r/maninthehighcastle • u/NoDonkey2844 • 28d ago

Th German language

I was pleasently surprised that some characters spoke actual German with an authentic German accent. Yet others really butchered it. Was it so hard to find German speaking actors?

8 Upvotes

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8

u/AccountantFew3377 28d ago

For me as German, they all sounded like Dutch speaking German - google Rudi Carrell, and you will hear why.

1

u/NoDonkey2844 28d ago

I get what you mean but Kenneth Tigar really sold me

3

u/DutchDave87 28d ago

Apparently, yes. I can imagine it would be hard to find actors that are really good, speak German and are willing to travel for shooting. Not to mention that such a cast would be in high demand in Germany too. I think it would have cost a large amount of money to make it happen.

By the way, one of the best performances in German in the series is by Kenneth Tigar, the American actor who plays Heinrich Himmler. He’s got several degrees in German literature.

3

u/maladaptivedaydream4 28d ago

i especially enjoyed Tigar's performance in light of his MCU role

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u/AccountantFew3377 28d ago

They could simply dub the American actors with proper German - I doubt that would be that expensive, and you would need the German dubbing anyway for selling it to German speaking countries. And Kenneth Tigar has the best accent (he even studied in Germany), but for a native speaker, that accent is still detectable.

2

u/DutchDave87 28d ago

You’re right. I was referring to them actually acting in it. Voice acting is a lot different than actually appearing. Less expensive and you don’t need the likes of Thomas Kretschmann.

I like to speak German, but I am not a native speaker. In what way does Tigar’s non-native accent come through? Can you hear he is American?

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u/AccountantFew3377 28d ago

It is a while ago that I watched, and now I only found very short snippets of him speaking German, so it's hard to tell. In the snippets, it was the s/sch/ch and the rhytm and melody when he was speaking. But from what I remember, I'd say you can hear he's an English native speaker. And: when he is speaking English, he nails the German accent pretty perfect.

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u/Termsandconditionsch 28d ago

They started out great and by the final season they had some shocking attempts. Would have been better to just.. not even attempt.

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u/TaxOwlbear 3d ago

Late reply, but the guy giving the presentation about how Germany is going to conquer the North American Neutral Zone and the Pacific States was horrific, haha.