Top 10 The Crown Actors Who Sound NOTHING Like Their Characters

MsMojo

You never know just how good a "Crown" actor is until you hear their real accent. Welcome to WatchMojoUK and today we’ll be counting down our picks for cast members of “The Crown” who have to do the most work to achieve those real-life accents.

Transcript

00:00 "Mrs Thatcher."

00:01 "Your Majesty."

00:04 Welcome to Miss Mojo, and today we'll be counting down our picks for the top 10 The

00:08 Crown actors who sound nothing like their characters.

00:12 "Which is why they try to intimidate me and ridicule me, make me seem paranoid or mad.

00:18 I'm not."

00:19 For this list, we'll be looking at the cast members of The Crown who have to do the most

00:24 work to achieve those real-life accents.

00:26 Let us know whose accent you think is the best in the comments.

00:31 10.

00:32 Bertie Carvel A recent addition, Carvel first appeared in

00:35 the very last episode of Series 5 as incoming Prime Minister Tony Blair, continuing into

00:41 the sixth season.

00:42 "Well, a new dawn has broken, has it not?

00:43 We have been elected as new Labour and we will govern as new Labour."

00:54 As anyone who remembers Blair's time in Downing Street knows, he has quite a distinct

00:58 way of speaking, making him a boon for comedian impressions everywhere.

01:02 "And as we head into the millennium, we have the opportunity to change Britain."

01:08 Carvel isn't doing an impression, however.

01:10 He's trying to accurately portray Blair.

01:13 And while he doesn't look at all much like him, he does get Blair's voice down impeccably.

01:18 "And I want to say, if this meeting is about the decommissioning of the yacht, I want you

01:25 to know, especially in light of having been shown around here today, how bad I feel."

01:29 Carvel hails from London himself, while Blair moved around a lot as a child, including spending

01:34 time in Australia and then in Durham.

01:37 It's definitely a tricky role to get right, especially when he's following in Michael

01:41 Sheen's footsteps.

01:43 9.

01:44 Erin Doherty Brought on to play Princess Anne, the Queen's

01:48 only daughter in Series 3, Erin Doherty is certainly one of the cast members who looks

01:54 the most like her real-life counterpart.

01:56 "I wonder what's more dull, having to sit through one of those meetings or having to

02:01 watch it on television."

02:02 Seeing side-by-side images, it's actually rather spooky.

02:06 But thanks to the work of the Crown's dialect team, she also sounds exactly like her.

02:11 "Well, I did warn you."

02:13 "Do not say you warned me."

02:14 "I did.

02:15 It was always a daft idea.

02:16 It was always going to backfire."

02:18 In reality, Doherty doesn't speak in the clipped, uptight RP of the Princess Royal, as she grew

02:24 up in Crawley in West Sussex.

02:27 So she does have a Southern accent, but certainly not an upper-class one.

02:32 "How are the other students?

02:34 Short, hairy and angry."

02:35 "What?"

02:36 "Isn't that what the Celts are like?"

02:39 But interestingly, they both had athletic careers, with Doherty almost becoming a professional

02:44 footballer and Princess Anne competing in the Olympics in horse riding.

02:49 8.

02:50 Matt Smith

02:51 Prince Philip is another figure subject to popular impressions, thanks to his low voice

02:56 and penchant for offensive gaffes.

02:58 "I've told you this already."

03:00 "Maybe I've forgotten."

03:01 "Maybe you should listen a little more carefully next time."

03:04 In some ways, Matt Smith, born and raised in Northampton, couldn't be further away

03:08 from Philip, former Prince of Greece and Denmark.

03:12 But he pulled off the role extraordinarily well.

03:15 "Well, our adventure is only two weeks old, and it's already taken us nearly 20,000

03:21 miles as we travel to far corners of the world."

03:25 He was already nearly as tall as the late Duke of Edinburgh, and had to dye his hair

03:29 blonde to play him in his youth.

03:32 Philip's accent was nailed as well, though he doesn't grumble as much as the Duke was

03:36 known to in his later years.

