Why British actor for French-descened captain?

[Skywalker]

It kind of bugged me, too. I used to wish they'd just changed Picard from a Frenchman to an Englishman after they'd cast Patrick Stewart.

 

[roguephoenix]

I don't stray in this forum much. So if this has been threaded before, just point me there.

Is there ANY logic behind a British-inflected actor playing a French captain?

Sometimes in Trek people have English accents (Chekov, Scotty, Argyle, Bashir), but they seem to make sense relative to the character's background or apparent ethnicity.

If the answer is simply that the producers liked Stewart as an actor, that's fine. But it's kind of bugging me. Picard plays up his Frenchness. Why not a hire an equally good actor with a) no accent or b) a French accent?

Just asking.

so a frenchman can't grow up with an english accent? it works because it does show that the world is not as big as it used to be where people are quite divided. that a frenchman can grow up speaking english. shows more interconnection and not having too many defined lines between nationalities. having grown up in a certain place or been brought up differently doesn't mean that one would not take pride in their roots.

wouldn't this dicussion also work for other characters like hoshi sato? harry kim? uhura? la forge? and a host of other characters.

 

[Anwar]

Eh, it's no different than Ivanova in B5 saying she's Russian when she speaks with a perfect American accent (even though other B5 officers DO have accents).

 

[JohanKoch]

We've been round this circuit before. Many many French people speak English with an English accent because that's where they learned it.

Possibly. But this is just not an English-accented Frenchman. It's a tea-drinking, Shakespeare-loving, English-accented Frenchman.

The real world reason is, of course, the character was conceived of as French before Patrick Stewart was picked for the role.

My preferred explanation? That 23rd century Earth really is a multicultural, metalinguistic polyglot of different nations and cultures, and national borders and cultural differences are blurring. As a result, not only do you have English-seeming Frenchmen, you might have black Inuits, or Japanese-accented Afghans, or any other combination of cultures, accents, and races. Kind of fits with what I think the Federation was always supposed to be about...

 

[iguana_tonante]

But anyway, I think know what you mean. From what I understand, TPTB originally wanted a French accent, but once they hired Stewart...well, come on. Nobody in his right mind would hire a guy with a FABULOUS voice like that and have him cover it up with a phony accent. That's what I think, anyway.

Yeah, I think that is the most likely answer.

When a person is learning English as a second language, they will naturally adopt one existing accent or another, or a mix of them if they are exposed to more than one. [...] If they have learned it in school, they will most likely be taught to speak in one or two accents that are accepted in schools as "standard English". Until very recently, this was always only RP (Received Pronounciation/Queen's English/Oxford English), the 'standard' version of British English.

I agree. And I want to point out that if someone learn English as a second language (or as a co-first language) in Europe, he will most likely learn the British English than the American English.

 

[JustKate]

I think there is one main language that everybody on Earth speaks (and that for convenience's sake we and TPTB refer to as "English"), and then maybe some of them know other languages as well. So there's no reason for Picard to speak with a "French" accent since he would have learned English as he grew up (and presumably French as well).

I would assume one common tongue by 23rd c. Yet we have Chekov, Scotty, Chief O'Brian who somehow learned that common tongue with an accent. Maybe I just want things in a commercial tv show to be consistent. A fool's errand.

I adore consistency, too, but surely we can accept that things might have changed in the 100 years between Chekov and Picard (just as they did between Picard's grandmother and Picard)?

As for O'Brien, I don't think I understand you. He would learn English the same way the rest of us native English speakers learn English right now: He grew up speaking it, so he speaks it the way the people around him do. So what do you mean by "a common tongue"? He speaks the common tongue, his accent just sounds different from Picard's and Crusher's and mine and presumably yours. It's a great accent (it's his real-life accent, I believe) - I love it.

Personally, I wish there had been more accents in Trek - a greater selection of the many varieties of English spoken today. Everyone speaking a common tongue is fine - but I just hate the idea of everybody sounding alike, and you know, they pretty much do. Some U.K. BBSers and I were talking about this a couple of months ago in another thread, and we were lamenting how almost all the humans have either generic American accents or really posh British accents. But I hope to goodness we can at least imagine more variety than that in the 24th century. Where are the Yorkshire accents, the Chicago accents, the Alabama accents, the New Zealand accents? Not gone forever, I hope. Surely everybody doesn't talk as though he grew up in Unspecified Middle America or went to Oxford?

So anyway, if we can imagine that not everybody who speaks English as his or her native language has the same accent, what's wrong with O'Brien having an Irish accent? A really good Irish accent at that?

And BTW, I have known people who learned to speak English as their second language with no discernable accent. Not many, but some.

