> Ahnold Schwarzenegger was told he had to lose the accent. Instead he owned it.
It did stop him getting certain work when trying to get into acting though, because to urban Germans he “sounds a bit like a farmer”. For those familiar with UK accents: think west country (oive godda bran-new combine'arvester…).
He could afford to pass on that work, rather than having to change himself, because he was already financially comfortable from his successful body-building career and having carefully managed & invested his income from that. For someone starting from nothing, standing by yourself and refusing to change, owning and controlling your identity on principal, can be a more difficult choice.
Of course Schwarzenegger's move to the American film industry got around the accent problem quite nicely: to a non-German ear the association of parts of his accent with particular places/work doesn't exist.
No slight on Schwarzenegger intended here, he worked himself into a position where he could take the risk of making those choices rather than being in a comfortable position from, for example, the luck of being born into wealthy circumstances.
That is not uncommon. I've heard Brummies and Yorkshiremen speak Spanish in what to my untrained ears¹ sounded like pretty good fluency, but by eck you could tell where they were originally from!
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[1] passed GCSE Spanish nearly three decades ago, can just about remember how to state my name, age, birthplace, and order food & drink.
They did voice overs on one (some?) of his early movies when he was known as 'Arnold Strong'. It's weird watching them since I know how he should sound.
But not with respect to his acting career and therefore his accent, as referenced in the comment I was replying to.
At that point in his life he was definitely not starting from nothing (though he was starting from a good position he had built for himself from an earlier nothing point).
At the point of starting out in the film industry, he also had the benefit of his previous career giving him exposure to the complexities of contract negotiations and other such. They are not doubt a little different for Mr Universe compared to Mr Action Actor, but there would have been enough common ground for the experience to be useful to him.
It did stop him getting certain work when trying to get into acting though, because to urban Germans he “sounds a bit like a farmer”. For those familiar with UK accents: think west country (oive godda bran-new combine'arvester…).
He could afford to pass on that work, rather than having to change himself, because he was already financially comfortable from his successful body-building career and having carefully managed & invested his income from that. For someone starting from nothing, standing by yourself and refusing to change, owning and controlling your identity on principal, can be a more difficult choice.
Of course Schwarzenegger's move to the American film industry got around the accent problem quite nicely: to a non-German ear the association of parts of his accent with particular places/work doesn't exist.
No slight on Schwarzenegger intended here, he worked himself into a position where he could take the risk of making those choices rather than being in a comfortable position from, for example, the luck of being born into wealthy circumstances.