Expert reveals why the British accent is perfect for movie villains

The British villain has long been a staple of the big screen, and now language experts claim to know why — the accent.

People who speak in the Queen’s English are considered to be more attractive, better educated — but less trustworthy.

Chi Luu, a leading linguist, said this is why actors from the UK who speak with Received Pronunciation make perfect bad guys.

Writing in online academic journal website Jstor, Luu wrote that the voice is seen as less sincere and friendly than other accents.

She said: “Speakers of the prestige Received Pronunciation (RP) accent (otherwise known as the Queen’s English or BBC English) are regularly evaluated by non-RP speakers as more educated, intelligent, competent, physically attractive, and generally of a higher socioeconomic class.

“At the same time, in terms of social attractiveness, those same posh RP speakers are consistently rated less trustworthy, kind, sincere, and friendly than speakers of non-RP accents. Sounds like a good start for a villain”.

There are many examples of British villains in Hollywood history, but the trend perhaps began with George Sanders, who voiced Shere Khan in the Jungle Book in 1967.

Others include Anthony Hopkins who played Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs.

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More recently, Tom Hiddleston has played supervillain Loki in the Marvel series, while Sir Ian McKellen was Magneto in X-Men and Ralph Fiennes was Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter series.

Luu, a linguist who has worked with companies including Microsoft, said that overall people “love” hearing British accents.

She added: “It turns out many of us believe, often without realising it, we can predict social and personal traits about a person, simply by the accent they use. We may be wrong, but we do it anyway.”

Miss Luu wrote: “Speakers of the standard form are considered the ones that ‘have no accent’ and any dialect that strays from from that is stigmatised in one way or another.

“Believing in this concept legitimises the institutional discrimination of those who don’t use or didn’t grow up with the standard language. The reality is of course that everyone has an accent.”