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| 6 | [[quoteright:259:[[Webcomic/CSectionComics https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/british_accents.png]]]] |
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| 8 | ->''"And you never have Romans who are Italians! They're always played by some English actor going 'Oh Thomas, where is my brother, Fellatio? Bring him hither.'"'' |
| 9 | -->-- '''Creator/RobinWilliams''' |
| 10 | |
| 11 | This trope is used in film and television fiction set in the past (or a fantasy counterpart culture heavily based on the past) where characters speak with [[UsefulNotes/BritishAccents British accents]], even though the film is not set in UsefulNotes/{{Britain}} and the characters are not British. Sometimes the actors are {{Fake Brit}}s, and sometimes the cast all have British accents except for the sole [[UsefulNotes/UnitedStates American]] star. |
| 12 | |
| 13 | Giving the characters non-British accents (American, [[UsefulNotes/{{Australia}} Australian]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Canada}} Canadian]], etc.) ought to be just as acceptable as giving them British ones, but this is usually avoided, because it makes the characters sound "[[RealityIsUnrealistic inauthentic]]". Britain's long history causes British accents to seem somehow "older" -- they are used to suggest a sense of antiquity. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | In any case, using The Queen's Latin makes a series or film commercially viable in the US. It alleviates the need for subtitles, while maintaining the appearance of historical authenticity. It's ''just'' [[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign foreign and exotic enough]] (many British actors already [[PlaysGreatEthnics Play Great Ethnics]]). It's also commonly used because Ancient Rome is a very influential civilization in the Western world and [[UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire there is an empire in Europe that's just as famous and widespread as the Romans]]. The usage of British accents for Roman characters is no doubt inspired by productions of [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare Shakespeare]]'s plays set in Ancient Rome. Remember: Romeo might have been Italian, but he's not ''realistic'' [[TheCoconutEffect unless he talks like a proper British toff]]. Which is doubly ironic, since in Shakespeare's own time, typical English accents sounded different from today's "standard British accent" (officially called "Received Pronunciation"), being some kind of cross between Irish, Mid-Atlantic American, and even stereotypical ''{{Pirate}}'' accents (the last in fact closely resembles the accent of the English city of Bristol)[[note]]It's called Original Pronunciation and, thanks to the serious efforts of many dedicated professionals, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqmgeth4tFY&ab_channel=DivisionofHumanities%2CUniversityofOtago has been reconstructed]] and is occasionally being used in productions of Shakespeare today.[[/note]]. |
| 16 | |
| 17 | This trope also allows for some subtle characterization for UK audiences: sometimes regional British accents are used to reflect a character's class or social status by playing up to stereotypes in the collective British psyche [[note]]eg: using Received Pronunciation solely for aristocrats, and Cockney for plebeians[[/note]]. The most common convention, however, is to employ formal English parlance. Depending on the antiquity of the era portrayed, the characters may lapse into a form of Early Modern English or its contrived cousin, YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe. In any case, it is perhaps British audiences who expect this trope to be ubiquitous most of all -- to an American or Australian the use of their native accent for ancient characters could at least be a believable translation convention, to British ears it smacks of deliberately choosing an accent with entirely the wrong connotations -- new-world modernity and the rejection of old-world traditions. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | Historical linguists have attempted to reconstruct the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_pronunciation original Latin pronunciation]] of the Romans, but no one knows for sure how they ''really'' sounded. Some might say that the actors are NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent, or trying to avoid using JustAStupidAccent, and in many cases this is true. The rule of thumb is that if non-British actors are affecting Brit accents, or if the British accents are being used to add layers to the characterisation, they are speaking The Queen's Latin. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | This trope leads many Ancient Roman (or Ancient Greek, Trojan, etc.) characters to not only sound but also physically look like Anglo-Saxons rather than Romans (or Greeks, etc.). Historians have speculated that the average Roman man had tan or olive skin, usually dark hair[[note]]This can be deduced from the fact that when the Empire expanded into Gaul, Germany and Britain, the existence of people with blonde and red hair caused a sensation in Rome as nobody had ever seen this before. When the first blonde slaves were shipped back, people competed to own them, driving up their prices, and Roman women frequently shaved the unfortunate slaves for their hair so as to turn it into wigs. Then they discovered bleaching... [[/note]], and stood about 5-foot-6. The Roman Empire reached Northern Europe, but Romans weren't ''all'' Northern Europeans. (This particular bit of CreatorProvincialism also leads, even more egregiously, to Biblical characters -- ancient people from the Middle East -- looking a lot like Northern Europeans in Northern European art. Admittedly the artists possibly weren't aware they might have looked rather different, and if they were, the inauthenticity probably wouldn't have troubled artistic sensibilities until fairly recently.) Probably the closest thing to TruthInTelevision for this trope is UsefulNotes/{{Gibraltar}}, which is a British Overseas Territory in Southern Europe near the southern tip of Spain in the Mediterranean, with a large chunk of the population actually being of Italian descent (particularly Genoese) in addition to British, as well as being descended from other Latin Southern Europeans like Spaniards (especially Andalusians), Portuguese and Maltese. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | A type of TranslationConvention and [[TheCoconutEffect Coconut Effect]]. Compare with AccentAdaptation, or, for an actor playing an overtly British character, see IAmVeryBritish. See also BritishNazis, when a Nazi German character is played by an English actor and sometimes given an RP accent. |
| 24 | |
| 25 | ---- |
| 26 | !!Examples: |
| 27 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 28 | |
| 29 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 30 | * The Manga UK dub of ''Literature/TheHeroicLegendOfArslan'' has the voice actors using British accents (Most of their other dubs used fake American accents while reading their lines with British inflections and sentence structure). The Central Park Media dub of episodes 5 and 6 averts this, with the New York voice actors using their own accents. |
| 31 | [[/folder]] |
| 32 | |
| 33 | [[folder:Comedy]] |
| 34 | * [[Series/TheDailyShow Wyatt Cenac]] discusses this in his comedy special when talking about what the Medieval Times shows will be like in the future. In the future, they will be about American gang violence, and they will all have British accents. |
| 35 | * Discussed by Creator/EddieIzzard, with the part of Caesar played by her impression of James Mason. Which is also her favorite voice for {{God}}, incidentally. |
| 36 | * Richard Jeni has a bit where, before he's willing to order lobster in a restaurant that keeps them live in a tank, he has to get drunk first, and that when he gets drunk, he acts like a Roman emperor ordering the lobsters to their deaths. Said Roman emperor's final request to his waiter is to "find out why all the Romans in the movies have English accents." |
| 37 | * Creator/CraigFerguson in his Netflix comedy special "I'm Here to Help" states that this trope is especially weird and distracting for him, as he grew up watching a lot of {{Series/Monty Python|sFlyingCircus}} and now can't watch a movie like, say ''Film/ThreeHundred'', without thinking something weird's about to happen. |
| 38 | -->'''Craig:''' ''[as Leonidas]'' [[RousingSpeech Tonight, we dine in Hell!]]\ |
