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UK actors playing Americans

Yeah, but Dominic West's attempt at a Baltimore accent was distractingly bad, especially in the first season. He sounded like he was from Boston at best. Of course, this was probably only noticeable of you're from Baltimore...and then it was :scream:.

The beautiful thing about the series was that they never pinned down where McNulty was born and grew up. All we do know is that at some point, his father worked on the docks, and he went to college at Loyola College in Maryland for a year. So his non-Baltimore accent isn't quite as silly.

You're right that Elba was spot on, though.
 
i still have a hard time believing James Marsters and David Anders aren't English. their accents are so nailed on...

Marsters' English accent in his first few Buffy appearances was pretty lame. We have Anthony Stewart Head to thank for helping him improve it.

In point of fact, Marsters has indicated on a number of occasions that his Spike accent is actually based on Head's natural accent. His Received Pronunciation accent as Giles is as fake as Marsters's.

Juliet Landau's Cockney accent in Buffy was also fake, and I don't think she ever quite got it right.

Of course, Landau has the excuse of Drusilla being insane....

* * *

Personally, I find it amusing that of the casts of the two most recent Batman films, six are is English (Christian Bale [Batman], Michael Caine [Alfred], Gary Oldman [Commissioner Gordon], Tom Wilkinson [Carmine Falcone], Colin McFarlane [Commissioner Loeb], Linus Roache [Thomas Wayne]), two are Irish (Liam Neeson [Ra's al Ghul], Cillian Murphy [Scarecrow]), one is Australian (Heath Ledger [The Joker]), and only four are American (Katie Holmes [Rachel Dawson], Morgan Freeman [Lucius Fox], Aaron Eckhart [Harvey Dent/Two-Face], and Maggie Gyllenhaal [Rachel Dawson]) -- even though, of those characters, only Alfred and Ra's are non-Americans.

Of the three biggest behind-the-scenes guys, Christopher and Jonathan Nolan are both English/American, and one is American. And all this for folks working on one of the most quintessentially American icons.

Though that applies in the comics worlds, too. Two of the most memorable tales about Batman and Superman -- Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? and Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, respectively -- were written by the Englishmen Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore.
 
Juliet Landau's Cockney accent in Buffy was also fake, and I don't think she ever quite got it right.

Of course, Landau has the excuse of Drusilla being insane....
I never understood what Drusilla's accent was supposed to be, but I loved it anyway! It just made her that much more bizarre.
 
On Fringe:

Anna Torv is Australian
John Noble is Australian
Joshua Jackson is Canadian

Except Canadians don't have an accent (unless you happen to live on the east coast), so typically they don't have to change the way they speak. :D

Going the opposite way, American David Anders played the British baddie Sark on Alias -- I was flabbergasted when I found out he wasn't really British.

I'll also agree with TerriO that Claire Danes did a fine English accent in Stardust. One of my favorite movies in recent years.
 
On Fringe:

Anna Torv is Australian
John Noble is Australian
Joshua Jackson is Canadian

Except Canadians don't have an accent (unless you happen to live on the east coast), so typically they don't have to change the way they speak. :D
Yeah, but it makes it more symmetrical if I include him. His voice isn't necessarily different, but he's not American either. Which means none of the main actors are actually Americans even though all their characters are.
 
It's not just UK actors. Two of the leads of CBS's Without a Trace, Anthony LaPaglia and Poppy Montgomery, are Australian (and a third, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, is British). Portia de Rossi, who's played American characters in various shows, is also Australian. Alias's Michael Vartan is French.

Not to mention all the Canadian-born actors who've played American TV leads -- William Shatner being one of the more notable examples.

Don't forget Linus Roache on Law & Order - and played Thomas Wayne in Batman Begins.

Beat me to it! I was astounded that Mr. Roache was English. Thought he was born and bred in NYC till I looked him up on IMDB! His accent is excellent.
 
In point of fact, Marsters has indicated on a number of occasions that his Spike accent is actually based on Head's natural accent. His Received Pronunciation accent as Giles is as fake as Marsters's.


So what is Anthony Head's real accent then? He sounded like Giles when he was in Doctor Who (both in School Reunion and the Confidentials).
 
In point of fact, Marsters has indicated on a number of occasions that his Spike accent is actually based on Head's natural accent. His Received Pronunciation accent as Giles is as fake as Marsters's.

So what is Anthony Head's real accent then? He sounded like Giles when he was in Doctor Who (both in School Reunion and the Confidentials).

His real accent is the same as Spike's, a working-class London accent. His character in "School Reunion" wasn't working-class, so he used a Received accent. As for using that accent in interviews, it's probably the same reason lots of Americans with Southern accents suppress them when speaking in public: because a more "standard" or formal accent is considered more respectable.
 
I think what surprised me about The Wire was that the actors weren't that famous, really.
Why should that be surprising? Every year, there's a huge new crop of shows. Some are headlined by famous names but there are always a ton of nobodies in key roles. I've never noticed any indication that HBO gives a flip about casting big names. That's more prevalent on the networks. In fact, I find it frustrating when fairly well known actors that I happen to like a lot - Ben Browder, Peter Coyote, Dean Stockwell - don't show up on my TV radar anymore.

