Marvel's Don Cheadle has thrown his support behind an Ocean's 11 fan theory.
The actor played munitions expert Basher Tarr opposite Matt Damon's pickpocket Linus Caldwell, Brad Pitt's mapper of heists and George Clooney's master thief Danny Ocean, but stood out like a sore thumb for an unfortunate and questionable cockney accent.
21 years since Cheadle's Basher uttered his first "Alright guv'nor!", the actor recently spoke to The Guardian about the role.
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Asked if director Steven Soderbergh didn't want him to perform the accent – as rumours have claimed over the years – he said: "No. Steven said: 'You don't have to do it.' I said: 'Well, that's how you wrote him. I'll try it.'"
Getting him out of jail somewhat (no pun intended), a theory circulating online suggests that this horrific slang was merely part of his character's cover.
"Now I can say 'he was an American doing a British accent – you guys missed that?'" joked Cheadle.
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Meanwhile, another portrayal he's widely recognised for is that of War Machine in the MCU.
Originally in the hands of Terrence Howard, Cheadle replaced him for Iron Man 2 and has since reprised the superhero across nine projects (including next year's Secret Invasion).
"I was at my daughter's birthday party, and they called me and said, 'It's going down, Terrence isn't coming back and we're giving you the offer. But we need to decide quick because we don't want this to get out,'" he recalled in 2019.
Offered an eight-film deal on the spot, Cheadle remembered thinking: "'That's, like, 10 years. That could be 12 years that we're talking about'.
"They said, 'Well we need a decision in an hour'. And they were like 'Hey, you just gotta take a leap of faith'.
"I said, 'Well, I'm at my daughter’s birthday party'. They said, 'Oh, take two hours'. So it was a decision that had to be made pretty quickly!"
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Dan is a freelance entertainment journalist. Beginning his writing career in 2014, Dan's work first graced the pages of cult publications Starburst magazine and Little White Lies before moving onto Total Film, Digital Spy, NME and Yahoo Entertainment.
In the film and TV universe, he kneels at the altar of Jim Carrey, Daniel Plainview, Mike Ehrmantraut and Paulie Walnuts.
