The Great Wall: Matt Damon Just Made Up His Character's Accent

02/18/2017 04:10 pm EST

When the Great Wall was announced with Matt Damon portraying the lead character, many expressed criticism of Hollywood 'whitewashing.' But now that the movie is out and the plot has been revealed, the casting of Zhang Yimou's latest film is explained within the context of the story.

Whether that justifies it or not, your mileage may vary—but one thing is for sure regarding Damon's character in the film: his accent is weird. And now we know why.

While speaking with Yahoo! about his character in the film, Damon revealed that he and his dialect coach Tim Monich simply made up the accent. Straight up, no joke. They made it up.

"We kind of thought, theoretically, it couldn't be modern English," Damon began saying. "It had to be understandable. And then he [Monich] went and made rules for it… so we kind of cobbled it together."

Well. It's certainly an interesting approach. When you're taking this many liberties in making a historical monster film set in China starring Damon and Willem Dafoe, why stop at the accuracy of the accents?

The Great Wall from Legendary Pictures is in theaters now. Despite a successful opening in China, the film ($5.9 million) failed to beat out last week's films as the LEGO Batman Movie ($7.5 million) and Fifty Shades Darker ($6.8 million). Check out our own review below.

MORE GREAT WALL: ·The Great Wall: Last Survivor Comic Review
·The Great Wall Movie Review
·Matt Damon's Latest Opens Big In China
·Fan Trailer Friday: Batman The Great Wall Trailer Mashup

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