03:38 "I have never abused my privileges and I don't intend to start now, but this is the

03:42 royal yacht.

03:43 I am on it representing the crown, and I say turn it around and take this man home."

03:48 Despite Philip constantly being derided as a foreigner, he sounds just as posh as the

03:53 rest of them.

03:54 7.

03:55 Josh O'Connor

03:57 Born in Berkshire, O'Connor spent most of his childhood in Gloucestershire, raised by

04:01 working-class parents.

04:03 "I'm very grateful for all this.

04:05 I hope you'll be able to put your feelings to one side.

04:09 I gather you're a Welsh nationalist."

04:12 This is strangely coincidental, as royalists will know that following his marriage to Diana,

04:17 then Prince Charles decided to make Gloucestershire his base of operations.

04:22 Highgrove House in the country is still a main residence of the King and Queen Consort.

04:27 "I can't ever be a son of Wales, but I am working on the Welsh speaking part."

04:32 However, suffice to say that most people from Gloucestershire sound nothing like the King,

04:37 and O'Connor, like the rest of the cast, had a lot of lessons to get the voice down.

04:42 Perhaps better than his accent, however, were his mannerisms as the King, with his performance

04:48 winning him an Emmy and a Golden Globe.

04:50 "Isn't there a similarity between my predicament and the Welsh?

04:55 Am I listened to in this family?

04:58 Am I seen for who and what I am?

04:59 No.

05:00 Do I have a voice?"

05:01 "It's rather too much of a voice for my liking."

05:03 Number 6 - Emma Corrin

05:05 "And you like that one because..."

05:07 "It's the most expensive."

05:08 "No.

05:09 Because it reminds me of my mother's engagement ring.

05:14 And it's the same colour as my eyes."

05:15 The People's Princess has been tackled time and time again in film and TV, with few able

05:21 to get her mannerisms and very distinct accent correct.

05:25 "The Prince of Wales and I are incredibly grateful that you've all come out here to

05:30 join us this evening in support of a cause that's incredibly close to our hearts."

05:36 She spoke with a highly unique lilt to all of her sentences, which has become the bane

05:41 of actors everywhere trying to portray her.

05:43 Emma Corrin is certainly one of the best performers to tackle Diana, and has spoken at length

05:49 about how they prepared to do her voice.

05:51 "Well that's what I keep asking myself.

05:54 What's she got to do with anything?

05:55 But obviously she's got a lot to do with everything because you can't leave her alone."

05:59 Corrin also shared an interest in dance with the Princess of Wales, and was often seen

06:04 dancing and roller skating as Diana throughout Series 4.

06:08 5.

06:09 Gillian Anderson

06:10 "His golf clubs will be in the hallway.

06:12 He will come and go as he pleases.

06:14 He knows how busy I will be and how hard I intend to work."

06:19 She grew up on both sides of the Atlantic, which is why you'll often hear her switch

06:23 between English and American accents flawlessly.

06:26 But Anderson still had to work extensively with numerous dialect coaches to perform as

06:31 the Iron Lady herself.

06:33 "I will not be drawn on any subject save the weather.

06:38 It's a lovely day."

06:40 Nobody else in the world sounds or has ever sounded like Margaret Thatcher, and this is

06:45 thanks to her growing up in Grantham, Lincolnshire, and then trying to sound upper class to blend

06:51 in with the other Tories.

06:52 "The way those men patronise me, lect to me, squires and grandees."

07:00 The result was strange, to say the least, but Gillian Anderson was phenomenal.

07:06 She also had to wear a lot of elaborate wigs to mimic Thatcher's style, if you can call

07:12 it that.

07:13 4.

07:14 Olivia Colman

07:15 "Fez Wastabeverns is very kind.

07:17 He's also a bare-faced liar."

07:20 Although Colman has recently made a name for herself playing various royals, winning an

07:24 Oscar for her turn as Queen Anne in The Favourite, she's actually from Norwich.

