Sam Heughan, known for his role as Jamie Fraser in Outlander, was instructed to tone down his Highland accent for the show, the producers revealed.
The 44 year old actor from Balmaclellan, who relocated to Edinburgh at age 12, naturally speaks with a gentle Scottish lilt, but the demands of the historical Starz series called for a much thicker accent, reports the Scottish Daily Express.
On an episode of the Outlander podcast, producer Elicia Bessette spoke about how Heughan and other Scottish actors had to undergo additional dialogue recording (ADR) after filming to adjust their accents.
Caitríona Balfe, who plays Claire Fraser, only needed to redo “about six lines” in ADR, unlike Heughan.
“Poor Sam – only because we have those requests to Americanize his accent sometimes,” commented Bessette, indicating that Heughan’s ADR sessions were more extensive than those of Balfe, who is 45 years old and uses a refined Received Pronunciation for her character Claire, despite being a Dublin native.
Executive producer Ronald D. Moore, also present on the podcast, acknowledged the difficulty: “Yeah, that’s really tough.”
Bessette added, “Just to understand what they’re really saying.”
Moore explained that while the production team has become accustomed to the Scottish accents, studio executives in America would often be puzzled, asking, “A lot of times we get so used to hearing them in the Scottish accent and other people in America in the studio go, ‘What? What did he say?’.”
He noted that initially, he frequently had to request ADR due to comprehension issues, but now it’s no longer a problem: “It’s weird, I can hear them now perfectly but in the beginning I would write the ADR note constantly on the screen, now I never do.”
Bessette remarked: “And that goes for Colum [MacKenzie] and Dougal [MacKenzie], Angus [Mhor], Rupert [MacKenzie]. We sometimes just have to ask them to lay low on Scottish.”
Heughan previously confessed to Entertainment Weekly: “My accent is an Edinburgh sort of soft southwest Scottish accent.
“It could almost be English. So we try to do a bit of a Highland lilt to it.”
The stars of Outlander have noted the show’s distinctive Scottish dialect, with Highland characters required to emulate the regional tone of the 18th century.
Playing Marsali Fraser, Glasgow native Lauren Lyle shared her surprise at needing to adjust her accent for the series and her work with a dialect coach.
On the Outlander podcast, she once mentioned: “When I first joined the show I had to have a session with the dialect coach. I was quite confused because I’m very Scottish.
“It was mainly to do with getting rid of the Glaswegian accent, and also letting me know that the way Diana [Gabaldon] wanted my name to be pronounced was ‘Marsali’ like ‘parsley’.”
Steven Cree, portraying Old Ian Murray, also acknowledged that his return in season seven required him to amplify his Scottish brogue.
Chatting with the Express in 2023, he reminisced: “In a way, it felt like going and putting on a wig and some clothes with my mates and putting on a Scottish accent. I feel like we’re all putting on Scottish accents in it.”
He mused with a chuckle, “It does, honestly. I feel like I hear myself back on it, I feel like I’m putting on a bad Scottish accent.”
Source: irishstar.com