We speak the language of hobbits

[shapinglight]

Hmm. Article about Brit actors in fantasy drama, with special reference to Game of Thrones from the BBC website.

No spoilers, though it's possible they may turn up in comments.



Not sure I agree with everything it says (and tinge of Irish? Quite a few cast members actually are Irish). What do Americans think? Do you expect characters in certain kinds of fantasy shows to speak with a Brit accent?

Can't say I find Peter Dinklage's accent very convincing myself. It doesn't sound like any British accent I've heard. On the other hand, it's not horrible. It's just what it is.

Have to say also, that, while struggling through Game of Thrones the book, it always threw me out of the story when someone said 'ass' instead of 'arse.' But that may just be because I'd seen the show first, most of the actors were Brits, and I don't think the word ever came up.

Comments

[bogwitch.livejournal.com]

Somehow, to me neither arse or ass should be in a fantasy novel! Unless someone is riding one of the later, and then not biblically...

[shapinglight]

:snorfle:

I thought it was okay if your blunt northern types/peasants said it?

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Strangely, soaps have also long had characters with accents (Brit and Australian have been the most common ones, though there have been a couple of Italian ones as well).

[shapinglight]

That is odd. Do the people with accents (of whatever sort) always play the same kind of roles?

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Same sort of soap staples as the rest, actually.

Off the top of my head the ones that immediately spring to mind over the years:

Days:
Shane Donovan: British. Heroic, sexy spy/romantic lead. 80s-90s 100$ Good guy. (back in the day. If they ever bring his son back, I'd expect the same of Andrew. Shane married into a core family).
EJ DiMera: British. Handsome 'villain' yet he's a romantic lead that the entire damn show revolves around. Soap 'morality' has become very, very topy-turvey over the decades, so it really doesn't seem to matter what he's done. He's still the sexy leading man.
Tony DiMera: British He's a bad guy. No he's a good guy. No he's a bad guy. No, he's a romantic lead. No, he's dead. Nope that was his 'evil twin' who did that stuff. He's alive. But he's bad. How did he go bad? We don't know. Is it the twin again? Maybe not sure. But he's good. But he's dead... or is he? Who the hell knows!
Andre DiMera: British. See above. He's his twin. But he's the bad twin...I think.
Shawn Brady (now dead): Irish. True blue good guy, hardworking blue-collar patriarch of the central core Brady family (all four generations of them)

General Hospital
Jax (I've forgotten whether that was a first or last name. Sorry) Australian. Handsome corporate raider (but a good guy...albeit the one that always lost to the mobster who runs the show.)
Jax's brother (sorry don't remember the name) Australian. bad guy.
Jax's parents (recurring)Australian. rich as hell nice guys.

Robert Scorpio, Australian. Handsome sexy spy (back in the day) Show hero for 80s-90s.
Mac Scorpio, GH, "Australian" Robert's brother, true blue police commissioner (Played by an American who gave up doing the accent over a decade ago)
Anna DeVane (nee Scorpio) (General Hospital/All My Children), British. Robert's twice-ex. (debateable whether she's the love of his life) Double-angent spy, became police commissioner back in the 80s. Beloved heroine.
Anna's twin (whose name I forget) All My Children. More traditional 'good girl' or rather, woman. She was in her 40s when on the show. Forgettable heroine (there's a reason they eventually broght Anna back).
Holly Scorpio (forgot her first name) British. Sexy thief, Robert's ex (debateable love of his life).
Lucky Spencer's pretty Irish wife (who was murdered a few months ago)

Now Defunct "All My Children":
Anna DeVane and her twin (as mentioned above).
Ryan's first wife, Gillian. Ambiguously 'foreign' but with a British accent. Heroine. Died tragically.
Zach Slater (indecipherable accent. German actor. Rest of his family was British/French something. IDEK).
Zach's son (whose name escapes me but was played by the same actor who plays EJ on Days), British. True blue good guy, a bit of a noob, actually.
Zach's father (who had a sort of British and sometimes French(?!) IDEK Accent. French actor, though. evil dude.
Zach's brother (who had an American accent) straight-up sociopathic evil.
Myrtle Fargate (Scottish? Irish?) Sage older lady who gives good advice (until the actress died).
Langley Wallingford (British) and now we're going back the 1970s/80s. Con-artist fortune hunter who actually fell in love with the heiress that he was conning and they were married for many, many years.

