LORD of the Rings star Billy Boyd has called out the “stereotypical” treatment of Scottish accents in the film industry, saying jokes about not understanding it are “overdone”.
Boyd has claimed that he will refuse any script which employs the trope where the accent is incomprehensible, something he says that always pops up in the roles he is sent.
The Scottish actor, who played Peregrin “Pippin” Took in Peter Jackson’s Lord of The Rings trilogy, told of how the tired gag annoys him and that it is “not realistic”.
The Glaswegian actor, who now lives in the US, told the My Time Capsule podcast: “I hate people saying they can’t understand what I’m saying … As a Scottish actor, every script I get that’s got a Scottish character in it, there’s always the gag that somebody can’t understand them. Always.
“Anything I do now, if that gag’s in it, I say I won’t do it. The gag is overdone and not realistic. It’s just like, stop being stereotypical, you know? Just because someone has a different accent.
“So for the writers who write that gag, I apologise when I lose my mind in the writing room. It’s just that I’ve read it so many times.”
And just last year the Uncharted film, starring Tom Holland, was mocked on Twitter for joking that the accent was incomprehensible, with a threat from a Scottish hard man going over the protagonist's head.
The scene even prompted a response from Glaswegian comedian Limmy on social media, who gave a response in his trademark tongue-in-cheek style.
The Uncharted film was not the first, and probably not the last, to mistreat the Scottish accent. From Harrison ford in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to Cate Blanchett in How to Train Your Dragon 2, there are plenty of examples to wind us up.
