Cara Delevingne has explained why the fairy she plays in Carnival Row has an Irish accent, saying “it just made more sense”.
The British model and actress stars in the new Amazon drama set in a Victorian fantasy world filled with mythological creatures whose lands were invaded by humans and are now refugees from their war-torn homes.
Delevingne stars opposite Orlando Bloom as Vignette Stonemoss, a fairy who washes up on the shores of the human city and is put to work as a maid.
Discussing the decision to play her with an Irish accent, she told the PA news agency: “She wasn’t actually (written that way). The first audition I did I asked to do it in both Irish and English even though it wasn’t asked for in Irish, I just always saw it that way. Always.
“I don’t know what reference it was. I learned about fairies; the word fae is Gaelic and I was always pretty sure the mythical thing of fairies was made in Ireland.”
She added: “It just made no sense to me that different creatures would be from similar places.
“Also Irish, in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful (accents) and the way they speak and the lyrical way of their words, it just made more sense for the kind of romantic creatures that fairies are, so that just felt extremely important to me.”
Asked if that added extra pressure to the role, she said: “I actually went to Dublin and walked around for a day, not just for this reason, but I was like ‘Now I’m here I am going to see if I can actually get away with this’.
“Luckily my name is Cara, which is also Gaelic, so I walked around and spoke to people in this accent and everyone was like ‘Oh, you’re from Dublin?’
“I didn’t know anywhere, I had never been there before, but it worked well enough.
“Who knows if everyone was drinking Guinness or not? We will see. It was a risk.”
Carnival Row is released on Amazon Prime Video on August 30.
