Black Mass: Benedict Cumberbatch’s Boston accent is dividing opinion

It's not 'Jahn' it's 'Jawwhn'

Benedict Cumberbatch can seemingly do no wrong lately - from his performance in the Oscar-nominated The Imitation Game to his well-received Hamlet on the stage - but he might have finally tripped up in new gangster movie, Black Mass.

The film sees him take on the admittedly very challenging South Boston (“Bawwwssten”) accent, in the role of William ‘Billy’ Bulger, who became President of the Massachusetts State Senate while his brother and the film’s protagonist Whitey (Johnny Depp) established himself as a fearsome gangster.

His efforts were described as ‘haunting’ and ‘cringe-worthy’, though in fairness I imagine part of the reaction was down to people hearing him speak with any accent other than the ‘posh English’ one they are used to.

Many defended his accent however.

Cumberbatch did get the nod of approval from a Boston native and linguistics expert, professor John McCarthy.

“The thing nobody is aware of, but is crucial, is the vowel in words like John or Dog or God. In eastern Mass, those words all have the vowel ‘aww,’” he told Yahoo!.

““The thing I was listening for in Cumberbatch [in Black Mass] was what kind of vowel he put in the word John, and that sounded right to me. That’s a mistake a lot of actors can make. They end up saying ‘Jahn.’ They’re not well coached, necessarily, on that business of ‘aww’ versus ‘ahh.’”

Black Mass is in cinemas in the US now, and opens in the UK on 27 November.