Matt Damon and Ben Affleck explained the reason behind the accents in director Ridley Scott's The Last Duel.

In a press conference attended by CBR, the two stars explained how they developed the accents for the historical drama. "So, we had to kind of create. We, [dialect coach Tim Monich], really, built this way of talking that we just ran by all of the actors," Damon said. "And we kind of adopted that. 'Cause it needed to sound otherly [PH]. It couldn't sound modern. Uh, it, we-we wanted them, th-the accents to kind of disappear."

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Affleck, who plays Count Pierre d'Alençon, went on to address that, in period films, actors tend to use British accents to convey the historical nature of a film. This wouldn't work, however, since The Last Duel takes place in France. Affleck added that, in making the movie, they had to "try and find a way of speaking that didn't sound contemporary, didn't sound specific to another part of the world, contemporarily." He continued, "Because sometimes people just go, like, 'It's a period movie. They're all British. British people sound older.'"

"But we couldn't do British," added Damon, who plays Jean de Carrouges. "We were playing French people who were in the middle of the Hundred Year War against the Brits. And it wouldn't have looked very good. So, Ridley kept the bones of the duel. The duel did happen, three joust passes, they came off their horses, they went to axes, swords, then daggers. That all is true. But Rob Inch, our stunt coordinator, really invented this beautiful choreography with Ridley. And they figured out how to shoot it."

While the reason for the characters' accents in The Last Duel is partly historical -- they clearly couldn't use British -- the film itself is meant to use the gaps in history to challenge the institution surrounding it, particularly who writes history and who appears in history books as a result. "Because the men of the time... took very fastidious notes about what they were all up to, but they didn't record what the women were doing," Damon said.

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The film itself explored the systemic abuse of women, commenting on their treatment in the present day through a fourteenth-century lens. With a screenplay written by Nicole Holofcener, The Last Duel is adapted from a novel of the same name by Eric Jager. Set in the fourteenth century, it tells the story of one of the last judicial duels to take place in France. The real-life duel was fought in 1386 between Norman knight Jean de Carrouges dueled squire Jacques Le Gris, portrayed by Adam Driver. Carrouges had accused Gris of sexually assaulting his wife, Marguerite de Carrouges, played by Jodie Comer in the film. The actual duel has been the subject of debate among academics and legal historians, but the duel has been well-documented.

Originally scheduled to open in December 2020, The Last Duel was delayed due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon, Jodie Comer, Adam Driver, and Ben Affleck, The Last Duel finally arrived in theaters on Oct. 15.

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Source: CBR