Just curious. I’m digging on that show and wondering where his accent comes from. It’s a great accent.
Isn’t it Jason Lee, the old skateboarder? I assume he’s just an Orange County boy faking generic white rural, no?
Yeah, Jason Lee most definitely doesn’t have a southern accent. Nor does the guy who plays his brother (they’re both in Mallrats if you don’t believe me).
I’m not really sure exactly where his accent is supposed to be from, though. Despite living in the south for 15 years (accumulative), I still can’t pick out the regional nuances.
Jason Lee’s adorable, and he and his brother do a good job on the accents, but I think the real star is Joy, his ex-wife. That accent is hysterical.
Yup.
The show seems to be set in Maryland. Mild southern accents are not uncommon there
Mild southern is probably the best term for it…I’m guess Jason was going for a redneck accent rather than any one regional accent and it came out slightly southern. One might also call it a Cops accent, as he sorta sounds like any number of white shirtless criminals you see on that show no matter where they are filming at the time.
It’s not only completely synthetic, it’s also wildly inconsistent: e.g., sometimes the North Carolina long I, sometimes the Texas long I, sometimes the Tennesse long I. It’s just canned Hollywood Southern.
Does Randy really have a “Southern” accent? He just sounds incredibly stupid. The two are not the same! 
That’s how she sounds IRL. loller.
They sound like any number of Indiana hicks, i.e. not from the South, but still have an inexplicable twang.
Indygrrl is right. That’s how Jaime Pressly really sounds. She’s from Kinston, NC.
Jason Lee doesn’t sound to me like he’s put on any kind of authentic accent for the part.
I don’t watch the show, but I once saw an inteview with Jaime Pressly, and the accent on the show was actually a extreme exaggeration of what she sounds like in real life. People who sound like the character Joy generally still remember when they first got electricity.
Of the main cast; Lee is from Southern California, Suplee is from Manhattan, Pressly is from North Carolina, Velazquez is from Chicago, and Steeples is from Texas. It’s no wonder the accents on the show sound “mixed”.
Only Joy has a strong accent. The rest all just sound a “little bit rural.”
Steeples is from suburban Houston, so he probably didn’t have too much of a natural accent. In the South, it seems people who live in metropolitan areas have a more neutral accent (unless we are mad, drunk, or attempting charm). But you drive out past the suburbs a few miles and you are getting Joy’s family.
Cool thing about Steeples is that he is a year ahead of me and I know my school competed against his in Forensics. Since he went straight from high school to the St. Louis Repertory, it isn’t a stretch to think I may have competed against him.
I’ll bet he beat me.
In the last episode that aired (damn Olympics), Earl gets a postcard from Alex the hot professor. The address gives no state or zipcode, just Camden USA. Personally, I think it’s next to Springfield.
In the pilot episode, Joy was able to get Earl drunk and then drive him to Las Vegas to get married before he sobered up the next morning. So Maryland or the Deep South doesn’t seem likely.