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Oscar Isaac’s British accent in Moon Knight explained

It's the question that Marvel fans have been asking since the Moon Knight trailer dropped Why does Oscar Isaac use a British accent in the Disney Plus series?

Oscar Isaac in Moon Knight

Why does Oscar Isaac use a British accent in Moon Knight? When the first trailer for Moon Knight dropped, Marvel Studios didn’t quite get the reaction it was hoping for. While many MCU fans were happy to praise the Disney Plus series’ awesome action, Moon Knight’s costume, and the serious tone, something overshadowed the whole thing.

The vast amount of discourse online was to do with Oscar Isaac’s truly ghastly attempt at a London accent. Attempts to describe quite how bad the accent is won’t really do it justice, but just imagine someone trying to do an impression of every Eastender’s character at once and you’ll sort of get an idea of how rancid Isaac’s British accent is in the teaser.

But why? Isaac is a bloody terrific actor who can undoubtedly pull off at least a passable London accent, so what went wrong? Well, Issac promised fans that Moon Knight would give us a decent reason why he sounded like someone doing a bad Michael Caine impression, and he wasn’t lying. So here’s why Oscar Isaac uses a British accent in Moon Knight.

Why does Oscar Isaac have a British accent in Moon Knight?

In the comic books that inspired Moon Knight, the character is an American mercenary from Chicago, Illinois. So why then does Oscar Isaac sound like the bastard son of Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins?

Well, there’s a simple answer. The accent’s supposed to sound dreadful because it’s not actually Moon Knight’s ‘real’ voice. You see, in the comics and the TV series, Moon Knight, suffers from dissociative identity disorder – colloquially known as multiple personality syndrome.

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Steven Grant, the British museum shop worker we meet in the trailer, isn’t the ‘prime identity’; he’s an alter of the mercenary Marc Spector, who’s the ‘real’ owner of the body the pair share. So Marc has the American accent he was born with, while Steven, who believes himself to be born in the UK, uses a frankly appalling cockney accent.

If you like Moon Knight, check out our list of the best action movies.