I have no idea of the role, but Leslie Ann Down has played on "The Bold and the Beautiful" for several years and she's British.
And I'm pretty sure that back in the day "Guiding Light" had a veritabe prince charming of some fictional country with a British accent (along with some evil guy scheming against him). I never watched GL.

OLTL had Nigel the butler (comedic relief. Though he did once have a romance with Roxy.. who was also comedic relief).

So, it really varies. Heck even the guy who played Robert Scorpio on GH for several decades had a stint on "The Young and the Restless" and he had a son there too. So I guess they also had Australians. And I remember there being a dark-haired Brit actress with a lower-class accent and a bit attitude that was a vampy bar temder in some storyline on Y&R for a few years.

Oh, lord, and I forgot the main guy on Y&R who literally has it in his contract that his character always wins. German actor, British accent. Show patriarch.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

And I forgot OLTL's "Brown Penny" Irish poet Patrick who was the same German actor who played "Zach" on All My Children.

(As should be obvious by now, some of the exact same actors keep popping up on different shows)

[shapinglight]

Blimey, rather a lot of those Brit characters seem to have been spies. The James Bond influence?

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Luke and Laura influence.

Luke and Laura were an 'action/adventure' pairing back in soaps golden age. Robert Scorpio was introduced as an ally in L&L's infamous "saving the world " plot back in the early 1980s. Robert was such a smash hit (and the ratings for GH skyrocketed so highly) that Days practically Xeroxed the plot and thus the same guy who had played an evil Cassadine on GH because the guy playing a dastardly DiMera on Days. And, subsequently, Days got it's own sexy international spy in form of Shane Donovan... who married into a core family.

So really it was one soap copying another's success. Days' spy is an offshoot from GH's. And as each soap's 'sexy spy' became rather beloved it sort of caused several ambiguous "spy" plots in the 1980s/early 1990s. Then because they were such long-beloved characters even when 'spy' went out of style, plot-wise, they are old school core characters, so it doesn't actually matter what their profession was (although GH's became a succession of "police commissioner")

[shapinglight]

American soaps are nuts. They really are.

[whichclothes.livejournal.com]

I agree with the part in the article that says American audiences at least sort of expect British accents because the setting of this fantasy seems vaguely medieval British. I'm crap at identifying particular British accents but I have noticed the variation in accents in Game of Thrones and I thought it was a nice touch.

Who I feel for are the actors who have to speak Dothraki.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I feel for the poor "Wildlings" that have to freeze their tushies off filming in Iceland. :)

[shapinglight]

Yes, the location shots for the bits beyond the Wall must have been uncomfortable at times, to say the least.

[whichclothes.livejournal.com]

And I don't feel the slightest bit sorry for anyone who got to film in Dubrovnik for S2.

[shapinglight]

because the setting of this fantasy seems vaguely medieval British

It does, sorta, kinda. I agree about the people having to speak Dothraki. Speaking a made up language is hard. On the other hand, none of the audience are going to know if you make a mistake. :)

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Isn't this kind of the same trope that dictates that any TV series or movie set in ancient Rome is usually in British English? If it happened long ago, it's British. Somehow.

[shapinglight]

This is true, Rome being a good example. And from what I hear about the Spartacus series (never seen it), it's the same.

I blame Alec Guiness in The Fall of the Roman Empire.

[hello-spikey.livejournal.com]

TVtropes.org has a whole section on the use of British accents in film, including such classics as "The Queen's Latin" (people in history must speak with British accents) and the "Evil Brit".

[shapinglight]

Ooh, interesting. I must read that.

[kseenaa.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... Interesting. I've never really thought about this, to be honest. :-) I hope I don't offense, but to me...? English is english. *shrug* The only english accent I have a problem with is the southern one from southern USA. Like Texas and those states around there. If that showed up in a fantasy movie/tv-show... I'd have a problem. But otherwise? I don't even care. :-) As long as all actors speak clear, I am happy. (And they usually do.)

I had a laugh reading that though, since Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves is an old favorite movie of mine and my best friend spicehobbit. X-D We've seen that movie so, so many times we know it by heart. We know it is cheesy and not the best out there... But to us? It is so much love! *lol*

[shapinglight]

I enjoy it too, but mostly because Alan Rickman is such a fun villain.

[kseenaa.livejournal.com]

HA HA HA! Yeah, I ADORE his Sheriff! He is over-playing it so much it is unbelievable... and it still works!