I have to say that this is the perfect section for me.

LOST is my favorite show, but the three or so episodes that have featured Danielle almost ruined the entire experience. In a nutshell, Mira couldn't do a French accent to save her life. How could the casting director have possibly seen her audition and thought that it was a realistic facsimile of a native French speaker? Her attempts at sounding French fall so short that I can't even otherwise fairly evaluate that character.

I know most of the posters on this site love all the characters and will argue a single bad word about any of them, but here's hoping that the Danielle character goes the way of Boone, pronto.

From what I understand, in the casting for the part, the audition specified that any european accent would do. She is not 'trying' to sound french at all but speaking english with her natural yugoslavian accent (she sounds the same on Babylon 5).

Then why do they keep calling her, "The French Woman"? And why was the distress call in French? Quite simply, if what you're saying is accurate, the audition didn't match the role.

Here is the casting call - I first found it here:
http://p073.ezboard.com/flosttheunofficalforumfortheabcseriesfrm41.showMes sageRange?topicID=155.topic&start=1&stop=20

DANIELLE ROUSSEAU - (FKA- FRENCH WOMAN) - Guest Star / FEMALE / 44 TO 56
mid 40's - mid 50's, lives on the island, very fit, strong of body and mind. Danielle is deep, soulful, and possibly dangerous..DOES NOT NECESSARILY NEED TO BE FRENCH, BUT MUST HAVE SOME KIND OF GENERAL EUROPEAN ACCENT...POSSIBLE ARC

The survivors of flight 815 call her "the French Woman" because the first time they found out about her, she was speaking French.

We know little about Danielle. We don't know where she was born or where she grew up or where she was educated. Her parents may have been French, but have emigrated to somewhere else in the world either before Danielle was born or when she was a child. There is more of her story to play out. I hope she's around as long as this series runs.

Accents are an interesting thing. A couple of summers ago I was in Zagreb, sitting the the bar in the Sheraton Hotel, listening to the wait staff talk amongst themselves. One of the waiters, was a good looking young gentleman, with a name on his badge that was clearly Croatian. As I listened to him speaking I kept thinking that there was something strange about his speech, although he was completely fluent in the language. It wasn't until he turned and spoke to me in English that I knew what it was.

He told me that his parents were originally from Zagreb, but that they had emigrated to Australia. He was born in Australia and spoke both English and Croatian with an Australian accent. He'd come "home" to Zagreb for a few years to see what it was like to live there.

Just to reenforce the above, Danielle herself has never said she's French - that's what the Lostaways came up with. For all we know, she's a Croat formerly married to a Frenchman, or even a French Canadian. I wouldn't sell the whole character out based on just her accent. Does she contribute to the allure of the show? I think so.

V/R
John

The transmission voice is without a doubt spoken by a real French woman.
There was no accent whatsoever.
It was perfect French.

I think Danielle is French.
Danielle Rousseau = French name.
She speaks French. I'm not sure the average American viewer can discern wether her French is fluent or not.
. She was cast because she's good not because of her French accent which is secondary. Jin's Korean accent is not that good either.

She writes in French.
Her ship left from Tahiti which is French territory and a strategic location for the French military and intelligence.
At least one of her crew mate was probably French (Montand).


The odds are, she's French from France.
Personally I hope she's French.

I don't know for sure whether Danielle is truly French or not, but when she was interrogating Sayid in Solitary, she asked "Where is Alex?" in English, French, Croatian, and Spanish (and possibly other languages, I'm not sure).*

The first thing the Lostaways knew of her was the transmission - which was in French.* They assumed she was French, and hearing her name, it sounds like she is.* But as has been said before, we don't know where she grew up, we know she speaks at least 3 or 4 languages, it's never been truly established that she is French.

If the producers wanted an actress with a French actress, I suppose that's what they should have asked for.* From the sound of the casting call, the talent was more important than the accent.

(edited to change the second "English" to "Spanish". Duh! :lol2: )
Suse

From the sound of the casting call, the talent was more important than the accent.


Well, I don't think she's exactly brimming with talent, either. Her character is overacted and not believable.

I do agree with the earlier poster on this thread who said that the voice on the recording was from a native French speaker, though... But just because the average American TV viewer can't tell the difference, ideally everything about the show would be realistic enough so that there would not be easily noticeable gaps and discrepancies. I'm willing to bet that there's a heck of a lot more people watching the show who can tell a real French accent from a fake one than those who can tell a real Korean accent from a bad one.

From the sound of the casting call, the talent was more important than the accent.


Well, exactly.

You don't get to work with the likes of Emir Kusturica, Rajko Grlic and Jirí Menzel unless you are an incredibly gifted actress.

I love the layers upon layers that she's brought to this character, and the subtlety she's brought to the role. A lesser actress could have gone so over the top with this, Mira set just the right tone. My heart broke for Danielle in that last scene.