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Not every role deserves an Oscar — even Harrison Ford has gotten panned by critics

Voices blast from the past

After a week of Oscars and their tricks, comes now a collection of others and their shticks:

Brad Pitt, of whom you may have heard once, asked to play a role in director Guy Ritchie’s “Snatch.” But Pitt couldn’t master Turkish’s London accent so instead he got One Punch Mickey.

Helena Bonham Carter on Brad in “Fight Club”: “Mostly I couldn’t understand what he’s saying. He speaks in his own street voice. I think it’s his own Brad language.”

Hugh Jackman: “Before I did ‘X-Men’ I’d never heard of a ‘wolverine.’ In Canada, a guy with a Wolverine tattoo started to strangle me saying he couldn’t understand me. I said, ‘I’m Australian,’ and he finally let me go. Needless to say I did not hang around for more groceries. I just ran for the exit.”

As told on E!: “Takes three months of intense classes to permanently lose an accent. Julia Roberts lost her slightly Southern accent so completely she had to take dialect classes to get it back for ‘Steel Magnolias.’ ”

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Harrison Ford plays Russian Alexei Vostrikov in “K-19: The Widowmaker.” A New Yorker review: “He sounds like the same sound your lawnmower makes when it runs over a rubber ball.”

Michael Jackson asked by Oprah about the Elephant Man’s bones: “Ridiculous stupid story went around that I tried to buy the Elephant Man’s bones. No! I saw myself in the story and it made me cry . . . but I had never asked for them. Where am I going to put some bones?”

In 1995’s “Mighty Aphrodite,” Mira Sorvino’s accent was so inconsistent she was amazed Woody Allen let it go through post production. But then she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress with that unusual sound — so who knows?

Years before an attack onstage, Salman Rushdie: “The irritating media calls me a vain Hollywood actor because I had eyelid surgery. It was medically necessary. But then rumors developed that I wanted to be an actor. No! I am a novelist not an actor.”

Matt Damon: “There’s a myth that I once did a breakdance for spare change. No. It’s Ben Affleck’s younger brother Casey who makes these stories up just to screw up my interviews. I never in my life breakdanced.”

To play JFK in “PT 109” Cliff Robertson enacted it without that New England lockjaw accent. JFK asked him to not use the Bostonian pronunciation “because then I sound like a ridiculous caricature in a cheap nightclub.”

In Floyd Conner’s “Hollywood’s Most Wanted”: “To get the sound of Linda Blair’s voice in ‘The Exorcist’ each time, before speaking, Mercedes McCambridge swallowed 18 raw eggs.”

Accusations began when they went big time.

Andie MacDowell: “Crazy rumors. One being that I am Charlie Chaplin’s illegitimate daughter. A friend sent me a newspaper showing me confessing Chaplin was my father. No! No! And I am not trying to keep this as a terrible secret. No!”

Boxing champ Lennox Lewis: “People say I’m gay. I’m not. I love women. Started because my mother did my cooking and laundry when I was in training camp. Every celebrity gets bad mouthing when they make it.”

A celebrity, bored by the attentions of people who formerly snubbed him, works to become famous only so he can walk around with dark glasses so nobody will know who he is.

Mostly in Hollywood, kids, mostly in Hollywood.

Cindy Adams Not every role deserves an Oscar — even Harrison Ford has gotten panned by critics

Not every role deserves an Oscar — even Harrison Ford has gotten panned by critics

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