Juno Temple Struggled to Switch Between Her ‘Ted Lasso’ and ‘Fargo’ Accents
Emmy-nominated actress Juno Temple was born in the Hammersmith area of London, England, but spent three years performing with a heavy Essex accent for her role as Keeley Jones on Ted Lasso.
With the county of Essex not too far from London, the accent wasn’t much of a stretch for Temple, but that wasn’t the case for her latest role in the recently released fifth season of Fargo. Temple plays Dorothy “Dot” Lyon, a character with a distinct Minnesota accent, on the hit FX series, which she was working on at the same time as Ted Lasso.
Speaking to Business Insider about juggling two separate accents at the same time, Temple said it initially caused some confusion as she tried to get a grip on the different voices.
“I remember when I first started doing dialect sessions, I was still doing Season 3 of Ted Lasso, so I was speaking Essex while also being Juno in real life,” she explained. “And then there’s Juno’s inside voice. And then Dot was coming to life.”
Temple also admitted that it took her a “minute” to get a hang of the Minnesota accent. “My brothers came over to see me, and I tried out the Minnesota accent on them, and they both just looked at me and were like, ‘How long is it before you start this?’” she shared. “And I was like, ‘Oh, no.’ So, it took me a minute.”
Fargo is known for its strong Midwestern dialects, with fellow British actor Martin Freeman similarly having to learn a Minnesota accent for the show’s first season. After getting used to the accent, Temple said she enjoyed immersing herself in the world of the show, which even helped her learn some new vocab.
“It’s kind of funny sounding, oh yeah,” she stated. “The new words as well. Commode — did not know what that was. Or a vestibule. I was like, ‘What is that?’ This was all new.”
The fifth season of Fargo is set in the fall of 2019 and centers on Temple’s Dot, a seemingly typical Midwestern housewife living in Scandia, Minnesota, whose mysterious past comes back to haunt her after she gets herself into hot water with the authorities.
Fargo, Season 5, Tuesdays, 10/9c, FX
