MovieChat Forums > Pompeii (2014) Discussion > Why can't all the actors just use Italia...

Why can't all the actors just use Italian accents?

posted 10 years ago by DeputyDippity
10 replies | jump to latest

One thing that has always perplexed me about movies like this is why, if they must speak English, they can't use an accent from the place where their characters live.

In this movie, we have people using mostly British-sounding accents... and then there's Kiefer Sutherland, sounding more like Kelsey Grammer's haughty, American Frasier Crane character than British.

Why not just use Italian accents rather than accents from various English-speaking countries?

These are trained, highly-paid actors. They can't be bothered to use the proper accent?

I`m sorry for my lack of manners, but I`m not used to escorting men.

[–] hirari 10 years ago

While I generally agree with you, there was no Italian accent at the time since they spoke Latin

[–] Earthmonkey16 10 years ago

Why not just use Italian accents rather than accents from various English-speaking countries?

Because most Romans were not from the Italian peninsula.

They were from all over Europe and the mediterranean.
Being a Roman meant living in the Roman Empire, which reached from England to Iraq..

And if you wanted true to history they had to speak Ancient Greek...

The movie illustrates the variation in dialects spoken throughout the Roman empire.

I'm not crazy, I'm just not your kind of sane
He who laughs last, didn't understand the joke

[–] undashing 10 years ago

During 79 AD, where this movie is supposed to set in, only people from Italian peninsula were considered Romans. It's not until the reign of Carcalla(198–211 AD) that people from outside Italy were given Roman citizenship. By that time the empire was already on decline. I wouldn't even call them true Romans.

[–] Earthmonkey16 10 years ago

The blanket citizenship of all inhabitants (free males) of Caracalla was to make all within the Roman Empire the same. Before that people in cities, nobility and descendants of Roman citizens were Roman citizens... The others who lived within the Empire had Latin rights

I'm not crazy, I'm just not your kind of sane
He who laughs last, didn't understand the joke

[–] linop90 8 years ago

Ancient Greek? Piss off

Those slimy boy lovers only had colonies in southern Italy thank god.

Eat the Neocons.

[–] mtlddrms 10 years ago

It's been a tradition in Hollywood since sword-and-sandal films have began to have the British accent spoken to make them sound "exotic".

[–] polsixe 10 years ago

Not just exotic but formal, priggish and intellectual.

[–] kalaimay24 10 years ago

I wish directors would do that sometimes, but that's the formula for these types of movies.

[–] AgentX2014 10 years ago

No ones accent bothered me worse than Keifer's. He sounded like he was trying to talk through new, oversized dentures. Probably the worst performance of his career.

[–] Da_Marchioness 10 years ago

Lol. Thanks for putting that picture in my head. :)

I just came to have a drink...