Josh Hartnett tuned into local radio to find his Below accent

Josh Hartnett tries to teach Jimmy Fallon a Newfoundland accent in the clip below, and Fallon needs a little steering away from Ireland. It’s a funny introduction to the voice Hartnett uses in Netflix’s Below, especially when you find out where some of his own practice came from: local radio, with fishermen talking about their day.

Josh Hartnett and Jimmy Fallon try a Newfoundland warm-up on The Tonight Show, 28 September 2026. The accent exchange starts at 1:50.

Watch the original interview on YouTube from 1:50.

Fallon’s first attempt earns a gentle “A little bit too Irish” from Hartnett. They’re using I’s the B’y as a warm-up, and the exchange soon turns into a pitch for a Newfoundland buddy-cop comedy. It’s quite a detour from a one-line warm-up.

The place name gets some attention in the comments, too. @bjornpittman2428 writes, “Hearing an American properly pronounce Newfoundland heals my heart.”

So, what’s going on in Below?

Hartnett plays Calvin Penney, a Newfoundland fisherman trying to keep his family safe as a sea creature threatens his hometown. The six-part thriller also stars Charlie Heaton as his son Wade and Mackenzie Davis as a visiting marine researcher. Netflix has all six episodes available now.

That family is where the accent story gets interesting. You can give each actor a convincing voice and still end up with a household that sounds as though everyone grew up somewhere different.

The radio did some of the work

In his Men’s Health interview, Hartnett describes listening to The Broadcast and hearing different local voices discussing everyday concerns. He also spent time listening to people in Newfoundland and worked with a dialect coach.

There’s plenty for an actor to take from that approach. When someone is absorbed in telling a story, you get to follow a whole thought. You can listen for where they pause, how they hold your attention and which words get extra weight. All of that gives you something to work with beyond the handful of sounds you first notice.

A radio conversation can also be gloriously ordinary. Someone has a problem to explain and wants the other person to understand it. For an actor trying to make dialogue feel lived in, that’s useful material.

Josh Hartnett at TIFF for Below, 10 September 2026. Photo: Josh Popov / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Getting the family in the same room

Hartnett told Netflix Tudum that the actors worked together with the dialect coach because they wanted to sound like members of the same family.

That’s the detail we’d keep in mind when watching Below. Listen to a conversation between Calvin and his children. Do their voices feel connected? Where do their individual personalities come through? You don’t have to be able to name every vowel to be curious about the relationship you’re hearing.

And there’s a regional story behind those voices. Newfoundland English has influences from southwestern England and southeastern Ireland, alongside its own local development. That helps explain why a listener might hear something familiar, while the place still deserves to be heard on its own terms.

If this has you reaching for an accent to practise, try following one real speaker through a short story. Repeat a complete thought, then try a sentence of your own with the same rhythm. See what happens when the words change.

If you’d like to keep practising, explore Accentify and choose the accent you want to work on next.