Do people in North Carolina have southern accents?

I'm auditioning for Look Homeward, Angel from the book by Thomas Wolfe. It takes place in North Carolina in 1916. I need to know if people in North Carolina have southern accents. Or what kind of accents would they have?

Public Comments

1. Yes they do, and it sounds pretty bad too!
2. a North Carolina accent.
3. Watch some old "Andy Griffith" shows. They was from Mayberry, Nawth Carolina, they was.
4. For those who don't live here, there are about 86 different and distinctive varieties of southern accent and speech patterns, all regionalized. If you try to sound like Vivian Leigh's Scarlet O'Hara in "Gone With The Wind" you will be wrong, wrong, wrong. But for a play in some other part of the country, go ahead and have fun with whatever accent you can muster. The audience won't know the difference.
5. In 1916 North Carolinians had the epitome of southern accents (especially in T. Wolfe's mindset). Today, you're very likely to run across a more NJ or NY accent in Charlotte and Raleigh. If you move towards the mountains, you can vary from true south (Alabama or Mississippi) to Hollywood accents. You also still had a fair amount of immigrants from Scotland or Ireland in the early 1900s, so it would not be unusual to hear about the 'fookin anglish' (i.e. the English folk who raped and pilaged the islanders for a couple centruies).
6. That area of North Carolina has a strong accent. Think long "i" in words such and "nice" "price". Most of the words are pronounced lazily with little articulation.
7. yes they do and you can tell by accent
8. As a native North Carolinian, we all have Southern accents. In the earlier 20th century, it was a soft draw - not a hard hillbilly. :)