Richard Madden revealed he spoke in an American accent for two years straight for his new action role in Citadel.
The Scots actor, who has starred in Game of Thrones and Marvel movie Eternals, is sharing the screen with Priyanka Chopra, Stanley Tucci, and Ashleigh Cummings for his new show. Richard, 36, has denied going full method actor for his character Mason Kane but reckons he wanted to ensure his natural west of Scotland tone didn't come through for audiences.
He told Tribune: “I’m not a method actor in any way but I stayed in the accent for the duration — so sadly for my friends and family had to listen to me put on a silly voice evenings and weekends for a couple of years.”
While he kept up the accent for years even around his closest friends and family, Richard did admit to letting it slip at times. He added: “So I stay in the American accent, you know, apart from the occasional Friday night martini with Stanley Tucci, in which case my Scottish accent comes out, but the rest of the time I keep training that accent.
"I don’t want anything taking away from the audience believing who the character is so I just worked hard to make sure the sounds were as spot on as they could be.”
Citadel follows a global spy agency which has fallen, with the memory of its agents erased. Citadel agents - led by Madden - have to battle to get their memories and strength back to fight off the new Manticore criminal force filling the power vacuum.
For the action-packed drama, the Elderslie-born actor was left with lots of aches and pains after doing his own stunts on set of the Amazon Prime production.
"I’ve got a lot of dull aches,” he told Variety.
“I’m not as young as I used to be. There’s a lot of stretching that goes on now.”
“I wanted to do all of the stunts because we’re trying to make the action and the drama intertwined,” Madden added. “I can’t just be like, ‘I’m gonna sit in my trailer and let the stunt man do it.’
"They want my face in there because Priyanka and I needed to connect together, and we get to tell a bit of the story in the middle of an action sequence. We don’t want to miss out on that.”
Citadel begins streaming April 28 on Prime Video.
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