Rip Torn, who plays the cantankerous father of Parker Posey and Demi Moore's sibling characters in Mitchell Lichtenstein's upcoming Happy Tears , told a news conference at the Berlin Film Festival, where the film had its premiere today (Wednesday), that after doing so many roles with so many accents, "I said to myself, 'Hey, buddy, don't you think it's about time you played yourself a little bit?' So that's what I tried to do." (His character is also drifting into senile dementia.) Torn then remarked "And look what it got me -- I'm here in my old hometown, OK?" He explained "All of my family spoke German. I grew up in Texas, and I said, Why didn't you teach me when I was a child to speak German?' And they said, 'We didn't want you to have an accent.' And I said, 'So I grew up tahkin' lak the-is, yuh know?'"

11/02/2009