Moon Knight, the Disney Plus series focusing on Marvel’s white-clad answer to DC’s Batman, tells the story of Marc Spector, Steven Grant, and Moon Knight himself—three separate people living in one body. As a warrior priest of an Egyptian god, Khonshu, Moon Knight fights villains, but his alters, Marc and Steven, each have very different personalities. One of the most noticeable things about Moon Knight’s trailer is that Steven and Marc, both played by Oscar Isaac, have different accents. Steven is a mild-mannered British man working in a museum gift shop, while Marc is a hardened American ex-mercenary.
And the first thing that everyone noticed about Steven’s accent in the Moon Knight trailer is that it sounds…kind of fake. It’s not unbelievably bad, like your friend who pretends to be British but sounds like Eliza Doolittle waking up from anesthesia. But it’s just off. You’d think that someone like Oscar Isaac, who attended Juilliard and has years of acting experience under his belt, could get it a little closer to the mark. So, what’s the deal with the accents? And how can Marc and Steven hail from two different countries when they live in the same body? Let’s find out!
Dissociative Identity Disorder in the MCU
First, it’s important to understand why exactly Steven and Marc inhabit the same body in the first place. According to Marvel, Steven is “a mild-mannered gift-shop employee, who becomes plagued with blackouts and memories of another life. Steven discovers he has dissociative identity disorder and shares a body with mercenary Marc Spector.”
What is dissociative identity disorder, or DID? Medical professionals describe it as a form of dissociation, in which the psyche responds to some form of trauma—physical danger, abuse, etc.—by separating into different identities, called alters, in order to cope with the psychological stress of the traumatic experience. It’s also important to note that many people with DID consider their experience to be a normal form of neurodivergence, rather than a problem or illness that needs to be fixed.
In the comics, Moon Knight has five alters. There’s Marc, the first alter, who grows up in Chicago as the son of a rabbi. As a child, Marc is traumatized when a family friend turns out to be an escaped Nazi, and that trauma triggers the first expression of Marc’s DID. Later, when Marc is in Sudan on an assignment as a mercenary, he’s badly injured and left to die at the feet of a statue of Khonshu. Khonshu brings him back to life, creating the alter Moon Knight in the process.
Steven, in the comics, is very different from his MCU counterpart. The comics version of Steven is a rich playboy (remember, the character was created to compete with Batman comics) who finances Moon Knight’s work as a vigilante. Significantly, in the comics, there’s no evidence that Steven speaks with a British accent, or considers himself British.
There’s also Moon Knight, Mr. Knight, and Jake Lockley. Moon Knight is, of course, the masked vigilante that Steven and Marc turn into in order to fight crime. Mr. Knight is Moon Knight is more of a consultant role, interfacing with police and civilians who need Moon Knight’s help. Jake Lockley, the final alter in the comics, doesn’t look like he’ll be making an appearance in the MCU at all, but it’s too soon to tell for sure.
Let’s set those last three alters aside for now, though, so we can focus on Steven, Marc, and the problem of their two different accents.
So, is that bad British accent intentional? Or a mistake?
It turns out that the bad accent is most definitely intentional. In an interview with Empire, featured in the April 2022 issue, Isaac said that the accent is “weird on purpose,” explaining that “that voice is about where Steven’s from, where he’s living now, and some of his believed heritage.” Isaac acknowledged that the accent sounded fake, but stressed that it’s not a reflection of what he thinks Brits actually sound like. Rather, Isaac seems to be exploring what Steven would sound like if he formed as an alter after living in the U.S. for his entire life (but sincerely believed himself to be British). It’s an accent that an American might adopt based on what he thinks a British accent sounds like.
What’s especially interesting is that Steven’s character wasn’t originally written as a (believed) Brit. In an interview with Radio Times, Isaac says that the character was originally radically different, perhaps closer to the millionaire from the comics. Isaac originally waffled on whether or not to take on the role at all, since he had just finished his work in the Star Wars universe and was looking to do more character studies rather than jump into another multi-movie franchise. The idea suddenly came to him, though, to play Steven as someone who only believes he’s British, and that new angle seemed to open up more possibilities to dive into the character’s psychology. “Suddenly, Steven Grant started appearing for me,” he says, “and I was like, ‘Alright, well, maybe there’s something here.’”
When Isaac took the idea to Kevin Feige and Moon Knight‘s director Mohamed Diab, they both gave him the creative freedom to go for it. However, Isaac acknowledges that doing the accent was definitely taking a risk. “[Feige] told me they didn’t know what the hell I was doing,” he explains in the Radio Times interview. “And they weren’t sure it was going to work at all. But you know, in the end, I’m glad we did that, because everyone says it kind of makes the show.” Diab also stresses in the Radio Times article that Isaac, as a trained and experienced actor, knows what he’s doing.
Of course, the accent raises the question of how Steven’s imagined heritage will affect the show. Steven lives and works in England. How will his British neighbors and coworkers react to his accent? How will Steven react when he finds out that he’s “really” American?
What do you think of Steven’s accent? Do you like the Disney Plus series’s new take on Steven, or do you miss the American playboy from the comics? Sound off in the comments!
Via Empire, image: Marvel
