Why didn't they just make Picard British when they cast Patrick?

[ED-209]

Question in the title, just seems an obvious one when you employ a guy with a really strong British accent. Could've called him "John Luke Pickard" or something along those lines. Why keep him French?

 

[Mojochi]

Question in the title, just seems an obvious one when you employ a guy with a really strong British accent. Could've called him "John Luke Pickard" or something along those lines. Why keep him French?

Not to put too blunt a point on it, but more than likely because back in the 80s the general American television audience probably wouldn't have even known the difference, & therefore it was of no real concern for them. The character was written as French, with a French name & backstory, & without a dire need to do so, you want to avoid massively rewriting them.

Point being, Stewart's Received Pronunciation just sounded like "Fancy" English, which probably worked much better for the show anyhow, as a noticeable French accent would've been much less welcomed. Stewart even tried the part with a French accent & it wasn't favored

You have to realize... Cockney, Scouse etc... This is what the average American thought all British people sounded like back then. We didn't have an internet fueled global culture like now, where all gazillion British dialects are more well known lol. So they just figured it would fly under the radar, & it mostly did for those 1st few years. It's only now, in hindsight that we know it's kind of ridiculous

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Because Roddenberry was determined to have a Frenchman in the role and bitterly opposed Robert Justman's —who found Stewart— (and later Rick Berman's) choice of Patrick Stewart for the part, but according to Justman they kept whittling away and then started using reverse psychology on him until he relented. According to Stewart they tried a French accent for a little while but it wasn't very good, so they just had him use his normal accent. I suppose the French backstory was kept to appease Roddenberry, maybe?

Although it was ultimately Gene Roddenberry’s decision to cast Patrick Stewart, it was actually TOS and early TNG producer Robert Justman who brought Stewart to the attention of Roddenberry and Paramount. Justman recalled the story in an interview with the BBC:

My wife and I were taking a course at UCLA on humour. In the arts. Tonight’s lecture was to be a reading by two people – one was Patrick Stewart.

He came out with the lady and they were – proceeded to do some Shakespeare. And he read his first line and I went crazy. I turned to my wife I said I think I’ve found our new captain.

We met at Gene Roddenberry’s house, Patrick pulled up in his rental car and we spent about 45 minutes together, talking. We watched Patrick drive away in his rental car to go to the airport and Gene closed the door, turned around, faced me and said, and I quote, ‘I won’t have him.’

He wouldn’t have him and he wouldn’t tell me why. But I know why. I knew why. I knew that he had conceived of a Frenchman. And, you know, who was masculine, virile, and had a lot of hair. And Patrick didn’t fit that at all. Patrick was not so handsome, he was distinctive, and he was quite bald. Quite bald.

I was hot to trot. I was very, very enthused about Patrick playing the role. And I kept after Gene and Gene kept fighting me off until one day we had a new producer come on the scene, and that was Rick [Berman]. Rick saw Patrick’s film and fell in love with him. As did our casting director. So the three of us were allied in the fight to get Patrick as the captain. And Gene was allied in his own fight not to have him at all. So finally I realised that the more I pushed, the more he dug his heels in.

I made an announcement, one day, in a meeting when the subject was brought up and I said I don’t want to hear the name Patrick Stewart ever again. It’s over with Patrick Stewart, forget him. I did that on purpose to make Gene think that I’d given up.

And every time anyone mentioned Patrick Stewart’s name to me, I would explode and say ‘I don’t want to hear that. Don’t tell me Patrick Stewart any more’. Finally our last possible candidate came to audition for us. And the guy, whoever he was, read for us and talked with us and he left the room, the door closed and we were all silent. There was not a sound to be heard. And finally Gene Roddenberry heaved a big sigh. He said ‘All right, I’ll go with Patrick’

https://trekmovie.com/2010/08/13/patrick-stewart-on-his-lunatic-casting-as-picard/

 

[USS Firefly]

Doesn't Picard have a French accent??
I always thought that French people talk like that.

 

[Orphalesion]

I never saw anything wrong with the way British Patrick Stewart portrayed French Picard. It's not impossible to get rid of an accent or to adopt a new one, so Picard might have just learned English that way as a young man/kid.
Also I don't believe that an actor needs to have a matching accent to portray a character from a specific country and 0icard being French helped at least somewhat to battle Star Trek's anglocentrism.

The only thing that bothers me is that nobody can pronounce Jean-Luc Picard correctly. You'd think that in a show where they regularly have to memorize the pronunciation of alien names/species/planets/phrases you'd be able to get the actors to pronounce a French name in the French way (the German dub managed it!) it's not that hard.

Also... Why do people complain about Picard lacking a French accent, but Beverly lacking a Scottish one is okay?

 

[Mojochi]

Because Roddenberry was determined to have a Frenchman in the role and bitterly opposed Robert Justman's —who found Stewart— (and later Rick Berman's) choice of Patrick Stewart for the part, but according to Justman they kept whittling away and then started using reverse psychology on him until he relented. According to Stewart they tried a French accent for a little while but it wasn't very good, so they just had him use his normal accent. I suppose the French backstory was kept to appease Roddenberry, maybe?

https://trekmovie.com/2010/08/13/patrick-stewart-on-his-lunatic-casting-as-picard/

Which I never understood anyhow. It's not like anyone would've been comfortable with the lead having some thick French accent. So even if they'd gotten whatever Gene wanted, (Gerard Depardieu or wtf ever?) their voice would've had to be somewhat normalized for American audiences regardless... & he'd have mostly just been French in name anyhow. Which is kind of what we got

Stewart's British is as normalized as British ever got imho. That was the whole point of RP wasn't it? I mean the dude's actually from Yorkshire. I doubt even the mild Jean Reno's speech would've been as fitting

Also... Why do people complain about Picard lacking a French accent, but Beverly lacking a Scottish one is okay?

