I don’t think I have that, you’ll have to dig around on her Facebook 😛
^Does anyone know of this post? Let me know.
In the meantime, there was some discussion about his accent on this post and tbh I probably trust fandom more than Anne on this.
Armand has no accent. You can speak any language to perfection. His English, for example, is soft, fresh, and perfect. Maybe his articulation is a little old, and formal. He has a perfect ear.
In movie!IWTV, Armand’s origins aren’t explicitly stated, just that he’s an Old World vampire. He could very well be Spanish, that’s Banderas’ actual ethnicity. So we don’t know. Just bc Louis and Claudia meet him in Paris doesn’t mean he’s French; he tells them he’s 400 yrs old, he’s probably lived elsewhere.
On my recent post about Antonio!Armand, @slow-read shared this opinion: “I would like to add that Antonio’s accent also gives one a sense of age, otherness and it sounds (or sounded) exotic to the audience? It was perfect for Armand-the-oldest-living-vampire-in-the-world. *-*” The
ppl behind movie!IWTV might have chosen Banderas and made the character this way rather than a more canon-compliant actor bc they wanted him to be more convincing as
Armand-the-oldest-living-vampire-in-the-world to audiences who had not read the books. Filmmakers then (and now) want a movie to appeal to wide audiences. I was a kid then, but it seems to me that fandom (and specifically, trying to please the fanbase as a primary objective) wasn’t as much of a consideration at that time.
In the books, Armand comes from a place called Kiev, which according to AR is in Russia and according to the google is in the Ukraine, but idk. Then he spent years in Italy which is where he got most of his mortal education, so he may have picked up some of that accent from his teachers and friends… and then he lived in Paris for many years so he might have consciously tried to pick up some of that accent in order to blend in.
Anyone is welcome to answer this with what you think Armand’s accent is like!
I reckon Armand didn’t spend long enough in Italy to pick up a lasting accent, it will have faded by now. It’s been such a long time since he lived in Eastern Europe that I’m not sure he would have that in his accent, either. Maybe he does have a trace of it left, since it was the first place he lived in. He spends so much time around Frenchmen to this day, I reckon he has a lot of French in his accent. Although let’s not forget he’s also spent a lot of time in America by now, too.
Hard to know, when we don’t have a real life model for someone who’s lived for so long in so many places! I’m gonna go with a cocktail, predominately French with a hint of Eastern Europe and American. The filmmakers with Banderas were probably like, “Eh, European is good enough, no one will know the difference as long as it’s foreign sounding.”
In movie!IWTV, Armand’s origins aren’t explicitly stated, just that he’s an Old World vampire. He could very well be Spanish, that’s Banderas’ actual ethnicity. So we don’t know. Just bc Louis and Claudia meet him in Paris doesn’t mean he’s French; he tells them he’s 400 yrs old, he’s probably lived elsewhere.
On my recent post about Antonio!Armand, @slow-read shared this opinion: “I would like to add that Antonio’s accent also gives one a sense of age, otherness and it sounds (or sounded) exotic to the audience? It was perfect for Armand-the-oldest-living-vampire-in-the-world. *-*” The
ppl behind movie!IWTV might have chosen Banderas and made the character this way rather than a more canon-compliant actor bc they wanted him to be more convincing as
Armand-the-oldest-living-vampire-in-the-world to audiences who had not read the books. Filmmakers then (and now) want a movie to appeal to wide audiences. I was a kid then, but it seems to me that fandom (and specifically, trying to please the fanbase as a primary objective) wasn’t as much of a consideration at that time.
In the books, Armand comes from a place called Kiev, which according to AR is in Russia and according to the google is in the Ukraine, but idk. Then he spent years in Italy which is where he got most of his mortal education, so he may have picked up some of that accent from his teachers and friends… and then he lived in Paris for many years so he might have consciously tried to pick up some of that accent in order to blend in.
Anyone is welcome to answer this with what you think Armand’s accent is like!
We got a question about our headcanon of Louis’ accent in our coffee shop AU collab, and, I thought others might be interested in our answer so here it is!
[^X] My answer: in canon, Louis would have spoken French as his native language, and Creole in NOLA. Being a vampire, he probably began learning English from various people during his travels with Armand after Paris, and then really got the full dose of it when they were living in NY together in the 20th century.
For our AU, I think of him as having moved to NOLA as a child, and his family moved back to France when he was in college or otherwise old enough to be living on his own; or that he still has family in NOLA, and in modern day, people do speak English there. There’s definitely some Creole and a mixture among the natives now so he might have picked up some of that, but I would think he always went to schools where he had to speak English.
When I visited NOLA (I’ve been a few times now) I didn’t notice everyone there having a heavy southern accent. I would think that a bookworm like Louis might have even less, being kind of antisocial and learning his words from books and speaking mainly to his few close friends and family.
As in canon, his French accent should be noticeable but doesn’t mark him as completely a foreigner, just different emphasis on certain letters, a tendency to hit “th” a little like a “d,” for example.
Gaspard Ulliel’s voice is my headcanon for Louis’ accent, although it is a lower register than I think of Louis.
Yep, I pretty much echo what @i-want-my-iwtv says and my headcanon is more or less in tune with hers –
In the fic, Louis comes from a solidly French family from Brittany (I believe we may have stolen this location from @gairid).He moves with them to New Orleans (or its environs) when he is a child, and he learns English whilst there.
However, his accent is tempered by the following things:
a) His family are Francophone and speak French almost exclusively at home; b) Their relatives in Louisiana are Acadian, so there is that dialect of French and/or Franglais colouring his accent; c) The family is upper class
Of course, his English would have the Louisiana lilt to it, but all that above, too.
From my own experience, French people seem to be amongst the ones who most strongly cling to their accent when speaking English. I have worked with and have many friends from France (including from Brittany) who are fluent in English but have that ‘sharpness’ to the consonants that Daniel references in IWTV.
I also have found that every French person I know pronounces ‘idea’ as ‘idee’ (i.e. the French way) no matter how fluent they are. I pointed this out to my French boss once and was told that we pronounce it The Wrong Way because it is a French word. XD
I-want-my-IWTV 