http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMRgv11fIjA One would expect that Scotsman Sean Connery would be perfect for a movie titled Highlander. That would be true if Connery were playing a Scot in the movie, but I guess that would have made too much sense. Instead, Connery's character is Juan Sánchez Villa-Lobos Ramírez, a Spaniard who happens to have Connery's Scottish accent. What more, Ramírez is part of an immortal race of warriors and was actually born in Ancient Egypt in 593 BC. Though the scenes with Ramírez are set in 1541 Scotland, that in no way explains why a 2000 year old Egyptian-Spaniard sounds like a native Scot. Since Connery's character is immortal anyway, one would think it would be easy to explain his accent as a side effect of his immortality. After all, once you give a character immortality it's not much of a leap to also give him magic accent-changing superpowers. But no mention is made of Connery's ill-suited accent in Highlander or its sequel, Highlander 2: The Quickening, even though the sequel adds another wrinkle to the mystery by giving the Immortals an extraterrestrial origin. To summarize it for everyone: in the Highlander universe, Alien + Egyptian + Spanish = Scottish.
Chris McKittrick is a published author of fiction and non-fiction and has spoken about film and comic books at conferences across the United States. In addition to his work at WhatCulture!, he is a regular contributor to CreativeScreenwriting.com, MovieBuzzers.com, and DailyActor.com, a website focused on acting in all media. For more information, visit his website at http://www.chrismckit.com.