| Comment | Not only is it clear that she has an American accent, I would say it's also apparent, if you think about it, that it sounds more like a modern lightly Southern US accent than like the kind of mid-Atlantic accent that someone from, say, upper class New England (a more likely source of American heiresses at the time) would more likely have used. (Say, Katharine Hepburn.)
But it's not out of place in any way, and she does do a few things like pronouncing consonants (T, -ing) a little more carefully that may make it sound a little more attractive to British ears. Apparently McGovern actually has lived in London for some time, so that may be the compromise she uses there as well.
And yes, the British characters also sound modern, not traditional RP. We've discussed that in the forum, that you can hear changes even in the queen's pronunciation over the decades. The dialogue is also essentially modern, for that matter -- they don't distinguish between 'will' and 'shall,' and there are very often modern idioms thrown in that are pretty anachronistic. They don't bother me as much in the mouths of the younger characters as in, say, Maggie Smith.
At least on the whole, the British characters sound British and the Americans sound American, which is better than you sometimes get. In another period drama shown on PBS here this spring, 'Mr. Selfridge,' there are even two British actors playing Americans and both doing a pretty good job, though to my ears one sounds more natural than the other. Anyone care to guess who?
Unfortunately neither of them is the lead, the title character, who seems both authentically American and a bit dim. |
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