Explaining the Newfoundland Accent in Netflix’s ‘Below’

When Netflix released ‘Below‘ on October 8, all six episodes arrived at once, and viewers locked onto one thing almost immediately. The Newfoundland accent in ‘Below’ has been the talking point since the first teaser dropped. Gizmodo said Josh Hartnett’s accent was hard to focus past in the early footage.

The limited series follows Hartnett as a fisherman who battles his troubled past and a mysterious creature lurking in nearby waters. So why does everyone sound the way they do, and how did a cast of mostly non-locals pull it off? The answer comes down to place, preparation and a lot of help from people who actually live there.

Why the Newfoundland Accent in ‘Below’ Stands Out

The show is rooted in its setting, and it was shot in Newfoundland, where the story takes place. The production filmed entirely on location rather than leaning on green screens or sound stages. That commitment to authenticity means the voices had to match the landscape.

Hartnett plays Calvin Penney, a big hearted but stubborn fisherman haunted by his father’s mysterious death from decades ago. His gruff, thick accent sounds completely different from his usual voice. Some early reactions treated it as a distraction, but it is a deliberate choice that serves the character.

The dialect itself is not an easy one to fake. The accent in the series is specific and Irish inspired, and producer Jessica Rhoades described it as a notoriously difficult accent for the actors to nail in limited time.

How the Dialect Coach Shaped the Cast’s Sound

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Hartnett explained that he and Charlie Heaton worked with a dialect coach and had to choose which regional sounds would define the family’s speech. Newfoundland has a huge land mass with many communities that have lived in one place for generations. That meant picking one version of the accent and committing to it together.

Help came from several directions. The A.V. Club reported that the actors worked with local dialect coaches, including their co-star Allison Kelly. Many of the extras on set were also local artists, so the cast could lean on them throughout filming.

The payoff showed up before cameras rolled. Rhoades recalled that at a table read in St. John’s, you could see the accent work as everybody said their lines. For a show that depends on believable community, that moment mattered.

Josh Hartnett’s Accent Prep Went Beyond the Script

Hartnett did far more than rehearse lines with a coach. He listened to a long running CBC radio show called ‘The Broadcast’ almost every day to absorb the many regional dialects. It was a smart way to hear everyday speech instead of a polished imitation.

He also got to know local fishermen and learned how to tie fishing nets, according to Netflix Tudum. While filming in St. John’s he lived like a local, frequenting restaurants and trying not to hit a moose while driving. That kind of immersion tends to seep into a performance.

There was a learning curve about the place itself too. Hartnett said he had never read anything set in Newfoundland and did not realize it had a long history as its own country with its own dialect. Understanding that background helps explain why the accent feels so specific, and why locals care how it sounds.

Charlie Heaton and the Family Sound of ‘Below’

The accent work also built the father and son bond at the center of the story. Hartnett and Heaton had never crossed paths before being cast, and they met over Zoom to learn the accent together. Heaton said they wanted the family to sound like they came from the same place, and they were all getting it wrong together at first.

Not everyone struggled equally. Hartnett said Heaton nailed his accent from the start, while the rest of the cast were not quite ready. That is a funny twist for a ‘Stranger Things’ alum who is now sounding more Newfoundland than most of his scene partners.

Creator Jesse McKeown said the scripts were packed with local turns of phrase and jokes, and even if they did not land for a wider audience, they did for all the Newfoundlanders. That might be the real test of whether Hartnett and Heaton got the accent right in ‘Below’, so Newfoundlanders who have watched, did the family’s sound feel like home to you?