Charlie Hunnam hired a dialect coach for ‘King Arthur’ to help him “sound English again”
Charlie Hunnam has admitted that he had to hire a dialect coach to help him “sound English again” for 2017’s King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword.
The actor played the lead role in director Guy Ritchie’s fantasy action-adventure film, which also starred Djimon Hounsou, Aidan Gillen, Jude Law, Eric Bana and Annabelle Wallis.
After sporting an American accent in Sons Of Anarchy across seven seasons, Hunnam, who was originally born in Newcastle, explained that there was an awkward transition when it came to playing the British king.
“This is so embarrassing to say as an Englishman,” Hunnam told Vanity Fair. “But I’d been working in America for so long that when I got King Arthur, I had to hire a dialect coach to help me sound English again, which was sort of an absurd situation to find myself in.”
Hunnam adopts an Australian accent for his latest role in Apple TV+ series Shantaram, which premiered last month.
Speaking about his accent for the show to 7 News Australia, Hunnam said: “I had a wonderful dialect coach and a lot of Australian friends who helped me, but honestly I think I probably got about 75 per cent of the way there.
“I have a strange accent myself, it’s half English, half American, and everybody, my entire life, has thought I was Australian. I have a lot of family in Melbourne – I came to Melbourne the first time when I was two years old and spent six weeks there, so I’ve been coming to Australia all my life.”
Based on the novel by Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram follows a bank robber from Australia who escapes prison and flees the country to India. The show is created by Eric Warren Singer and Steve Lightfoot (Hannibal, The Punisher).
The post Charlie Hunnam hired a dialect coach for ‘King Arthur’ to help him “sound English again” appeared first on NME.
Adam Starkey
NME
