McKeown: My wife, who’s from Newfoundland, has three different accents. She has her generic North American accent. She has her townie, big-city St. John’s accent. And then she has her Bay accent. When she gets out into the rural-enough area, it gets even more pronounced. We really use that with the kids as modulating how long they’ve been on the mainland and how much they turn it up when they come home.
I’ll just say Josh was incredible. Before he even came, he started listening to Newfoundland radio, the call-in shows and talk radio, which are like hugely popular in Newfoundland. There’s this show called “The Fisheries Broadcast,” which is the longest-running radio show in Canadian history. People just call in and talk about the fishery, and so he just immersed himself in that. He already had it in his head before he set foot on the island.
Rhoades: We’re also happy that we knew, making it for Netflix, I watch my kids and my parents watch with subtitles on. We knew a majority of the audience might be watching that way anyway, and that gave us the ability to be really true to the accent.
McKeown: I love shows like “The Wire” where I may not understand every little thing, but I know it means something to the character and then I’ll find out what it means. I like to give the audience something to dig into.