It’s Dun-o-van not Dawn-o-Van

Actor Liev Schreiber recently had an interview with the Boston Globe, promoting his new whiskey, Sláinte.  During the discussion, his famous role as Ray Donovan was brought up, in particular his Southie accent, which he learned from his friend from Dorchester. See below from the Globe interview:

What do you remember about attending Hampshire College in Massachusetts?

“That’s where I learned my Southie accent, which I screwed up.”

How did you screw it up?

“I had it pretty good because one of my pals who I played basketball with was from Dorchester, so I learned it from him. And I could do a great impression of him and it was so much fun to talk like him. But I realized I made one really critical error in the first season [of ‘Ray Donovan’] — I do the dialect pretty well, but I messed up the name. If you’re from Southie it wouldn’t be ‘Dawn-o-van’ because that ‘o’ sound, ‘Dawn-o-van,’ if you’re from Southie you’d say ‘hawkey’ (for hockey) but you wouldn’t say ‘Dawn-o-van.’ If you’re Irish Southie you would say ‘Dun-o-van.’ So after we finished the first season of the show — and people were saying it was a hit ― I remember this one guy from South Boston wrote me on my social media account and he was like, ‘it’s ‘Dun-o-van’ [expletive].’” But we couldn’t actually go back, because at that point we had already been saying ‘Dawn-o-van’ for a year.”

Just a kid from Southie

The series Ray Donovan ran for seven seasons and tells the story of Southie native Ray Donovan (Schreiber). He does the “dirty work” for LA’s top power players in the one-hour Showtime series. Ray’s the behind-the-scenes guy who makes problems “disappear.” And if that isn’t hard enough, the drama unfolds when his father, Mickey (Jon Voight), is released from prison, disrupting life for the Donovan family. You know, a tale as old as time.

A few years ago, Schreiber and Voight were in the neighborhood filming the Ray Donovan movie and we hear they were nothing but nice.  You can check out the photos here from the K Street Firehouse.

Sláinte- Whiskey for a cause

Sláinte, cofounded by Schreiber and entrepreneur Richard Davies, supports humanitarian efforts in Ukraine with every bottle sold!

The brand debuted with two types of whiskey: Smooth Blend, which retails at $38, and a limited edition 18-Year-Old single malt, being sold at $500 a bottle. A portion of the proceeds from the former—and 100% of the proceeds from the latter—will be donated to Schreiber’s charity, Blue Check Ukraine.

For those of you who don’t know, Sláinte means good health in Irish/Gaelic.