Vincent's Mysterious "Moriarty Accent" Explained!

Like others, I found Vincent’s accent in “Sherlock: Case of Evil” confusing. I mean, here’s our boy, a dedicated character actor, hard worker, and passionate artist, and every time he opens his mouth, it makes me wonder how someone could be surrounded by so many British actors and not learn how to speak like them. Since I love Vincent in the movie, regardless of his unusual accent, I explained away his odd pronunciations as his being human: “Well, I’ve seen him do southern accents, Scottish accents . . . so maybe British just isn’t his thing, right?” But in the back of my mind, something always felt off. Even when other people do poor British accents, they still pronounce “a” as “ah”, and Vincent wasn’t even really doing that. I figured there had to be a better explanation.

I finally got it this past week. I played “Sherlock” for a friend of mine, giving him forewarning about Vincent’s weird accent ahead of time. When the movie was over, my friend turned to me and said, “I recognize his voice now. It’s James Mason.” So I hopped onto Youtube and found a clip of James Mason in Stanley Kubrick’s “Lolita.” Within the first ten seconds of hearing Mason talk, I started shaking my head in amazement. Not only did Mason speak with the same accent, he also used the same speech patterns. The little pauses, the way Vincent said “unfortunately” . . . I heard it all echoed in Mason’s voice. And here’s a bit of interesting trivia: according to the Internet Movie Database, James Mason played Dr. Watson in a 1979 Sherlock Holmes movie called “Murder by Decree.”

Unfortunately, I have been unable to find any articles confirming that Vincent intended to imitate James Mason in “Sherlock”, but I believe it’s too much of a coincidence for it to be anything other than a conscious decision on Vincent’s part. So, as far as I’m concerned, the mysterious case of Vincent’s “Moriarty Accent” has been solved!

Moriarty = Mason!