia in Maurizio’s affections, is a lot posher than Gaga’s (although that might be helped along by her chic, monochrome costumes and general air of hauteur). She’d rank higher on this list if she had more screen time, but given that Paola only crops up in the film’s final third, her role is comparatively slight.

Al Pacino - Aldo Gucci

Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures

Screen legend Al Pacino has more than a touch of the David Dickinsons about him in his Aldo Gucci get-up. As one of the film’s resident Italian-Americans (along with Gaga) it makes sense that his accent is one of House of Gucci’s most even - he opts for an amped up version of his classic mobster schtick throughout. It’s big, it’s broad and it’s strangely reminiscent of Rob Brydon’s Pacino impression from The Trip, but the star certainly sounds like he’s having plenty of fun.

Adam Driver - Maurizio Gucci

Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures

Adam Driver has one of the most distinctive voices in cinema. Even when he was wearing a full-on space villain helmet, complete with voice changer, as Kylo Ren in Star Wars, he still sounded recognisably himself. So it’s not hugely surprising that his take on Gucci scion Maurizio (Gaga’s on-screen husband) sounds a bit like Adam Driver on a posh Italian gap year. Or like Adam Driver playing a dad in holiday mode, whose only concession to speaking foreign languages is to adopt a vaguely European inflection. Maurizio feels like the most subdued player in a world populated by larger-than-life characters, and this accent is (mainly) too low key to be actively distracting.

Jeremy Irons - Rodolfo Gucci

Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures

In a film that’s bursting at the seams with outré Eighties fashions, Jeremy Irons manages to steal one scene by simply sitting at a table swathed in a vast pastel cloak and looking imperious. As Gucci patriarch Rodolfo, he sounds a lot like an upper class aristo whose cut-glass accent sometimes acquires a vaguely Italianate lilt. In other words, then, a lot like Jeremy Irons intermittently remembering he’s from Tuscany. The moment when he ponders “Uh, how do you say?” while searching for the right word is a little mind-boggling, given he’s spoken fluent English thus far (but that’s perhaps more of a script quibble).

Jared Leto - Paolo Gucci

Fabio Lovino

Imagine a version of House of Gucci that takes its cues from The Muppets Christmas Carol, where every character apart from Jared Leto’s Paolo is played by a Dolmio advert puppet. Leto’s accent belongs to that alternate universe. Perhaps it doesn’t help that he’s saddled with some of House of Gucci’s more bizarre lines (sample quote: “I will soar… like a pigeon!”) How best to describe his efforts? It’s as if his two main vocal influences were Mario the plumber and that viral video of Gino D’Acampo telling Holly Willoughby “if my grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bike” during a This Morning cookery segment.

House of Gucci is in cinemas now.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in