| 39 | '''Craig:''' ''[as a soldier with a Cockney accent]'' [[ComicallyMissingThePoint What are we having?]] |
| 40 | [[/folder]] |
| 41 | |
| 42 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 43 | * ''Enemy Ace: War In Heaven'' provides an unusual print example. Every major character in the series is German, but Northern Irish writer Creator/GarthEnnis gives them analogous "British equivalent" accents and dialects for their social class. It's striking, and a bit jarring to comics readers used to the stilted "Achtung! Gott in Himmel!" JustAStupidAccent approach to German characters, but oddly effective. |
| 44 | * In Creator/MarvelComics, mythic figures like [[ComicBook/TheMightyThor Thor]] and [[ComicBook/TheIncredibleHercules Hercules]] almost always speak in a faux-Shakespearean dialect -- using stiltedly formal diction and throwing around words like "forsooth" and "verily," often in a stylized [[ForeignLookingFont font]] -- rather than even try to guess at how an ancient Norse god or ancient Greek god would speak. (Of course, being gods and not humans, they'd most likely talk -- and [[DivineRaceLift look]] -- however the Hel/Hades they wanted.) The loosely canon ''Thor the Mighty Avenger'' miniseries doesn't have it with Thor (whose tones are simply more formal), and with other Asgardians (specifically the Warriors Three), explains it as being the product of them learning via a rather old translation of (because [[ChivalrousPervert Fandral]] picked it) the memoirs of ''the'' Casanova. They're aware of the dated nature of the language, but deem it serviceable. |
| 45 | [[/folder]] |
| 46 | |
| 47 | [[folder:Films -- Animation]] |
| 48 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}'' averts this with the titular Aladdin and his love interest Princess Jasmine, who both have American accents, but play this straight with Jasmine's father the Sultan and the BigBad Jafar. And then there's Iago, who, being voiced by Creator/GilbertGottfried, has a specifically New York accent. |
| 49 | * If you listen very closely, you can easily tell that [[TheHighQueen the heroine]] of Disney's ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'' actually has a British-sounding accent. Apparently, this is also one of few animations starring Creator/CreeSummer (the actress who voiced her in this film) attempting to do a British accent. |
| 50 | * In ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'', most of the cast speaks with American accents including, interestingly enough, the Beast (the only actual royalty in the movie) and Belle (characterized as being refined). Lumiere has a very over-the-top French accent, while Cogsworth and Mrs. Potts have British accents (given that they work as domestic help, it's not impossible they moved from England. Still, it's never brought up). [[TheKidsAreAmerican Chip has an American accent, despite being Mrs. Potts's son]]. |
| 51 | * 2007's ''WesternAnimation/{{Beowulf|2007}}'' does something like this: although the Zealanders speak in fake, but at least subtle, Danish accents -- Grendel even speaks [[UsefulNotes/HistoryOfEnglish Old English]] -- the Geats speak in the actors' natural accents, which means that the title character, since he's played by Ray Winstone, is a Cockney ("I'm 'ere to kiw your monstah."), and Wiglaf speaks in an attempt at a Welsh accent. |
| 52 | * In ''WesternAnimation/HowToTrainYourDragon'', adult Vikings speak in Scottish accents while the teens speak in American accents. This was by the request of Creator/GerardButler, who asked to use his natural voice and to have other Scottish actors brought in. As in ''Film/ThreeHundred'' below, Butler's choice to be a Scottish Viking was subject to some bewilderment, while no one questioned the American Vikings. Indeed, characters from fairytale-style worlds speaking in American accents could be seen as the animated equivalent to this trope. |
| 53 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheHunchbackOfNotreDameDisney'': The film is set in Medieval France, yet Quasimodo, Esmeralda, Phoebus and the gargoyles all speak with American accents, while the villain Frollo speaks with his [[Creator/TonyJay voice actor]]'s natural English accent; the only characters who speak with anything resembling French accents are Clopin and the Romani. |
| 54 | * ''WesternAnimation/LovingVincent'' is set in France, with almost entirely French characters, but everyone speaks English with British accents. |
| 55 | * In the animated version of the Gospels, ''WesternAnimation/TheMiracleMaker'', Peter and the other Galileans speak with a vaguely Scots accent, the lower-class Jerusalemites speak London, and the aristocrats and Romans speak RP. |
| 56 | * In ''WesternAnimation/ThePrinceOfEgypt'', all the Egyptians have English accents (and are voiced by some [[Creator/RalphFiennes very]] [[Creator/PatrickStewart talented]] [[Creator/HelenMirren British actors]] to boot), and the Hebrews and Midianites sound American. One would think Moses might have realized something was up with his parentage long before Miriam clued him in, given that he had the only American accent in Pharaoh's palace. |
| 57 | * ''Franchise/{{Shrek}}'': most of the royals have English accents, while Shrek has a Scottish accent. But Lord Farquaad speaks in an upper-class American accent, while Princess Fiona speaks standard American English, despite her occasional foray into GratuitousOldEnglish. |
| 58 | [[/folder]] |
| 59 | |
| 60 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 61 | * In the film ''Film/{{Valkyrie}}'', all the actors speak with their natural accents: Creator/TomCruise (Stauffenberg) speaks General American, Creator/KennethBranagh speaks RP, Matthias Freihof (Himmler), speaks with a German accent, etc. The only actor who affects a German accent is David Bamber, playing Hitler. |
| 62 | * ''Film/{{Caligula}}'' has the cast using British accents to denote social and class hierarchy. |
| 63 | * ''Film/{{Gladiator}}'' had a cast who used British accents, despite its three main stars being from Australia (Russell Crowe), Puerto Rico/America (Joaquin Phoenix) and Denmark (Connie Nielsen). |
| 64 | * The Spartans in ''Film/ThreeHundred'' speak with British accents. Leonidas has a noticeably Scottish accent. This somewhat coincidentally, falls in line with a very long-standing convention used in translating Greek Comedy (which uses accent gags extensively): Attic Greek (used by the Athenians) is represented as the Queen's English, whereas Doric Greek (used by the Spartans) is represented by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_language Scots]]. This equation is so widespread that there is even a variety of Scots that is actually referred as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doric_dialect_%28Scotland%29 Doric]]. |
| 65 | ** This film serves as a perfect example for how deeply-ingrained this trope is: Creator/GerardButler's choice to use his natural Scottish accent in the role of Leonidas was received with some confusion and amusement from audiences, and yet is it any stranger than Greeks with ''English'' accents? |
| 66 | * ''Film/BenHur1959'' had all of its Romans played by Brits, its Hebrews played by Americans, and its one Arab guy played by... a Welshman with a generic Arabian accent. |
| 67 | ** Specifically, by Hugh Griffith, the John Rhys-Davies of the mid-20th century. |
| 68 | * In the American-produced movie ''Film/{{Spartacus}}'', all the decadent Romans were played by Britons, while the slaves--a mixed bunch historically, but some of them would have been Roman/Italian by birth--were all played by Americans. Per some film critics, this represented a common trope in Hollywood filmmaking of the period, in which British accents represented decadent modern Europe, while American accents represented normalcy. Spartacus's love interest was played by English actress Creator/JeanSimmons, so to maintain continuity, it is mentioned in the film that the character was born in Britain. |
| 69 | * Simmons also turns up as the gentle tavern maid in ''Film/TheEgyptian''. If you were a strong warrior type or a rough customer in that picture you were played by an American; if you were a noble, elegant or sensitive creature, you were played by a Brit. And that includes Qaptah the thief -- after all, he'd ''tell'' you that he was a noble, elegant and sensitive creature. |
| 70 | * ''Film/LesMiserables1998'', despite the fact that the characters are French. Geoffrey Rush, Uma Thurman, and Claire Danes all fake English accents, although Liam Neeson retains his Hibernian intonation. |