I doubt more than five percent of the viewing public knows or cares anything about the pedigree of actors, or that it factors into anyone's casting decisions. Too much is riding on other attributes of actors - their talent, their looks and most importantly, that ineffable ability to get people to keep tuning in. Sometimes producers don't even care if their American accent can pass muster, that's how little it matters compared with that Q factor thing.
 
i still have a hard time believing James Marsters and David Anders aren't English.
Marsters is from my high school. He's been acting since he was a kid, seems like anyone that is acting for a long time is able to change accents easier. You have to do a lot of listening as an actor so there's a lot of things like that, that are easier to pick up. Plus they all have people that teach them accent.
 
i still have a hard time believing James Marsters and David Anders aren't English. their accents are so nailed on...

Marsters' English accent in his first few Buffy appearances was pretty lame. We have Anthony Stewart Head to thank for helping him improve it.

In point of fact, Marsters has indicated on a number of occasions that his Spike accent is actually based on Head's natural accent. His Received Pronunciation accent as Giles is as fake as Marsters's.

Juliet Landau's Cockney accent in Buffy was also fake, and I don't think she ever quite got it right.

Of course, Landau has the excuse of Drusilla being insane....

* * *

Personally, I find it amusing that of the casts of the two most recent Batman films, six are is English (Christian Bale [Batman], Michael Caine [Alfred], Gary Oldman [Commissioner Gordon], Tom Wilkinson [Carmine Falcone], Colin McFarlane [Commissioner Loeb], Linus Roache [Thomas Wayne]), two are Irish (Liam Neeson [Ra's al Ghul], Cillian Murphy [Scarecrow]), one is Australian (Heath Ledger [The Joker]), and only four are American (Katie Holmes [Rachel Dawson], Morgan Freeman [Lucius Fox], Aaron Eckhart [Harvey Dent/Two-Face], and Maggie Gyllenhaal [Rachel Dawson]) -- even though, of those characters, only Alfred and Ra's are non-Americans.

Of the three biggest behind-the-scenes guys, Christopher and Jonathan Nolan are both English/American, and one is American. And all this for folks working on one of the most quintessentially American icons.

Small point, but Bale is actually Welsh. And you could have added a third Irishman in the shape of Gerard Murphy, who played the corrupt judge in Batman Begins. Not to mention the Dutch Rutger Hauer, who was also in BB.
 
Marsters' English accent in his first few Buffy appearances was pretty lame. We have Anthony Stewart Head to thank for helping him improve it.

In point of fact, Marsters has indicated on a number of occasions that his Spike accent is actually based on Head's natural accent. His Received Pronunciation accent as Giles is as fake as Marsters's.

Juliet Landau's Cockney accent in Buffy was also fake, and I don't think she ever quite got it right.

Of course, Landau has the excuse of Drusilla being insane....

* * *

Personally, I find it amusing that of the casts of the two most recent Batman films, six are is English (Christian Bale [Batman], Michael Caine [Alfred], Gary Oldman [Commissioner Gordon], Tom Wilkinson [Carmine Falcone], Colin McFarlane [Commissioner Loeb], Linus Roache [Thomas Wayne]), two are Irish (Liam Neeson [Ra's al Ghul], Cillian Murphy [Scarecrow]), one is Australian (Heath Ledger [The Joker]), and only four are American (Katie Holmes [Rachel Dawson], Morgan Freeman [Lucius Fox], Aaron Eckhart [Harvey Dent/Two-Face], and Maggie Gyllenhaal [Rachel Dawson]) -- even though, of those characters, only Alfred and Ra's are non-Americans.

Of the three biggest behind-the-scenes guys, Christopher and Jonathan Nolan are both English/American, and one is American. And all this for folks working on one of the most quintessentially American icons.

Small point, but Bale is actually Welsh.

No, he's English. He was born in Wales, but he's English, not Welsh.

And you could have added a third Irishman in the shape of Gerard Murphy, who played the corrupt judge in Batman Begins. Not to mention the Dutch Rutger Hauer, who was also in BB.

Fair enough!
 
I was suprised to hear the guy who plays Bill on True Blood speaking with a English accent when interviewed.
And then there's Anna Paquin (Sookie), who was born in Canada and raised in New Zealand. I haven't been able to get the True Blood DVDs yet; has her Southern accent improved at all since the X-Men trilogy (where it was pretty atrocious)?
 
I was suprised to hear the guy who plays Bill on True Blood speaking with a English accent when interviewed.
And then there's Anna Paquin (Sookie), who was born in Canada and raised in New Zealand. I haven't been able to get the True Blood DVDs yet; has her Southern accent improved at all since the X-Men trilogy (where it was pretty atrocious)?
I watched an episode and her accent didn't sound bad at all. Of course, I'm not southern..
 
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