07:29 You definitely wouldn't know it listening to her play Queen Elizabeth II, as she does

07:34 Her Majesty's rather extreme RP impeccably.

07:38 In interviews, she revealed that the Crown's dialect coach is always on set, and his assistance

07:44 was often employed when Colman couldn't get certain vowel sounds and accidentally

07:49 sounded too working class.

07:51 "I'd like to think you had that sinking feeling on another occasion recently, when

07:56 going to see your friends at the Bank of England."

07:58 But there is something Colman got wrong - the Queen's eye colour.

08:02 "If we all had to thank one another every time we did anything in this family, we'd

08:06 never get anywhere."

08:07 Apparently this is because she looked too weird with either CGI'd blue eyes or contacts,

08:13 so the choice was made to stick with her natural brown eyes.

08:17 3.

08:18 Elizabeth Debicki

08:19 The second and last actor to take on Diana, Princess of Wales, Elizabeth Debicki debuted

08:25 in Series 5.

08:26 "It'll all be fine.

08:27 If you ever feel sad or lonely, you can just look out of the window and give Granny a wave."

08:34 Not only was she following Emma Corrin, though, she also had Kristen Stewart's performance

08:38 in Spencer to look at, in which she surprised everyone by doing such a good job.

08:44 Debicki was also able to get Diana's voice down, which was all the more impressive considering

08:49 she's Australian.

08:50 "Which is why they try to intimidate me and ridicule me, make me seem paranoid or mad.

08:56 I'm not."

08:57 Going from Australian to upper-class English is definitely a bigger accent leap than many

09:03 of the Crown's cast have had to make.

09:05 Debicki was also excellent at Diana's body language.

09:08 "I'm worried you think I'm this huge thing, this great big glamorous celestial thing to

09:16 be scared of."

09:17 "You are."

09:18 "No I'm not."

09:19 She is, however, notably taller than Diana.

09:21 While the Princess was surprisingly tall at 5'10, Debicki is 6'3".

09:26 2.

09:27 John Lithgow

09:28 A mainstay in the first two series and the only cast member who wasn't recast for Series

09:33 3, as he appeared in one scene in the first episode, John Lithgow is one in a long line

09:39 of actors who have betrayed Winston Churchill, the UK's most enduringly popular Prime Minister.

09:45 "Dear Winston."

09:46 "Your Majesty."

09:47 "Don't move.

09:48 How are you?"

09:49 "Grimped, ma'am."

09:50 But he's not even British.

09:56 He's American, born and raised in New York.

09:59 This makes it even more impressive that he was able to not only do a perfect English

10:03 accent but a perfect Churchillian one.

10:06 "Let us start with the unrest in Egypt, where anti-colonial passions continue to run high

10:13 and where our soldiers continue to come under fire from nationalist insurgents."

10:18 Churchill himself was extremely aristocratic in real life and was a member of the Spencer

10:23 family, making him a cousin of the Princess of Wales.

10:27 "Winston, people are angry.

10:28 They see us as the culprits."

10:31 "Culpable for what?

10:32 It's fog.

10:33 Fog is fog.

10:34 It comes and it goes away."

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10:53 1.

10:54 Claire Foy If you've only seen her in The Crown, you

11:05 may be amazed to learn that Claire Foy is from the North.

11:15 She spent most of her childhood in Stockport, Manchester and Leeds, none of them places

11:20 that really make you think of royalty.

11:23 Because of this, Foy has spoken about the difficulty in mastering the Queen's English

11:27 to play the late monarch, specifically words like "house" and "because".

11:32 "We understand that in the turbulence of this anxious and active world, many of you

11:40 are leading uneventful, lonely lives."

11:43 Her Northern accent definitely doesn't come through as much now, post-Crown, like the

11:47 rest of the cast.

11:48 Foy credits dialect coach William Conacher with training her to get it right.

11:56 Do you agree with our picks?

12:10 Check out this other recent clip from Ms Mojo.

12:13 And be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos.

12:17 Thanks for watching.

12:19 [music]

12:26 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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