| 71 | ** The same goes for ''[[Film/LesMiserables2012 the 2012 film]]'', with a cast of Brits, Americans, and Australians speaking in British accents. (Except for the legitimately British Sacha Baron Cohen, who uses a goofy French accent) |
| 72 | ** Even a little Irish courtesy of Hugh Jackman. |
| 73 | * In ''Film/{{Alexander}}'', the Macedonian characters are given Irish accents, while the Greeks are given English and Scottish accents, to represent the ethnic divide within Alexander's army. Furthermore, the Greeks are given a number of regional accents, to subtly remind the viewer that Greece was traditionally a number of independent city-states, and not a natural nation-state. "Barbarians" are all given broad regional accents. |
| 74 | * ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNAPbLvj38Y Rise of Evil]]'' gives ''UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler'' (played by Creator/RobertCarlyle) a mild British accent. |
| 75 | * This is the case in the 2004 movie of ''[[Film/ThePhantomOfTheOpera2004 Phantom of The Opera]]''--although subverted in the case of Madame Giry, played by British actress Miranda Richardson, who is seemingly the only nineteenth-century Parisian who actually speaks with a French accent. Considering that ''everyone'' else--whether Scottish, English, or American--just speaks in their regular voices, though, you kind of wonder why she bothered. |
| 76 | * In ''Film/TheLastTemptationOfChrist'', all the Romans have British accents and the Jews have American accents (including Harvey Keitel's much-mocked Brooklyn accent as Judas). |
| 77 | * Averted in Creator/SofiaCoppola's ''Film/MarieAntoinette2006''. The actors speak in their normal accents: Creator/KirstenDunst (Marie Antoinette) speaks in a General American accent, Rip Torn (Louis XV) speaks in a mild Texas accent, Steve Coogan (Ambassador Mercy) speaks with a British accent, Jason Schwartzman speaks with a General American accent. (It helps that the movie is done in a tongue-in-cheek style, complete with [[PurelyAestheticEra punk and new-wave music on the soundtrack]]). |
| 78 | * In ''Film/DangerousLiaisons'' the upper-class characters played by John Malkovich, Uma Thurman and Glenn Close speak plain American English, while the servants have broad Cockney accents. |
| 79 | * Parodied in ''Film/DeadPoetsSociety'', when Keating does impressions of how the students might have seen Shakespeare performed. One is exactly this trope, with characters in ancient Rome speaking with refined British accents: "''O Titus, bring your friend hither ...''" |
| 80 | * In ''Film/{{Centurion}}'', the Romans speak British and Irish accents. The Picts on the other hand have Scottish accents to reflect their roots as a Celtic tribe despite the fact that their language was close to Welsh than Scottish Gaelic. |
| 81 | * In ''Film/TheDuellists'' all the characters are French but most of the cast except the two American leads are British. |
| 82 | * Creator/MichaelApted decided that for ''Film/GorkyPark'', all the Russian characters would speak with British accents, rather to the annoyance of Creator/WilliamHurt, who had spent a lot of time before production perfecting his Russian accent. |
| 83 | * In ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'', the elves speak with English accents. Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn, who is supposed to be raised by elves, speaks the [[TranslationConvention human language]] with an affected, [[OohMeAccentsSlipping slightly questionable]] English accent, but retains his natural Danish-American accent for speaking Elvish. Éowyn is mostly English with some slipping into Australian. Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd's accents remain, respectively, Northern English and Scottish. Peter Jackson has gone on record as considering the latter case, at least, justified, as Tolkien based the North-farthing on Scotland, which is the place where many Tooks live, while also noted for hills and having invented Middle-Earth's version of ''golf''. The issue with this is that Pippin isn't a North-farthing Took (although his wife, a sufficiently distant cousin not to appear on the family tree in the Appendices, is). His father's farm was at Whitwell, near Tuckborough in the Green Hills. |
| 84 | ** Generally, most actors in the movies at least try for a British Isles-sounding accent, usually defaulting to English. The only exception is Mikael Persbrandt, who plays Beorn in ''Film/TheHobbit'' in his native Swedish accent. On the DVDCommentary, the filmmakers explain that this was a deliberate choice as well: Beorn is supposed to be the last survivor of a very isolated people, and his accent needed to read as different from those of all the other characters. |
| 85 | * In ''Film/PrinceOfPersiaTheSandsOfTime'', all of the characters have British accents, whether played by actual Brits [[FakeBrit or not]]. This is consistent with the ''Sands of Time'' game, on which the movie is based. |
| 86 | * ''Film/EverAfter'' has British English spoken (including a catastrophic attempt at it by Creator/DrewBarrymore) by people supposedly living in 16th-century France, as well as Creator/LeonardoDaVinci. |
| 87 | * In the Marquis de Sade biopic ''Film/{{Quills}}'', everyone speaks in British accents, despite being 19th century Frenchmen — even the guy played by Creator/JoaquinPhoenix. |
| 88 | * ''Film/TheAffairOfTheNecklace'' is another film set in France. All the characters speak with British accents (even King Louis and Marie Antoinette!) save for two: Simon Baker, who couldn't seem to decide whether he wanted to be quasi-Aussie or quasi-English before giving up and just doing some odd blend of the two; and Hillary Swank, who doesn't use an accent at all and talks in full-on American that is just jarring. To add to the confusion, she intones some of her sentences like a British speaker would, turning them up at the ends. |
| 89 | * Parodied in ''Film/HistoryOfTheWorldPartI'' with Marcus Vindictus (Shecky Greene) who speaks in a erudite British accent and pronounces "Rome" by rolling his 'R's. |
| 90 | * Averted in ''Film/InterviewWithTheVampire''. Cruise, Dunst, and [[Creator/BradPitt Pitt]] all speak with cultivated American diction. |
| 91 | * In ''Film/{{Troy}}'', ''most'' of the cast seem to be using their native accents. Brad Pitt ''might'' be attempting a British accent, but it sounds rather Americanized. Sean Bean even uses his native Northern England accent instead of a more cultivated one.[[note]]Because he ''always'' does[[/note]] Curiously, the only performers conspicuously ''not'' using their native accents are the two Australians, Eric Bana and Rose Byrne. One has to assume that the director/producer felt that the Aussie accent was the only one that couldn't be believably set in Ancient Times. The Irish Creator/BrendanGleeson subtly softens his regular brogue to play Menelaus. |
| 92 | * The ShowWithinAShow in ''Film/SinginInTheRain'' takes place among the French aristocracy during TheCavalierYears. This naturally requires dialect training for leading lady Lina Lamont and her very nasal Bronx accent (although the other characters already consider her voice grating anyway). |
| 93 | * ''Film/LifeIsBeautiful'', dubbed into English, keeps the Italian and German accents of the characters. Thanks to TheCoconutEffect, it sounds like some sort of racist joke. |
| 94 | * Averted in ''Film/ThePassionOfTheChrist'' with every character speaking either Aramaic, Latin, or both languages. |
| 95 | * Probably parodied in ''Film/MontyPythonsLifeOfBrian''. Sure, it's a British comedy production, so obviously everyone has the accents, but the Jews all have modern-day English names to go with it. While Creator/MichaelPalin plays UpperClassTwit Pontius Pilate speaking RP with [[ElmuhFuddSyndwome highly exaggerated rhotacism.]] |
| 96 | * The Roman soldiers in ''Film/NightAtTheMuseum'', who are lead by Creator/SteveCoogan. Because they're not "real" Romans but miniatures, and since the spell bringing them to life also gives a T. rex [[AllAnimalsAreDogs the traits of a dog]], it's possible that the spell sort of "imitates" people's expectations or something, and therefore the soldiers' accents are actually ''caused by'' this trope's prevalence. |
| 97 | ** Though Pharaoh Akmenrah explains his British accent as having been at Cambridge, on display. |
| 98 | * In ''Film/{{Hugo}}'', set in a Parisian train station, the French characters are almost all played by British actors using their natural accents, apart from American Creator/ChloeGraceMoretz, who is faking a British accent (more or less to blend in with all the Brits). |
