The Julia Ormond 'Accent'

[messyone15]

Could someone please explain to me what is up with Julia Ormond's accent?  Is she trying to do an American one and failing miserably?  Or is it the accent of someone who is immortal?  (Like, she lived through so many centuries, she has a mishmosh of pronunciations).  Or am I just being picky?  I enjoy the show, but when Julia speaks, it drives me batty!

[Tara Ariano]

It's not just you. I am usually annoyed by British actors trying to sound American but Ormond is extraordinarily terrible at it.

[Sarah D. Bunting]

She sounds like she has Katharine Hepburn stuck in her throat.

[FurryFury]

I've read that's her actual accent, and they had thought it fitting for a character who had, throughout the ages, lived in many different places and picked up different pronunciations. 

[paramitch]

Furryfury, that's interesting to hear because it does explain why Ormond's American accent was perfectly good in "Temple Grandin" and in her guest appearances on "Nurse Jackie" yet her accent here is so very odd.

 

It doesn't bother me, but it did take me awhile to get used to it.

[Blue Girl]

What gets me about the way she speaks is her odd...pauses.  Does anyone else notice this?  She'll sometimes pause in her line delivery at random spots, not at a place where one would naturally pause for dramatic effect. I don't know why she does it, if it's intentional or unconscious, but it always throws me off as if she's forgotten what she is saying and then remembers and picks up.   Now that I see this accent thread it makes me wonder if that is just part of how she speaks.

 

I'm OK w/ her having an "otherworldly" accent but then that makes me wonder why her sister and both daughters have no trace of it.   Presumably she taught her daughters to speak, so while some of their accent may have worn off growing up in New York you'd think they'd still have traces of it, especially when speaking to each other.

[GaT]

I've read that's her actual accent, and they had thought it fitting for a character who had, throughout the ages, lived in many different places and picked up different pronunciations. 

Yes, she said they asked her to use her real accent because she's also lived in a lot of different places, & that's why her accent is strange.

 

I'm OK w/ her having an "otherworldly" accent but then that makes me wonder why her sister and both daughters have no trace of it.   Presumably she taught her daughters to speak, so while some of their accent may have worn off growing up in New York you'd think they'd still have traces of it, especially when speaking to each other.

I don't know about her sister, but I don't think they were together all this time so they wouldn't necessarily have the same accent. As for the daughters, they die every lifetime, so they would only have whatever accent they get from the place they live during that life.

[formerlyfreedom]

Doesn't Ingrid have a bit of a twang, or am I misremembering because the actress was in In Plain Sight?

[Blue Girl]

I don't know about her sister, but I don't think they were together all this time so they wouldn't necessarily have the same accent. As for the daughters, they die every lifetime, so they would only have whatever accent they get from the place they live during that life.

 

In the show I'm assuming Joanna's accent is supposed to be from Asgard, and since both she and Wendy grew up there and left as adults, I'm thinking they originally both would have had the accent. I can accept that over time only Joanna kept the accent since she is the older sister and maybe it was more ingrained in her.  On the other hand, every time Joanna's daughters come back she raises them from babies so presumably she is the one who taught them talk and they initially would have had her accent. It's my opinion that in "reality" even if their accents had faded into the regional dialect that traces of it would still come out at home and especially when they're talking to their mom.  That said, that would probably take huge acting chops and would probably be more of a pain than it is worth, but it still bugs me. Grrr. 

 

Personally, I wish they had just chosen to have Julia use an American accent because you just know later at some point in the series we're probably going to meet current residents of Asgard and how much do you want to bet no one will have Julia's "Asgard" accent, they will probably all sound American or British or something.

[FurryFury]

In the show I'm assuming Joanna's accent is supposed to be from Asgard

I very much doubt they spoke English in Asgard :)

[Mabinogia]

Yeah, I get the idea behind having her use her real hybrid accent, but it only works if she is a stranger in a new land kind of character, not a mother of two with a sister who has seemingly travelled even more than she has. I don't think they really thought it through and it just sounded cool to them to do this thing so they did. I wish she'd done an American accent only because it would be a hell of a lot less distracting.

[Proclone]

Yeah, I get the idea behind having her use her real hybrid accent, but it only works if she is a stranger in a new land kind of character, not a mother of two with a sister who has seemingly travelled even more than she has. I don't think they really thought it through and it just sounded cool to them to do this thing so they did. I wish she'd done an American accent only because it would be a hell of a lot less distracting.

*De-lurking to Add* Yeah, I agree.  It wouldn't bother me if Wendy, Victor, and now Fredrick, weren't around or also had accents similar to Joanna (Ingrid and Freya's accents not matching their mother's wouldn't have bothered me because they don't remember their other lives or places they've lived).  And don't get me started now that they've show all of them after they have just left Asgard and they all speak they same way they speak currently.

 

Actually, in the hands of a better show they actually could have used the accent thing to show that Wendy and Victor were more capable of letting go of the past and blending in than Joanna, by better imitating the accent of where they are currently living.  But like I said before, I can't even fanwank that anymore since they showed how they all spoke when first leaving Asgard.

[Iandidas]

I can't STAND the way she talks. It got worse and worse for me through season 1. And now I'm at the beginning of season 2 and I almost can't watch it because of her accent. 

[Espy77]

She sounds a lot like a family member, who has MS. Their pronunciation and pausing is similar.

Maybe she's sick?

[Natly-d7]

Here's my thing... Julia's accent is odd, as if she's having difficulty annunciating certain words. One becomes use to it. The sis, Wendy, I feel should ,(after spending last 90 yrs there,) have a New Orleans French-Creole accent. She has been running a voodoo shop!  I like the mixed up accent from being all oover.I like the sisters speak modern American, since no memories & grown up normal here this time. Even their Dad, Prof @ Columbia. Needs nice cleanly spoken American (could've been Brit). But I agree, current Frederick, and everyone @ portal in past scene having just come from Asgard should all have had some sort of accent. Maybe a Greek (from all the Latin spoken) or Germanic or Slovak based upon the language of witches, which Frederick keeps spouting.