Because Beverly was born & raised on Earth's moon, with roots coming through North America, despite Scottish lineage?

 

[Orphalesion]

Because Beverly was born & raised on Earth's moon, with roots coming through North America, despite Scottish lineage?

She was born there, but wasn't she raised by her grandmama on that 19th century hellhole world where even the alien mayor had a thick, Scottish accent?

 

[Mojochi]

She was born there, but wasn't she raised by her grandmama on that 19th century hellhole world where even the alien mayor had a thick, Scottish accent?

I mean, I guess maybe? I get the impression from Bev that her whole persona is finely crafted. These people don't even know she use to be the dancing doctor. This lady is someone who reinvents herself lol

 

[Locutus of Bored]

She was born there, but wasn't she raised by her grandmama on that 19th century hellhole world where even the alien mayor had a thick, Scottish accent?

Beverly definitely had some Scottish space ghost in her.

 

[Orphalesion]

I mean, I guess maybe? I get the impression from Bev that her whole persona is finely crafted. These people don't even know she use to be the dancing doctor. This lady is someone who reinvents herself lol

But couldn't the same be true with Picard? That he purposefully learned to speak English without a French accent?

 

[Therin of Andor]

Question in the title, just seems an obvious one when you employ a guy with a really strong British accent.

My twin cousins are now 61 and they spent their early 20s in London on working visas. They both returned to Australia with thick English accents. One has managed to maintain her English accent to this day and the other quickly reverted to Aussie.

Could've called him "John Luke Pickard" or something along those lines.

Originally "Julian Picard" when casting began.

 

[Orphalesion]

And as Mojochi already said, who would want a main character with a thick accent?

And thankfully Picard didn't end up being defined by his nationality, like Chekov (with his horrible, made up accent) and "Scotty" were.

 

[danellis]

I never saw anything wrong with the way British Patrick Stewart portrayed French Picard. It's not impossible to get rid of an accent or to adopt a new one, so Picard might have just learned English that way as a young man/kid.
Also I don't believe that an actor needs to have a matching accent to portray a character from a specific country and 0icard being French helped at least somewhat to battle Star Trek's anglocentrism.

...

Also... Why do people complain about Picard lacking a French accent, but Beverly lacking a Scottish one is okay?

Ordinarily I'd agree with you, except that Captain Picard is one of the most stereotypically British character ever created: the tea, the Shakespeare, and yes, the Received Pronunciation, heck, you'd even put him down for the perfect stiff-upper-lip.


Crusher's Scottish?

dJE

 

[Orphalesion]

Ordinarily I'd agree with you, except that Captain Picard is one of the most stereotypically British character ever created: the tea, the Shakespeare, and yes, the Received Pronunciation, heck, you'd even put him down for the perfect stiff-upper-lip.

I understand that a lot of Picard's mannerism are stereotypical English, but, see, I commend that as a non-stereotyical depiction of a French person.

I've been to France regularly and I can attest that tea of all kinds is a very common beverage there, they even have luxury tea sellers. And least in the south of the country traditional tea houses, called "Salon de The" are common place (though they also sell food and ice cream) And from my experience, his tendency to drink his Black Tea without milk is more French than British (of course, that's more a result of convenience during filming, since they use, I think, soda to substitute the tea)
And...why wouldn't a French person enjoy Shakespeare? They often read it in English class. I'm originally a German/Austrian mix and my favourite author is Terry Pratchett, I hate sausage, I mostly cook Indian or Japanese and I freaking hate "traditional" German/Austrian music.

What would you want from Picard to make him "authentic"? Should he snack on cheese platters in his office and quote Victor Hugo all the time?

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

What would you want from Picard to make him "authentic"? Should he snack on cheese platters in his office and quote Victor Hugo all the time?

For him to use his fake French undercover accent from the PIC episode where they visit space Reno. Additionally, any time he says "engage" there should be a baguette in his hand as he points to the viewscreen. The baguette would be gone when the footage cuts to him sitting down. And then when the Borg arrive, he surrenders!

 

[Vger23]

For him to use his fake French undercover accent from the PIC episode where they visit space Reno. Additionally, any time he says "engage" there should be a baguette in his hand as he points to the viewscreen. The baguette would be gone when the footage cuts to him sitting down. And then when the Borg arrive, he surrenders!

in all fairness, he did surrender in the first 20 minutes of the pilot episode

 

[Orphalesion]

For him to use his fake French undercover accent from the PIC episode where they visit space Reno. Additionally, any time he says "engage" there should be a baguette in his hand as he points to the viewscreen. The baguette would be gone when the footage cuts to him sitting down. And then when the Borg arrive, he surrenders!

And each time they meet the Romulans he should go "Les Romuliens?!" and then spit on the floor in disgust.

Edit: Also I just remembered, the one time we see Maman Picard she enjoyed tea, so it's possible he picked up the habit from her.

 

[Takeru]

I understand that a lot of Picard's mannerism are stereotypical English, but, see, I commend that as a non-stereotyical depiction of a French person.

It's like the old saying "If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck it's a non-stereotypical depiction of a chicken"

 

[Orphalesion]

It's like the old saying "If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck it's a non-stereotypical depiction of a chicken"

Ahahaha, that's so funny I forgot to laugh.

But really, what's wrong with a guy from France liking Earl Grey and Shakespeare?

 

[Kor]

Picard speaking English with an English accent is just fine, for various reasons.
But obviously French isn't spoken natively anymore by Picard's generation, because on the very few occasions when he actually speaks the French language, he also does so with a noticeable English accent!
And then there was Data's description of French as "an obscure language," which bothered Picard.

Kor