| 99 | * Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse: |
| 100 | ** As in the comics, the Asgardians speak English with an RP accent as opposed to, say, a Scandinavian one, with Creator/ChrisHemsworth playing Film/{{Thor}} with a rather stylized "classical" English accent. According to American Jamie Alexander (Sif), they used Creator/TomHiddleston (Loki), who went to Cambridge and thus speaks RP naturally, as a target reference. In ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', this is PlayedForLaughs when Tony Stark refers to one of Thor's speeches as "Shakespeare in the Park" and proceeds to imitate him. |
| 101 | -->"Doth mother know thou weareth her drapes?" |
| 102 | ** {{Averted|Trope}} with Creator/RussellCrowe as Zeus in ''Film/ThorLoveAndThunder'', who uses a Greek accent instead. Just to prove how ingrained this trope is, director Creator/TaikaWaititi was not convinced Zeus having a Greek accent would be taken as too silly, so he directed Zeus's scenes with two takes: one with a British accent, another with a Greek accent. In the end, the Greek accent is what is used in the final film. |
| 103 | * In the ''Franchise/StarWars'' films, the Coruscanti accent (both refined and coarse) is rendered as British, while the Corellian accent is American. Naboo appears to have both. |
| 104 | * In ''Film/ThePrincessBride'', almost every character in the nation of Florin not identified as being from elsewhere speaks with a British accent of some sort. The word "florin" is Italian in origin, although its best known meaning is [[UsefulNotes/OldBritishMoney a British coin of the 19th and 20th centuries]]. |
| 105 | * In ''Film/TheMaskOfZorro'', both Don Diego and Don Rafael (the first Zorro and his archnemesis) speak with British accents despite being Mexican, partly because they are of the nobility, partly because they're played by British actors Creator/AnthonyHopkins and Stuart Wilson. The other Dons all have Hispanic accents, however. |
| 106 | * In ''Film/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'', the Greek gods all have British accents. |
| 107 | * Unusual inversion in the film version of ''The Eagle'': the Roman characters have American accents, while the Briton (as in, ancient Celts) characters are played by British actors speaking in their native accents. For the purposes of the movie, English stands in for Latin while Scottish Gaelic stands in for Pictish (an extinct language loosely related to Welsh and Breton). |
| 108 | * In ''{{Film/Pompeii}}'', Creator/KieferSutherland, a Canadian who works in California, affects a ''ridiculous'' lisping British accent that makes him sound more like Creator/TrumanCapote. |
| 109 | * In ''Film/TheBrothersGrimm'', Australian Heath Ledger and American Matt Damon both adopt English accents to play the German Grimm Brothers. |
| 110 | * Averted in the film version of ''Theatre/{{Amadeus}}''. The setting being 18th-century Austria, most of the characters (who are primarily Austrian German,[[note]]There being no such thing as an "Austrian" in the sense we understand it now at the time[[/note]] but at least one is Italian and presumably a few others are from elsewhere in the Habsburg Empire) and are supposed to be speaking German (by a TranslationConvention, English stands in for German--even in the libretti of the operas; Italian, by contrast, remains Italian) but of course the film is in English. The actors virtually all appear to use their native accents, and as most of the cast of the film was American, this leaves most everyone with American accents. (One courtier attempts a German accent, but everyone else is natural.) This gives Tom Hulce's portrayal of Mozart as a ManChild added sharpness, and improves the Emperor as a comic figure. |
| 111 | * In ''Film/TheHuntForRedOctober'', a lot of the Soviet characters speak in British accents. This is most jarring in the case of Creator/SeanConnery as a Lithuanian "shubmarine" captain. |
| 112 | * Tony Curtis has a persistent quote following him for decades - a 1950s gossip columnist mocked him, claiming that in one of his SwordAndSandal films he pronounced "Yonder lies the castle of my father" with a distinct Bronx accent, as "Yondah lies the castle of my foddah". The line itself is [[BeamMeUpScotty fairly mangled]], but Tony was still "baffled" as to why a Jewish New York accent is considered more inappropriate for a fantasy character than [[Creator/LaurenceOlivier Sir Laurence Oliver's]] dulcet British tones. |
| 113 | * In ''Film/EnemyAtTheGates'', a lot of the Soviet characters speak in British accents. |
| 114 | * ''Film/TheDeathOfStalin'' zigzags this by having its cast use their own native accents, from Creator/SteveBuscemi's UsefulNotes/NikitaKhrushchev speaking in Brooklynese, to Creator/MichaelPalin's General Molotov having a Northern English accent, to a Cockney Stalin. The one exception is Jason Isaacs, who puts on a Yorkshire accent for Georgy Zhukov (Isaacs is English, but not from Yorkshire). Creator/ArmandoIannucci [[https://www.metro.us/entertainment/movies/why-are-there-no-russian-accents-in-the-death-of-stalin said]] that it was partly because he felt having the cast use either this trope or FakeRussian accents would make everything feel more artificial (and therefore [[RuleOfFunny not as funny]]), and partly because he felt that having the characters use a variety of different English and American accents made for an effective CulturalTranslation given that the USSR was an empire with many different accents and languages within its borders. |
| 115 | * Notably and intentionally averted in Derek Jarman's ''{{Film/Sebastiane}}'' which uses actual Latin. |
| 116 | * Defied by the Amazons in the Franchise/DCExtendedUniverse, all of whom speak with either African or European accents, presumably to adjust for the fact that the most famous DC Amazon, Wonder Woman herself, is voiced by Israeli actress Creator/GalGadot with her natural accent. |
| 117 | [[/folder]] |
| 118 | |
| 119 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 120 | * In ''Literature/TheSpaceTrilogy'', by Creator/CSLewis, we meet Merlin, who as a 5th century Briton (he put himself in a trance for when he would be needed in modern times) speaks a form of Celticized Latin. It apparently sounds something like modern-day Spanish. |
| 121 | * Mostly subverted in ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''. In dialogue, the characters use British terms and turns of phrase. At the same time, it uses American spellings, and the narrative voice is entirely American. |
| 122 | [[/folder]] |
| 123 | |
| 124 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 125 | * ''Series/{{Attila}}'': Aside from Flavius Aetius (Powers Boothe), a fair number of the Roman characters are played by Brits. |
| 126 | * Creator/TheBBC''/''Creator/{{HBO}} drama ''Series/{{Rome}}'', in which all of the characters speak in various English accents according to their backgrounds and roles. For example, Julius Caesar speaks with an upper-class accent, befitting his position as one of Rome's upper classes, while soldier Titus Pullo speaks with a faint Geordie accent, implying working-class origins. Several actors cover over their Irish accents to play Romans as British. |
| 127 | * ''Series/IClaudius'' uses regionalised British accents to fit the characters' personalities and class. Of course, ''Series/IClaudius'' ''was'' a British production. |
| 128 | * In ''Series/{{Masada}}'', the Roman characters are all played by British actors. The Jewish characters are all played by American actors. |
| 129 | * Subverted in the Roman section of ''Series/{{Blackadder}} Back and Forth''. The Roman characters start off speaking in The Queen's Latin until an officer arrives who congratulates them on practicing the local (British) language and then continues in actual Latin. RuleOfFunny applies, as the actual local language at this time would be Brythonic, an ancestor of Welsh. |
| 130 | * ''Series/DoctorWho'' has a long, long habit of giving characters from every single historical period and place theatrical English accents. Part of it is due to the show being made in Britain, where theater work forms a big part of the acting industry. Another part of it is due to it being produced by Creator/TheBBC, which historically encouraged Received Pronunciation so heavily that "BBC English" is a common alternate name for the dialect. |
| 131 | ** Lampshaded hilariously in the novelisation of ''Doctor Who and the Invasion of the Dinosaurs'' which describes a pre-Medieval Saxon as speaking in "a strong Midlands accent". |
