How the Starks got their accent on 'Game of Thrones'

Ned Stark may have only survived one season on Game of Thrones but he left a lasting impression on his family — and not just a sense of honor and leadership skills.

In an interview on Build Series, Sean Bean revealed that his character Ned Stark did more than just help set off the series of harrowing events that unfold on episode after episode of Game of Thrones; he actually gave the North its signature accent.

When the crew was working on the pilot episode of Game of Thrones, characters' accents weren't really established yet. Bean revealed that once the team behind the scenes heard him reading his lines, they decided to model the voices of the North after Bean's own accent.

"We were doing the read-through and the producers and the writers said, 'Why don't you just keep your own accent?'" Bean said.

That worked for him.

"But then everybody else had to do the same accent [as] me from the Stark family, so you got Cockneys all talking like that," he said, leaning into the accent and laughing. "So I established the way we speak."

The legacy of Bean's accent is unmistakable in Game of Thrones and feels like an essential part of the Stark family. It's hard to imagine Jon or Arya speaking in any other accent. In fact accents are a pretty big part of Game of Thrones as a whole (check out our comprehensive guide on it).

Outside of his voice, though, Bean acknowledges Ned is still an anchor of the show and lives on in some ways despite being killed off early on.

"He made quite an impact, you know, he was an anchor to a lot of people," he said. "He's often mentioned and it's his legacy that lives on. It's a great thing."