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by Chris Snelgrove
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If you are a Buffy the Vampire Slayer A fan who’s ever seen Spike actor James Marsters at a convention, you’ve probably heard something that just doesn’t sound right: the actor’s American accent. He became famous playing a British bad boy who didn’t die on that show, but the English accent he does throughout the series is a complete fake. It sounds very realistic, and the reason for its authenticity is that Masters was given voice training by the real Englishman Anthony Stewart Head, who was annoyed by Masters’ earliest attempts at an English accent.
Giles to the rescue
Rush, of course, was part of the Buffy Cast from the get-go, his English accent made him the perfect seal for the Slayer. Buffy Summers was a party girl from California forced into a life of monster hunting, and Head’s Giles was her sultry opposite number. Spike wasn’t introduced until the second season and Joss Whedon planned to kill him off quickly, but the popularity of the character ensured that he stayed until the end of that show and even popped up in the show’s final season. angel spin-off.
to be a Buffy The pillar meant it James Marsters Had to use his fake British accent for years, but Anthony Stewart Head didn’t wait that long to help him work on it. After Masters uttered some vulgar English slang, he claims Head took him aside and told him, “We don’t say it like that.” Fortunately, the review included a very generous offer: “I’m going to help you now.”
was brought up by force
Marsters joked about this story at Dublin Comic Con Buffy A colleague “basically taught me by force” about Spike’s English accent. As he remembers, he would get a new script in his trailer in the morning and Hed would come over at lunch to help him run lines. Apparently, Head was as strict with Masters as Giles ever was Buffy: “We would go over the script until he was satisfied that it (the accent) wasn’t going to embarrass him anymore.”
Although Marsters can’t help but laugh at these early ones Buffy Days, he’s the first to admit that Echo deserves credit for Spike’s amazing English accent. “(I owe the accent) to Tony Head,” he said, noting how the Giles actor “saved me.” He noted that Spike’s accent is especially slurred in his first couple of appearances, giving fans an easy way to figure out when the voice guidance really came into play.
To this day, Spike remains a fan favorite Buffy character, and the man behind it is eternally grateful for the accent training he got from Echo: “If it wasn’t for him, it wouldn’t be a good accent for sure,” Marsters said. By the way, if you want to hear more of Masters’ real accent, it’s easy to catch him on shows like running away (Big and ignored MCU series). Or you can listen to a song or two by Ghost of the Robot, the band that Marsters fronts.
As for us, we get to our next rewatch of Buffy the Vampire SlayerAnd we’re going to pay close attention to Spike’s accent in these first two episodes. It should be fun to note all the ways the accent improves over time, and it’s wild to think it’s all thanks to Anthony Stewart Head. It’s always amazing when actors share some similarities with their most famous characters, and in Echo’s case, he turns out to be just as effective an off-screen teacher as he ever was on the show that made him famous.
source: express