| 132 | ** One official ''Series/DoctorWho'' short story -- "The Man Who Wouldn't Give Up" in ''Short Trips: Past Tense'' -- suggests the TARDIS [[TranslatorMicrobes Translation Circuits]] have an odd sense of humour, and give people BBC accents because they think it's funny. |
| 133 | ** This is brought up in "Rose", in which the titular Rose Tyler questions why the Ninth Doctor has a Northern accent despite being an alien. His answer: "Lots of planets have a North!" |
| 134 | ** Also played with in "The Fires of Pompeii": on the streets of Pompeii, Donna asks the Doctor what would happen if she said to one of the locals 'Veni, vidi, vici', given that the TARDIS translates everything you say and everything anyone else says of its own accord. The Doctor suggests she try it out; she does so, and a stall-keeper replies (in the style of an English shopkeeper) "Me no speak Celtic! No can do, missy!" The TARDIS translates Latin into Ancient Britonic, i.e. Welsh. |
| 135 | * There's a theory that Captain Picard in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' is actually speaking French the whole time and the Universal Translator renders his voice into English as a classy British accent as either a dynamic equivalent of the dialect of French he speaks -- presumably a posh, educated form of Standard/Metropolitan French -- or simply because it suits his personality. (The other theory is that by the 24th century, the English and French have been fighting and screwing for so long that they've exchanged accents.) WordOfGod is that Picard was originally supposed to have a French accent, but, when Creator/PatrickStewart tried it, the creators decided no one would take him seriously. Stewart later demonstrated "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8Z6OLf6sdo Picard as a Frenchman]]" at a talk show with predictable results. Also see ''Film/LAStory'' for more of Stewart's French accent. |
| 136 | * Referenced in ''Series/SlingsAndArrows''. The character who plays Hamlet tries to find English accent tapes until another character points out that Hamlet is actually Danish, so he gives up. |
| 137 | * ''Series/SpartacusBloodAndSand'' has the Roman characters mostly speaking in approximations of an upper-class English accent. Creator/JohnHannah as Batiatus uses his natural Scottish accent, perhaps to accentuate his early BaitTheDog. Notably, Creator/VivaBianca as Ilithyia has a particularly exaggerated public school accent, to go with her AlphaBitch persona. The gladiators have an array of accents, given their varied origins. |
| 138 | * ''Series/GameOfThrones'', despite being an American {{Creator/HBO}} adaptation of [[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire novels]] by an [[Creator/GeorgeRRMartin American author]], stars mainly British and Irish actors speaking with English accents. The relatively few non-Brits required to speak English (rather than Dothraki) do pretty good English accents. The types of accent tend to vary quite widely even among families, but the Starks and other northern families do generally have variations on various northern English accents and fit the 'blunt, tough, uncomplicated' stereotypes (they also tend to be physically buffer than their southern counterparts), while the richest, most powerful southern families like the Lannisters have much posher, highly affected accents [[EvilBrit more associated with villainy]]. Justified--the story is largely based on the UsefulNotes/WarsOfTheRoses, a power-struggle fought in England between the houses of York and Lancaster (AKA Stark and Lannister), so Westeros is a FantasyCounterpartCulture to the British Isles, with accents (and locations -- King's Landing = London, etc) that approximate the geography of the country. Only Dorne differs with their generally Latin accents, as a FantasyCounterpartCulture of Spain. In Season Two, the show has started to assign specific non-English accents to people from outside Westeros. Shae and Jaqen H'ghar, both from Lorath, are played by German actors, who speak in their native accents. Carice van Houten speaks in her native Dutch accent, although Asshai is on the opposite end of the known world from Lorath. Some characters from outside Westeros do have a British accent however, apparently because they speak the Common Tongue of the Seven Kingdoms without a foreign accent. |
| 139 | * ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'': The Elves and Men speak with a variety of English accents, the Dwarfs speak with a Scottish accent, while the Harfoots use an Irish one. [[https://www.bigissue.com/culture/tv/lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-star-sophia-nomvete-everyone-could-benefit-from-thinking-like-a-dwarf/ According to Sophia Nomvete]], who plays Princess Disa, this is a deliberate choice on the part of the showrunners. It also fits with conventions established by the cinematic trilogies, and in many fantasy works in general. |
| 140 | * ''Series/TheBorgias'' is full of British accents, though the French characters actually do have French accents. It's just all the Italians that are British. |
| 141 | * The 1977 miniseries ''Jesus of Nazareth'' was dubbed "Jesus of Cambridge." |
| 142 | * The Creator/SamRaimi shows ''Series/HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys'' and ''Series/XenaWarriorPrincess'' mostly avert this, giving characters from Ancient Greek history and myth American accents. This can actually lead to some weird areas, since the shows are filmed in New Zealand, where accents naturally fall somewhere between British and Australian. |
| 143 | %% state the title * A TV dramatisation of the life of Queen Boudicca ascribed upper-class British accents to the Romans - the general advising Emperor Caligula about the British rebellion speaks in the clipped precise tones of a Sandhurst professional officer. Whereas the revolting British tribesmen spoke in lower-class regional accents. The Iceni, not unreasonably, spoke broad Norfolk, whereas the Brigantians (from the [[OopNorth North]]) spoke blunt Yorkshire. |
| 144 | * Because all of the actors, who [[EconomyCast play a variety of characters]], in ''Series/HorribleHistories'' are British, the Romans tend to be The Queen's Latin. There's also The Queen's Greek, Egyptian, and Aztec, although for more modern cultures like France or Germany they sometimes use [[JustAStupidAccent a fake accent]]. |
| 145 | * ''Series/AYoungDoctorsNotebook'', based on the semi-autobiographical works of Creator/MikhailBulgakov, is of course set in Russia (partly in [[UsefulNotes/RomanovsAndRevolutions 1917]] and partly in 1934). The series being a British production, everyone has a British accent--including Creator/JonHamm. (Or at least, Jon Hamm ''attempts'' a British accent). In fairness, Hamm ''does'' play an older version of Creator/DanielRadcliffe, so they must have figured that although the space of 17 years could plausibly give the young doctor an extra six inches in height, a wider frame, and different facial features, him having a different ''accent'' would be a bridge too far. |
| 146 | * ''Series/PompeiiTheLastDay'' predictably has many of the characters speak like this, it being a BBC production with British actors. |
| 147 | * Very downplayed in ''{{Series/Kaamelott}}'' (a French series), where the only noticeable accent-representing-class is on one of the peasants (thanks to the actor's usual roles being salt-of-the-earth types which his native accent is associated with). Of course, the fact that very few people in the series have anything remotely resembling class (including the actual Romans) might have something to do with it... |
| 148 | * ''Series/{{Voyagers}}'': In "Created Equal", Cicero and the slave-master Bitiatus both have upper class English accents. |
| 149 | * In the 1977 BBC adaptation of ''{{The Eagle of the Ninth}}'', all of the Romans have upper class English accents. Conversely, Esca, played by Christian Rodska, has a Northern English accent as his tribe, the Brigantes, were from what is now Northern England and the Epidii tribesmen of Caledonia (the Roman name for Scotland) all have Scottish accents. |
| 150 | * In ''Series/{{Reign}}'', much of the series is set in France, so, [[SarcasmMode naturally]], almost everyone speaks with a British accent, regardless of nationality (e.g. French, Spanish, Italian, most Scots). The few noticeable exceptions are Scottish lords, such as those played by [DEADNAME] Airlie or Creator/JohnBarrowman (both being Scottish-born actors, who have moved to Canada and US, respectively). |
| 151 | * The Creator/{{Netflix}} series ''Series/{{Barbarians}}'' fully '''averts''' this trope by having the Roman characters speak actual Latin with a period-appropriate accent. |
