DialectWatch: Did John Adams Really Sound Like Paul Giamatti?

By Keenan Mayo and Julian Sancton

There’s a general rule about period films: if a character wears a powdered wig, he’s got a British accent. But that becomes a problem if the character in question is declaring independence from Britain. The founding fathers’ not-quite-British, not-quite-American dialects in HBO’s masterful miniseries John Adams exemplify the fastidious attention to historical detail that makes a show about 18th century geopolitics so captivating. From London, dialect coach Catherine Charlton–whose recent projects also include A Mighty Heart, The New World, and Alexander–gives us a lesson in Hollywood linguistics.

VF Daily: How do we know what people sounded like in the 18th century? The accents in John Adams are so distinctive.




There were certain things that were quite clearly American. Webster was writing his dictionary at this time and they really hated the way the British would say things like “secretary [Ed. Pronounced “SEC-reh-tree],” “cemetery,” as so on. And children were actually taught how to tap out syllables. Ce-me-ta-ry, mil-i-tar-y. It was a very complex thing for the actors to try and assume an accent that is developing. I figured that I would give them enough background information and then have them listen to particular British dialects with a preponderance of certain sounds—for example, in the Boston area the Pilgrim’s ancestors were mainly from non-rhotic parts of Britain, when you don’t pronounce the letter “r.” So we could make a distinction between the Northern territories and the Southern territories. Virginia was mainly colonized by west-country people. Not like we expect audiences to notice. When you’re doing accents it’s like an interesting bit of set decoration. I want the actors to feel free with what they’ve learned and I don’t want them to feel dependent on me.


I had them listen very clearly to the intonation patterns and the rhythms and just listen to the British dialect like a piece of music. This is the basis for accent work. And then we would say, “Let’s try dropping an ‘r’ in here. Let’s give a hint of what people would recognize as an American quality because this is drama and not phonetic analysis at a university program. We’re talking about painting the picture. So the actors were unbelievably courageous. I think this was for all of them the most difficult thing they have ever done. The poor things will come to me and I will say, “these are your bass notes. And we’ll add orchestration on the top of it. And whatever you do within certain parameters will be right. You find your sound, like everybody during that time was finding their sound.”

I’m from one of the original 13 colonies. Can you place which one?

I don’t do those games! The thing is… I don’t profess to be a Professor Higgins. I have a great facility for understanding accents, repeating accents, and bringing actors to do them. When people normally ask me questions like that, I’m not so polite. I say, “I’m not the dancing dog. I’m the dog trainer.”

What can we name the accents that are in John Adams?

It’s different because you’ve got the Virginia ones and the Philadelphia one… I would say “American in the making.” Is that a nice sound byte for you?