Mayfeld actor Bill Burr defends using a Boston accent on The Mandalorian. Burr’s Mayfeld first appeared in the season 1 episode “The Prisoner,” surprising fans who never thought of the well-known stand-up and occasional actor as Star Wars material.
Indeed Burr has admitted that despite starring on The Mandalorian, he is not a Star Wars fan. Nevertheless, Burr had enough fun strapping on his double blasters and helping Mando tear up the galaxy to return in season 2’s pivotal episode “The Believer,” which saw Mayfeld being sprung from prison to aid Din Djarin, Cara Dune and company in infiltrating an Imperial mining hub in order to gain access to a terminal and discover the whereabouts of Moff Gideon. Mayfeld ended that episode still alive and being allowed to walk away by New Republic Marshall Dune, opening the door for Burr to return in season 3.
While fans have largely embraced Burr’s portrayal of former Imperial sharpshooter Mayfeld, one aspect of his performance has come under scrutiny from some, namely his use of his natural Boston accent. Because he’s a comedian known for his rants, Burr has come back at critics with some very keen observations about the use of accents in the Star Wars universe. Appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Burr unleashed his rebuttal to folks who don’t buy a Boston accent appearing in Star Wars:
"'I've never heard a Boston accent in outer space' is what they say. And I always just go like, oh yeah, what about English? Isn't that a little weird if you went to a galaxy far far away and you get off and somebody's like 'Hey! How's it going?' and you can totally understand them. What about the fact that Han Solo's talking to a Bigfoot. He's speaking Bigfoot, Han Solo's speaking English. They never break character... And that was all fine?! How about C-3PO with an English accent? That was okay? The guy’s been knighted? Huh? He's just played Royal Albert Hall and now he's hanging out with what's that, I almost said Lynyrd Skynyrd. Luke Skywalker? Eff those nerdy, nitpicking nerds."
Burr of course has a point about the dubiousness of criticizing an actor’s accent in Star Wars, as the movie universe has always featured a variety of them, going all the way back to the first movie when Alec Guinness, Anthony Daniels and Peter Cushing all spoke with their English accents. It was quickly accepted by fans that human characters in the galaxy far far away mostly speak English with whatever accent happens to be natural to the actor playing the character. The only well-known instance of an actor altering his accent for Star Wars came when the English John Boyega adopted an American accent in order to play Finn, after he and J.J. Abrams decided his real accent just wasn’t working for the character. Daisy Ridley of course did not disguise her own English accent in playing Rey alongside Boyega.
Weirdly enough it seems fans have no problem accepting English accents in Star Wars, while some find it jarring to hear Burr speaking like someone from Boston. To American ears, the English accent perhaps denotes theatricality in general rather than being associated with England itself and is therefore more readily accepted in a variety of fictional universes (certainly fantasy films are filled with English actors who do not bother changing their accents), while the Boston accent seems very specific to a place and as a result takes some people out of the story. Whatever the case, Burr clearly does not care that people are bothered by his accent on The Mandalorian, and has some very good reasons why there should be no controversy over the matter.