| 152 | * ''Series/{{Chernobyl}}'', despite being set in Soviet-era Ukraine very few of [[FakeNationality the cast]] actually have accents for the region as most are from the UK and Ireland with a handful of Swedish actors. WordOfGod is that the cast did attempt fake accents but the creators quickly realized the effort required was distracting them from properly portraying the characters so they decided to use this trope instead. |
| 153 | * ''Series/WarAndPeace2016'' is an adaptation of a Russian novel by Creator/TheBBC, so the largely American and British cast speaks with British accents. |
| 154 | * ''Series/TheMusketeers'' is set in 17th century Paris, and the vast majority of the characters are French, but they all speak in British accents reflecting their social status (aristocrats speak RP, lower-class characters speak in various regional working class British accents). Non-French characters (Spanish, German etc) speak English in Spanish/German accents, reflecting that they are meant to be speaking to the main characters in non-French accents. |
| 155 | * ''Series/TheGreat'': Although set in 18th century Russia, most of the characters speak in an English accent. |
| 156 | * ''Series/LesMiserables2018'': The majority-British cast affect The Queen's French. |
| 157 | [[/folder]] |
| 158 | |
| 159 | [[folder:Pro Wrestling]] |
| 160 | * Both Wrestling/BookerT and his wife Sharmell attempted British accents (Sharmell semi-successfully, Booker less so) when Booker became "King of the Ring" in 2006, even though they continued to be billed as residents of Houston, Texas. |
| 161 | [[/folder]] |
| 162 | |
| 163 | [[folder:Radio]] |
| 164 | * It was once humorously noted in ''Magazine/TimeMagazine'' that there is a radio dramatization of the Koran that is read by a British person. So even Allah has a British accent! |
| 165 | * This is universal in Creator/{{BBC}} adaptations of religious works; adaptations of Literature/TheBible tend to make the God of Israel and the God of the Christians, as well as His eldest son, impeccably British. Having Anglicised the respective Gods of the Big Three, the BBC didn't stop there: Gautama Buddha got a British accent in one radio drama. |
| 166 | ** Of course: he was an aristocrat. |
| 167 | [[/folder]] |
| 168 | |
| 169 | [[folder:Theater]] |
| 170 | * Many productions of Creator/WilliamShakespeare's plays will feature actors attempting an English accent to say their lines, even though the settings of his plays varied widely. This is obviously because Shakespeare wrote the dialogue in Elizabethan English and his plays are always heavily associated with English culture. Elizabethan accents hardly sound anything like modern English accents. |
| 171 | ** This trope should (theoretically) be averted in ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'' because the Scottish accents for the Scottish characters are written into the script. Still, many productions still give Macbeth an upper-class English accent. |
| 172 | ** Amusingly inverted in an episode of ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'' in which Stewart Minkis is cast as Hamlet. Having read that Elizabethan-era English sounded quite similar to [[UsefulNotes/AmericanAccents Appalachian dialects in America]], he attempts to play Hamlet with a 19th-century frontier inflection and ends up sounding like [[Series/TheAndyGriffithShow Gomer Pyle]]. |
| 173 | * An interesting variation on this trope comes from translations of Ancient Greek plays, most noticeably in ancient Greek comedies. Nearly every extant play contains at least one joke based on ancient Greek accents. This means that a translator or director needs to delineate some of the dialog with a different accent. British accents are often used, partially because many of the translators are British themselves and those are they accents their most familiar with. Other times the trope is averted, such as when an American gives Spartans a Texas accent to play up the "militant hick" perception. |
| 174 | * In many productions of Creator/GilbertAndSullivan operettas, the actors will put on British accents, even when the operetta in question doesn't take place in England (e.g. ''Theatre/TheMikado'', in Japan). |
| 175 | ** This is often to get Gilbert's rhyming and/or puns to work (consider the "Orphan/Often" joke in ''Theatre/ThePiratesOfPenzance'') and because a British accent makes it far easier to navigate a PatterSong understandably, given the (modern, upper-class) British accent's consonant clarity. |
| 176 | *** That joke requires some creative work with pronunciation to make it work even for an English audience (or at least for the couple of people who haven't seen the play before...) The accent which pronounces "often" as "orf'n" is not only posh, but also a sufficiently old-fashioned version of "posh" that it doesn't correspond with what most people nowadays think of as "the posh accent". So the actors have to perform tricks like exaggerating the "old-fashioned-posh" accent for their preceding half-dozen or so lines in order to make sure the audience are thinking in terms of the right sort of accent when the joke comes along. |
| 177 | * The 2009 revival of A Little Night Music, a musical set in Sweden, was/is performed with British accents by the cast, most of them fake Brits, with the notable exception of Creator/AngelaLansbury. This is exacerbated by the fact that they all speak with different flavors of British accent, with no logic given or implied as to the variance. |
| 178 | * The 2008 concert version of ''Theatre/{{Chess}}'' has an odd inversion, with the British Kerry Ellis affecting an American accent to play a Russian character (the other major Russian characters were played by Americans, one affecting a Russian accent and one [[NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent not bothering]]). |
| 179 | * In the original production of ''Theatre/ThePhantomOfTheOpera'', American Steve Barton (who played Raoul) faked a British accent, despite his character being French. The cast as a whole speaks with a British accent even in American productions of the musical. It is debatable whether this is because of this trope, or because they attempt to sound like the original British cast. |
| 180 | ** Since Phantom is nearly sung through, it could have something to do with the fact that pronunciation and diphthongs when singing in English tend to take on a more British pronunciation (for example, singing "The phantom of the opera is here!" with an American twang is frowned upon) |
| 181 | [[/folder]] |
| 182 | |
| 183 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 184 | * All of the characters in the fantasy RPG ''VideoGame/ArcanumOfSteamworksAndMagickObscura'' seem to have British accents, with the exception of Virgil, who is voiced by an American who sounds like he's trying to sound vaguely English. Certainly, his dialogue (replete with words like "bloody" and "bugger") is written to sound like it's come from a Brit. |
| 185 | * ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIII'': Combined with AnimalStereotypes for the "Speak with Animals" spell. A [[NobleBirdOfPrey Great Eagle]] has a pompous upper-class English accent, while a loyal working dog like [[TeamPet Scratch]] has a more lower-class accent. An [[MixAndMatchCritter owlbear cub]] speaks like an English schoolboy (with YouNoTakeCandle cadence), and [[VocalDissonance quite disturbingly]] one conversation with a GiantSpider has the hideous and chittering creature speaking in the almost sultry accent of a Scottish woman. |
| 186 | * ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'' translates different Japanese dialects into differently accented versions of English. One major character, Kid, speaks with an Australian accent. And it's all done [[FunetikAksent through text]] - the game has no voice acting. |
| 187 | * ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'': |
| 188 | ** The English translation of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' used this to replace the different Japanese ways of talking: dashing sky-pirate Balthier was given an English accent, whereas Princess Ashe was given a soft high-class American accent. ([[CuteMonsterGirl Fran]] speaks with a [[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign Welshy...Indo...Iri...Scot...Russi...Armenian]] - okay, no one knows, but it's an accent.) Al-Cid speaks in an accent that has been called an odd hybrid of Spanish and Russian. The grunts of the Archadian Empire tend to have particularly thuggish London accents. The people of Bhujerba speak with Indian accents. |
