Isla Fisher: I copied my dad’s accent

Isla Fisher has hinted her decision to “completely copy” her father’s accent for one of her movie roles didn’t go down well.

The Australian actress portrayed Ginny in Burke and Hare, which was released last year. It starred Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis as two grave robbers, and for her role Isla had to speak in a Scottish accent. She found it hard to find someone to base her character on as the film was set in the 19th century, so decided to look closer to home.

“For Burke and Hare [Ginny] was completely fictional because there wasn’t much to go on from that period, I think Ginny was completely invented actually,” she told Cover Media. “My father has a very thick Scottish accent so I just did my dad’s accent. And actually everyone felt it wasn’t, y’know… I just copied my dad completely.”

Isla is currently promoting new animation Rango, in which she voices the character of Beans. Unlike most CGI films, the stars involved with Rango – including Johnny Depp, Abigail Breslin and Bill Nighy – acted alongside each other and didn’t just lay down vocals in a booth.

Isla was pleased with the process, as she thinks the chemistry actors get when they are in front of each other is “irreplaceable”. She also liked that Rango was shot scene by scene from start to finish, rather than in a random order.

“We shot it chronologically. We shot this over 21 days. We came in and there was almost no homework to do as an actor because your emotional arc… you’re doing it in order,” she explained. “It’s not even that you need to remember how you were feeling in the scene before.”

Rango is released in the UK on March 4.

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