I believe you (both) that they're out there, as I have read in other sources, but I simply have never met such non-accented English speaking folks. IDIC is more interesting than everyone sounding like a network news anchor anyway.

I agree that it's rare for someone who learns English as a second language to have no "foreign" accent. But it's different with a completely bi-lingual person, and by that I mean someone who grows up speaking two languages. Such people, in my experience, usually have no foreign accent (at least not in English - I wouldn't know if their Spanish or whatever has an American accent). And the reason is that neither language is a foreign language to them. They grew up learning both at the same time, hearing both at the same time, and speaking both as needed.

 

[arasam22]

i always kinda assumed he grew up speaking both, and so that's why he speaks english perfectly. what always annoys me the most is how patrick stewart doesn't have a very good french accent the few times he speaks it :P (although i guess that could be chalked up to emotion or something... he wasn't exactly at a sing-along when he was singing sur le pont d'avignon). you'd think he'd do a little bit better, being born in france and all.

but then usually whenever i get to thinking about this, i just say to myself, "it's just a SHOW!" lol

 

[plynch]

You all win. No mas. I do not disagree with you!

It just seems odd compared to the predominant practice of Trek production, to wit: non-North Americans speak either North American-accented English, or with the accent of their "homeland."

I TOTALLY AGREE it is possible a 24th century French-descended human could speak like an Oxford don. You may stop convincing me. He could speak Indonesian, Farsi, whatever, perfectly. I get it. Bye.

 

[JustKate]

^ Wow. Who knew I had such powers of persuasion?

Or some kind of power, anyway - reinteration, perhaps.

 

[plynch]

And aNOther thing - I actually like Stewart's voice, to boot!

 

[JustKate]

^ Ohhhh, me too! It's fabulous, so I'd probably resist the idea of a French accent even if I hadn't managed to justify that delicious Royal Shakespeare Company accent of his in my own mind.

 

[Trekker4747]

It kind of bugged me, too. I used to wish they'd just changed Picard from a Frenchman to an Englishman after they'd cast Patrick Stewart.

I don't know why they just simply didn't do this. Change the chacter's name and background to make him English. Instead of having a French captain speak, heavily, like and englishman.

 

[JustKate]

I have wondered about this, too. I'm fine with a French captain who speaks English with a British accent, but what's wrong with a British captain who speaks English with a British accent? TV is a very odd business.

 

[apenpaap]

IIRC, the Memory Alfalfa article on him claims that he is actually British, and that his name is John Luck Pickerd, but that he claimed to be French since the academy to benefit from positive discrimination.

 

[Thor Damar]

I have wondered about this, too. I'm fine with a French captain who speaks English with a British accent, but what's wrong with a British captain who speaks English with a British accent? TV is a very odd business.

Well...it's not quite a 'British' (Received Pronunciation) accent, more a refined Yorkshire one. And there's nothing wrong with a accent from our isles we do, after all make the best villains

 

[JustKate]

^ Really? It sounds very Royal Shakespeare Society to me, but I'm sure you have a better ear for these things, Thor.

But yes, it's a delicious accent, however you characterize it. I'm a sucker for accents (most accents, really) anyway.

 

[Thor Damar]

^ Really? It sounds very Royal Shakespeare Society to me, but I'm sure you have a better ear for these things, Thor.

But yes, it's a delicious accent, however you characterize it. I'm a sucker for accents (most accents, really) anyway.

I do believe that Mr Stewart hails from that part of our funny shaped Island and a Brit is supposed to be able to tell exactly where another Brit is from just by hearing them speak.

'Tis somewhat of a myth methinks.

 

[JustKate]

^ Hmmm, I'm gonna have to work on my ear for BrE...

The only Yorkshire accent I could recognize would be a really broad one - like Last of the Summer Wine broad, which is really, really broad. And I don't even know if anybody from Yorkshire still speaks like that, though I really hope so.

 

[Thor Damar]

^ Hmmm, I'm gonna have to work on my ear for BrE...

The only Yorkshire accent I could recognize would be a really broad one - like Last of the Summer Wine broad, which is really, really broad. And I don't even know if anybody from Yorkshire still speaks like that, though I really hope so.

There are more than a few I'm sure, but I am a Londoner and therefore woefully ignorant about those up North.

Basically I'm guilty of being a Southerner

(And congratulations on the promotion JustKate)

 

[JustKate]

(Good God! I'm...I'm....top brass! Who would have guessed?)

And I did know you'd be considered a "Southerner," Thor, even though in my heart, I think of folks such as my Louisiana relatives when I hear the term "Southerner."