Kelly Macdonald, voice of princess Merida, hails from Glasgow, as does Craig Ferguson, who is the voice of her father, Lord Macintosh. Then there's Kevin McKidd, a native of Elgin, Scotland, who provides the voices for both Lord MacGuffin and his son. Other voice actors with Scottish roots include Billy Connolly and Robbie Coltrane.
This attention to vocal details is a different approach. In the past, an American actor would try to imitate an accent.
"I think it's a sign of the times," says Ferguson. "I think the world is different than it was 20, 30 years ago, when regional accents were a very exotic and odd thing. With the Internet and YouTube and all the different communication systems that exist in the world, I think people's ears are much more attuned to authenticity in accents now.
"If you are going to make a film about Scotland, it's probably a pretty good idea to have Scottish people."
The search for the right person to voice the young Merida brought first-time voice actor Macdonald to the project.
The 36-year-old Emmy-nominated actress from "Boardwalk Empire" loved the project because it's the only way she would ever be able to play a teen in a movie.
"It's just the most fun I've ever had at work," Macdonald says.
The directors counted on the Scottish actors to make sure the dialogue sounded just right.
"We would say that we could say it that way, but it would be more natural, and a Scotch person would say it, more like this. It would be funnier if we said it this way," McKidd says. "They were very open to us changing things and giving them different options."
McKidd came to the project four years ago, cast only to be to voice of the young MacGuffin, but eventually became the voice of father and son.
His inspiration for the older MacGuffin was his father because "he's grumpy and old." To give the the younger MacGuffin a brogue so thick even other Scots couldn't understand him, McKidd turned to another relative.
"It took us a while with the young MacGuffin because no one could understand a word he says because his accent is so thick," McKidd says. "We started messing about with made up words and that didn't seem to work. So, I suggested this dialect from the area of Scotland I'm from - Doric - that my grandfather spoke. It's a very thick, almost Norwegian style dialect that's quite strange."
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