| 189 | *** In fact, [[spoiler:Balthier's accent actually gives away his heritage,]] since each region seems to speak its own dialect, with the Archadians speaking with the British accents, citizen of Dalmasca to speaking with American accents, the one Rozzarian we hear speak has a Spanish accent, and so on. |
| 190 | ** Ondore's accent is vaguely...Scottish or something. Or Gaelic/Irish/Celtic. [[spoiler: He's the narrator, by the way.]] |
| 191 | ** The English dubs of the ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'' Series has the majority of the cast speaking with American accents, though Vanille and Fang speak with...Australian accents for some reason. Most likely to represent them as being from a different place and time, though Fang speaks with a more general Australian accent while Vanille's accent is roughly the same as her voice actresses'. This is a translation equivalent of how they're voiced in Japanese, which has them have Okinawan accents. |
| 192 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' gives everyone in the game British accents in the English dub. This is jarring in certain places, such as when the extremely French-named elezen in ''Heavensward'' all sound like [=BBC=] newscasters. ''Stormblood'' adds more nuance by giving Ala Mhigan characters OopNorth accents, which helps them sound like they're from somewhere foreign to Eorzea and also gives them the tough and scrappy feel often associated with the accent. (The FantasyCounterpartCulture versions of Japan and China still use Received Pronunciation for most characters, though.) Y'shtola and Zenos, the representatives of FFXIV in ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy2015'', sounds distinct from the other characters with their accents as a result. |
| 193 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV'' has King Regis, Lunafreya, Ardyn, and Ignis speak in RP British accents while the rest of the cast is largely American. Noctis is Regis' son, so him having a completely different accent isn't explained. |
| 194 | * ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'': |
| 195 | ** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII'' gives most important character British accents for regional accent conversion. Pickham residents, for example, all speak cockney, Princess Minnie speaks with the Royal We, and the owner of the Sabrecat Trust speaks with an upper class RP so ludicrously pompous that it's played for laughs. His assistant Tom speaks...something. Exceptions include Morrie, the eccentric owner of the Monster Arena, who is voiced with an Italian accent and Italian words peppered through his dialogue, the entire city of Baccarat (which is centered around an enormous casino and hotel) is apparently American, and the snowy northern region of Orkutsk is very obviously Russian. |
| 196 | ** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestXI'' takes a similar approach. Cobblestonians have Bristol accents, lower class Heliodorians have Cockney accents, Arborians and upper class Heliodorians have RP accents, and Dundrasilians have Scottish accents. But there are also various non-British accents, such as American for Octagonians, Italian for Gondolians, Spanish for Valorians, Vietnamese for Phnom Nohnians, and Scandinavian for Sniflheimians. |
| 197 | * Downplayed in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening''. Characters will often drop British words such as "arse" and "mummy" into their sentences, but the vast majority of the cast possesses American accents so the trope is only reflected in their choice of vocabulary. |
| 198 | * ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaTheSandsOfTime'' gives His Highness the Title Character a British accent. Farah, an Indian princess, speaks with the hybrid accent of an Indian person educated by British English speakers, which is actually a common enough accent in the modern world. The Prince later acquires an American accent when he goes all [[{{Narm}} "Badass"]] in ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaWarriorWithin''[[note]] even though his voice actor in that game, Creator/RobinAtkinDownes, actually is English [[/note]], and when ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaTheTwoThrones'' rolls around, Farah's been [[strike:developed]] genericised into an ActionGirl with a gruff [[OohMeAccentsSlipping American accent]]. Luckily, the original voice actor for the Prince returns for ''The Two Thrones''. However, the American accent stays. The trailer for the upcoming Sands Of Time remake plays this straight again with the Prince, but subverts it with Farah, whose accent is pure Indian. |
| 199 | * In the ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'' games, Philadelphia-born Rand Miller for some reason gives Atrus a fluctuating mid-Atlantic accent (it should be noted that in "real life" Atrus would have spoken the English of [[http://www.pepysdiary.com Samuel Pepys]]). |
| 200 | ** Confusingly, in the current Myst canon we are meant to understand that the original Myst game really was just a game "[[DirectLineToTheAuthor based on]]" the "real" events of Myst, with only the events of the game Uru and onward to be taken as "accurate" depictions of what "really happened". All anachronisms can be retconned this way. |
| 201 | ** Not to mention how much his D'ni accent sucks. Of course, everyone's D'ni sucks... and Yeesha, the only character to use it in Uru, gets it even worse. |
| 202 | * ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' has several British-accented characters in both games; Bastila, being portrayed by a Canadian, is the only non-native accent. An honorable mention goes to Louis Mellis, playing Darth Sion - using his native accent, he is a[[NinjaPirateZombieRobot Scottish Zombie Sith]]. Although it seems to be Creator/JenniferHale's (she who voiced Bastila) hat to speak with a faux British accent. |
| 203 | ** Funnily enough, the same company's ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'' uses British accents to denote the Empire ([[PuttingOnTheReich especially Imperial Intelligence and the Imperial Military]]). |
| 204 | *** This, of course, is a direct reference to the film, which had most of the Imperial higher-ups speak with RP (Admiral Motti being the exception). In-universe, they're presumably well-connected and from Coruscant (see above); [[WatsonianVersusDoylist out-of-universe]], it's partially explained by British labor laws requiring that any film even partially produced in the UK have a certain number of British actors. |
| 205 | * In ''VideoGame/RomeTotalWar'', a slight variation of the tropes is presented: the Romans all speak with throaty American accents, while everyone else, the Gauls, Carthaginians, Egyptians, Spaniards, Greeks, etc. speak in a sort of generic "foreign" accent, with much rolling of R's and slurring of syllables. And to make it all more confusing: the game's British. |
| 206 | ** Averted with its sequel ''VideoGame/TotalWarRomeII'' where the Romans and the Greeks do speak with British accents. |
| 207 | ** ''VideoGame/SpartanTotalWarrior'' is also guilty. Every single Roman uses some form of British accent from the vaguely cockney legionnaires to the cut-glass accent of Sejanus. |
| 208 | ** Averted with extreme prejudice in the ''Europa Barbaroum'' mod for the game which solely uses authentic Greek, Latin and Celtic voiceovers for the respective factions. |
| 209 | * ''Franchise/DragonAge'': |
| 210 | ** In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'', nearly every human is British (Creator/ClaudiaBlack, although Australian, has always done a great British accent), except for the occasional character from the [[TheEmpire Empire of Orlais]], who are depicted as essentially being French. Elves and Dwarves are almost universally American (except for [[DepravedBisexual Zevran]], who has an outrageous Spanish [[FantasyCounterpartCulture 'Antivan']] accent). This is fair enough for the humans at least, as Ferelden is a FantasyCounterpartCulture for England (just as Orlais is fantasy-France), justifying the accents. |
| 211 | ** ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'' somewhat muddies the waters. Almost every human has a British accent of some kind, regardless of whether they're from Ferelden (England) or the Free Marches (the petty states that would one day become Germany). All but two of the members of the Dalish elf clan seen in this game speak with Irish accents, which is reasonable given [[FantasyCounterpartCulture the elves' position]] as an older culture (Gaelic) that was marginalized by a newly organized invader one (Anglo-Saxons/Fereldans). The one notable exception to the Irish accent is Merrill, who was raised in a different clan as a child, and who speaks with a Welsh accent (though same cultural implications, just Briton rather than Gaelic). |
