David Tennant to perfect US accent via Skype

Star needs voice coach for American version of hit TV drama Broadchurch
23 December 2013
The Weekender

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He perfected an English accent for his role as Doctor Who but Scottish actor David Tennant has revealed he will undergo tuition with a voice coach via Skype to hone his American accent for the US version of murder mystery Broadchurch.

The 42-year-old star has been cast to play the lead in the Fox remake, which is to be called Gracepoint and will begin filming in British Columbia next month.

As he is currently committed to playing Richard II on the West End stage he is having to to take his lessons online.

He said: “I will be doing an American accent, yes. I will start working on it this afternoon and am getting help from a voice coach over Skype from America. That’s how they do it.”

Tennant will play a character who is virtually identical to the one he played in ITV’s hit show, where he played Detective Inspector Alec Hardy opposite Olivia Colman.

In the US version his name will change to Emmett Carver and his co-star will be Breaking Bad’s Anna Gunn, although the plot will be broadly the same.

Tennant is starring in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Richard II at the Barbican theatre.

He wears hair extensions for the role, but revealed that he has had to let a team from the theatre wash his new locks as he kept damaging them while cleaning them at home.

He told Absolute Radio’s Christian O’Connell: “I’m giving my Richard II at the moment [I’m wearing extensions because] it’s a very particular interpretation — they are right down my back.

“The maintenance is quite heavy. Because it’s extensions, you’re not allowed to give it a good old go cleaning them — you’ve got to massage them.

“Luckily there are people at the RSC who do it for me. I was making such a mess of it.”

Tennant was praised by critics for his performance, and it has proved to be one of the most in-demand West End productions of 2013.

Standard critic Fiona Mountford wrote: “With his flowing, almost Biblical robes and unflattering hair extensions, Tennant has the intriguing mien of a sexually ambiguous king out of time.

“He appears to have landed, as if in a Tardis, in the wrong era, a period which provides pragmatic, blokeish men such as Bolingbroke.”

The play runs until January 25.

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