Billy Butcher’s accent on The Boys has been confusing viewers. But what accent does he have on the show and why is it causing so much controversy?
READ MORE: ‘The Boys’ season four review: sweary supes battle electoral dysfunction
Amazon Prime Video’s The Boys returned for its fourth season this month. The superhero series, adapted from the comic books written by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson and developed for the screen by Eric Kripke, follows the titular team of vigilantes as they combat superpowered enemies who abuse their powers.
The show’s Billy Butcher, played by Karl Urban, is a sweary Cockney on the show. Urban is a native New Zealander so his accent has caused some confusion for those who know the actor’s normal speaking accent.
In the UK, some viewers have spotted twangs of Butcher’s original accent – and even think some other parts of the UK have made it into his accent. While in the US, viewers have struggled to make out where Butcher is meant to be from.
One thing is for certain: the accent has divided viewers.
Also Billy Butcher’s accent pisses me off so much. IS HE AUSTRALIAN OR ENGLISH?
— little sun (@nd0uri) November 10, 2023
my supervisor told me billy butcher from the boys is meant to be british yea fuckin right that’s the most auzzie accent iv ever heard
— priya (@themoneycalls) July 2, 2024
Billy butcher’s accent in “The boys”
That’s Scottish yeah?
— They hate Vicky (@vicki_rankingg) July 1, 2024
Karl Urban talking about his role as Billy Butcher in the series The Boys
How did you arrive at Billy Butcher’s cockney accent? “…you have a British character, played by a New Zealand actor, written by American writers and in the first season I had a Canadian dialect coach.
— I’m All Write (@imallwritecom) June 29, 2024
Various people have recommended watching The Boys, so I’m giving it a go.
Billy Butcher’s cockney might be the worst attempt at an accent I’ve ever heard. Is he in it a lot? This might be a deal-breaker pic.twitter.com/sVGAPUJxSv
— 𝔻𝕒𝕟𝕚𝕖𝕝 𝔹𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕤 (@denialvibes) June 19, 2024
What accent does Butcher have in The Boys?
The actor uses a Cockney accent on the show – you can listen to him talking here:
How did he develop the accent?
After some mixed reactions to his dialect, Urban revealed he had some help in developing the accent from an old friend from his time on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings in dialect coach Andrew Jack. The pair first worked together on The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
In an interview with Hypebeast, Urban opened up about working with Jack on developing the accent.
He explained: “It’s kind of the perfect storm because you have a British character, played by a New Zealand actor, written by American writers and in the first season I had a Canadian dialect coach.
“At the end of the first season I identified that there [were] certain elements of authenticity that could be improved, so I brought in Andrew Jack, who was one of the foremost, world-class dialogue coaches.
“I had first worked with him 20 years ago on Lord of the Rings. He came in and we significantly improved the specificity of the dialect and he was able to contribute more colloquialisms to give that character more authenticity and I was super excited about where we were going to go, but really tragically he was one of the first victims of the pandemic, he was working on The Batman and he passed.”
Karl Urban as Billy Butcher in ‘The Boys’. CREDIT: Jasper Savage/Prime Video
The show debuted back in 2019, with a second season arriving a year later and the third hitting streaming in 2022. The fourth season was confirmed that same year, and Prime Video recently confirmed that there will also be a fifth season.
Back in May, the trailer for season four was released, in which the group’s leader Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) reveals that he’s running out of time to live due to a weakened heart as he rallies the gang for an assault on Homelander (Anthony Starr) and the supes community.
In a four-star review of the new season, NME wrote: “With season five already confirmed, the return of a few familiar faces and a lot of characters confronting their pasts, this season sometimes feels like the set up for an eventual endgame scenario. Fans will note that spin-off show Gen V recently introduced a potentially supe-killing biological weapon. Luckily, all that plot never slows down the pace in what is another urgent edition of TV’s best superhero show.”
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