And yet, I don't see endless threads about it. That's my point. Actors play characters from different backgrounds all the time: sometimes well, sometimes bad, sometimes so-so. But I always see people obsessed with Picard's "Britishness". I guess that's because French people are different enough to be regarded as other, but familiar enough not to be really alien. People are used to stereotypes, and get annoyed when their expectations are not met.
Picard was portrayed horribly as a Frenchman on the show. He didn't eat nearly enough cheese nor surrender enough to be a proper Frenchman... --- Seriously, I didn't have a problem with his accent or mannerisms. I don't see why any nationality represented would have to speak or behave a certain way, especially in a show taking place centuries in the future.
I always though it was John Luck Pick-erd. Not Pickert. I remember a vid of de Lancie crashing a TNG convention yelling out that line. Was hilarious.
Definitely a possibility. It's probably a family tradition, given that his father and brother both speak with the same RP accent. His mother never got the same treatment, marrying in from outside the family. One thing that is a bit odd is his traditionalist father's dislike of Jean-Luc joining Starfleet, given that he comes from a family of Mars colonisers. Unless Maurice saw them as the black sheep of the Picard clan. Young Jean-Luc was drawn to them, much to Maurice's disgust. I'm thinking of the Martian Picards as the cool uncle and cousins he would only have seen a handful of times as a child, but who left a big impression on him. Has anyone written a book about Picard's childhood?
Of course, this makes absolutely no sense. The only reason Ancient Romans have some kind of Received Pronunciation on film is because of some weird Hollywood convention (taken from stage theater, I guess). Ancient Romans wouldn't even sport a typical Italian accent, since Classical Latin pronunciation was pretty different from current Italian. So, if anything, Stewart's British accent would have made him an even worse Roman than a French.
^^ And furthermore, during Roman times, there was no such thing as an "English" accent because the language we call English didn't exist yet! The natives of Britain might have spoken Latin with a Celtic or Brythonic accent, though.
Non-French people don't do the accent believably, and the only native French-speaking captain we've had walked out before the pilot was completed. Ok, she was French-Canadian, but still.
Stewart should have done the whole series in that Brummie accent he uses for Michael Williams in 'The Defector'.
I thought it was a joking reference to Stewart having played Sejanus in I, Claudius. I don't recall him having played a Nazi, though, so I wasn't sure.