Peter Firth

[JHyde]

Yeah, we had a discussion early on about his accent on this thread. There was an article I read about him prior to Spooks where he spoke about his accent and he reckoned it was part of adjusting to work in the US where he was for a few years. Apparently they had a lot of issues understanding Yorkshiremen!

It's also because he was one of the last generation of actors where having an accent wasn't OK and they had to acquire a London-ish one to get work. Now it's OK to have Northern accents: think Sarah Parrish, David Morrissey, Chris Eccleston, John Simm e.t.c. But thirty years ago Johnny Gielgiud's speaking voice, or at worst, Olivier's, was what you were meant to aspire to as an actor. For women, it was Ethel Barrymore.