| 212 | ** This also applies to characters from the [[VestigialEmpire Tevinter Imperium]], which is the FantasyCounterpartCulture of the Roman [IE, Byzantine] Empire (if it were a [[TheMagocracy Magocracy]]). |
| 213 | ** Averted with the Qunari, who may or may not be the equivalent to Muslims (a technologically-advanced culture with rigid social rules, utterly foreign to the others). |
| 214 | * The ''VideoGame/{{Fable}}'' series is bad for it, too; everyone comes from ''somewhere'' in the British Isles. |
| 215 | ** It should be noted that it is set in Albion, the oldest known name for Great Britain. Not to mention the Union Jack underwear... |
| 216 | ** Well, seeing as the game is created by a British company, it'd be more of a surprise if the voice actors didn't use their native accents. |
| 217 | * The Roman-themed city building game [[VideoGame/{{Caesar}} Caesar III]] has generally British sounding voices, as does the ''Praetorians'' RTS. |
| 218 | * In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'', Sokolov, a Russian, [[TranslationConvention appears]] to speak with a British accent. All of the other Russians are played with American accents, with the exception of Sokolov's rival, Granin...who speaks with a Russian accent. Then again, he's drunk, and may actually be speaking English in that scene. |
| 219 | * ''VideoGame/RyseSonOfRome'' plays this very, very straight as well. At least it's justified for the Britannians you're fighting... |
| 220 | * ''VideoGame/OperationFlashpoint'': ''Red Hammer'', the Soviets speak with British accents. |
| 221 | * ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'': |
| 222 | ** ''Videogame/AssassinsCreedUnity'' does this with revolutionary France. The accents range from posh RP style English to Cockney depending on the character. The only times their accents come close to the appropriate French is when they're actually speaking the language. [[WordOfGod According to the developers]], the Animus is translating (most) plot-relevant dialogue into the Initiate's native language; French-accented English would imply that the historical Frenchmen were ''actually'' speaking English to each other, which wouldn't make much sense.[[labelnote:*]]Of course, this stops making sense when you consider that the characters in ''Videogame/AssassinsCreedII'' actually ''did'' speak with Italian accents.[[/labelnote]] The more meta-justification is that the (notably French) company felt like players wouldn't be able to take French-accented English dialogue seriously even though prior AC games have French characters that speak with period appropriate accents instead of inexplicably sounding like they're from Britain. |
| 223 | ** This is largely [[AvertedTrope averted]] for ''Videogame/AssassinsCreedOrigins'' and ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedOdyssey'' with almost all of the Egyptian and Greek characters having accents that match up with what they would have sounded like when they spoke their native languages. Played straight with the Roman characters such as Julius Caesar as well as Cleopatra and the entire Ptolemy dynasty who speak with British accents despite the fact that the latter two should have had the same accent as Bayek and Aya. |
| 224 | * Imperials in ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' are based on Romans/Italians, though most of them speak with British accents, despite an actual British (and French) based race existing in the Bretons. Subverted with the Scandinavian-based Nords, which tend to have more accurate Scandinavian accents, though you do get the occasional Scottish accent. |
| 225 | * In ''Franchise/TheWitcher'' games, most characters speak with various British accents, ranging from RP style with nobles to Cockney and such for peasants and other low-borns. Dwarves speak with a Scottish accent. In the second and third games, different regional dialects of English are even used to differentiate the regional dialects in-game. The most notable exception is the main character, Geralt of Rivia, who uses American through-and-through. This is explained in-universe as Geralt having adopted the accent of his pretend-hometown Rivia, which is supposed to be distinct enough that almost everyone can immediately place it. |
| 226 | * ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles'' was localized in Britain, so that means the English voice cast of the games are British, leading to this trope. |
| 227 | ** ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'' primarily uses Southern English accents, though the accents are mostly haphazard and don't have that much thematic origin. The High Entia are the only ones who exclusively speak with Upper RP accents, while the Nopon exclusively speak in their own unique dialect. |
| 228 | ** ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'' maps every nation in the game with a specific accent. Leftherians have Northern English accents, Ardainians have Scottish accents, Gormotti have Welsh accents, Urayans have Australian accents, Tantalese and Tornans have Southern English accents (with the royalty using RP), the Indoline have Mid-Atlantic accents, and [[LivingWeapon Blades]] all have American accents, as do some of the {{Crossover}} characters such as [[VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}} KOS-MOS]] and [[VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX Elma]]. |
| 229 | ** ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3'' is set in the futures of the first two games. The Kevesi, descended from the first game's worlds of Bionis and Mechonis, retain the Southern English accents of the first game. The Agnians, descended from the second game's world of Alrest, run the second game's gamut of accents. |
| 230 | * ''VideoGame/{{Hades}}'' focuses on [[Myth/GreekMythology Greek mythology]], so several characters (including Zagreus, the PlayerCharacter) have British accents despite being Greek mythological figures. This was intentional on the creators' part, since it's meant to be a nod to older films set in ancient Greece and Rome where everyone speaks with British accents. The accent also serves to distinguish the Olympian gods (along with Hades and Zagreus) from the chthonic gods, who speak with American accents. |
| 231 | * ''VideoGame/ZeusMasterOfOlympus'': |
| 232 | ** Inverted, as many walkers speak with American (read: New York) accents, particularly Hades. |
| 233 | ** Demeter sounds like a matronly upper-class British woman... [[VoiceOfTheLegion unless you piss her off]]. |
| 234 | [[/folder]] |
| 235 | |
| 236 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 237 | * ''Webcomic/CSectionComics'': Invoked in "[[https://www.csectioncomics.com/comics/british-accents British Accents]]", where a producer tells the creators of ''Series/GameOfThrones'' (set in a MedievalEuropeanFantasy) ''Film/ThreeHundred'' (set in Ancient Sparta), ''Film/{{Gladiator}}'' (set in Ancient Rome) and ''Film/GodsOfEgypt'' (set in Ancient Egypt) to give everyone British accents. |
| 238 | [[/folder]] |
| 239 | |
| 240 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 241 | * This trope's lampshaded in WebVideo/TheCinemaSnob's review of ''Caligula'', which featured cameos from Website/ChannelAwesome contributors impersonating Caligula. Then [[WebVideo/BadMovieBeatdown Film Brain]] pops in pissed off that ''he'' didn't get to impersonate Caligula, particularly since ''he'' actually was British (and therefore had the British accent) unlike the others (who didn't even bother faking one). |
| 242 | * [[DiscussedTrope Called out by name]] in the [[https://acoup.blog/category/collections/the-queens-latin/ "The Queen's Latin"]] essays on Blog/ACollectionOfUnmitigatedPedantry, which discuss the complexities of historical ancient Roman identity - i.e., if the Romans weren't actually a bunch of Northern Europeans with posh accents, what were they really like? |
| 243 | * In the ''WebVideo/Lonelygirl15'' episode "Zodiac of Denderah", a British upper-class accent is used to imitate the French aristocracy. |
| 244 | [[/folder]] |
| 245 | |
| 246 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 247 | * ''WesternAnimation/Castlevania2017'' takes place in 15th century Wallachia, but nearly all of its inhabitants have English accents. |
| 248 | [[/folder]] |
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