Non-American actors playing American roles

[CynBeth]

The actor who plays Dr. Hunt on Grey’s Anayomy is Scottish or Irish can’t remember which and Freddie Highmore of The Good Doctor is British I believe and he does a great job sounding American and Autistic.

 

[Christine]

If anyone watches Animal Kingdom, all but one of the sons of "Smurf" are British actors using American accents. I was surprised when I heard that.

 

[LuvOrlando]

So I adore Billions and I really like Damian Lewis back from watching Homeland but, for the love of Pete, his version of a native NYer street kid is horrible to the point I find myself heckling from home, I knew them and was one. First, he does not get mad like street kid NYer, his anger is always cold seething and that's not quite it. There may be an ongoing simmer but there is deep passion there, like you can cut it with a knife and if it's on simmer you can tell it's always near boiling over, there is no mistaking it. Also the accent, I mostly let it go because I like him but sometimes it is all I hear and I wonder who noone says do a retake, the other NYers in the cast make up for it though.

There are millions of NYers so if you want the accent, go find a natural one. Same probably goes for most cities.

I just did a rewatch to catch up so it's fresh aggravation

 

[bcla]

Well - in the Marvel Cinematic Universe there's a ton of this, but in many ways it's optional because characters aren't necessarily from Earth. Look at the characters of Thor, and it's all sorts of different backgrounds. Anthony Hopkins sounds English (and yeah I know he's Welsh), Rene Russo is trying to achieve some hybrid. Chris Hemsworth is trying to sound English. Idris Elba sounds like Idris Elba. In later movies they brought in actors from New Zealand and they sound like they're from New Zealand.

I guess the standard bearer was Cary Grant. However, that's how he talked in real life.

A lot of times someone who lives in the US will recognize the tiny differences. American accents are often more nasally, but some actors will exaggerate it. Benedict Cumberbatch does pull off a decent Dr. Strange, but I can hear the slightly excessive nasal tone. That's what I mean by trying too hard.

There have been some weird cases too, such as Mel Gibson, who was born and grew up in upstate New York, moved to Australia at age 12 I believe, and who learned acting in Australia. His accent kind of morphed. It still sounds a bit forced, but that's his accent now.

 

[bcla]

Can't leave out Hugh Laurie as House.

He sounds like an Englishman trying really hard to sound American.

I agree that Bob Hoskins was pretty good. I had no idea he was English.

Another really good one was Yvonne Strahovski. Didn't see that much of her work, but her accent on 24 was so convincing that I had no idea until I looked it up. I found this interview following The Tomorrow War where she starts off sounding American but then it just starts to revert back to her native Australian at least a little bit.

 

[Allison]

I had watched Alex O'Loughlin (Steve McGarrett) for years on Hawaii Five-0 before I knew he was Australian.

The same goes for Jesse Spencer (Matt Casey) on Chicago Fire.

 

[lisaviolet]

I'll throw out Canadians off the bat since their accents can be almost indistinguishable.

Off topic but -

Enunciation is our function! Well unless we are from Newfoundland. Or speaking Patois....

Important is a word that I can immediately decipher between our diction, no matter
regional domestic accents of either country.

The actor who plays Dr. Hunt on Grey’s Anayomy is Scottish or Irish can’t remember which....

Yes!

Scottish accents are something when you have no clue that they are not American, due to their roles.

Kevin McKidd (Grey's Dr. Hunt) and Matthew Rhys (Brothers and Sisters/The Americans) make one fall off your chair when you have no clue.

 

[starvenger]

I'll throw out Canadians off the bat since their accents can be almost indistinguishable from a neutral American accent. But I've been watching quite a few TV shows where actors come from other places and have to work on an American accent.

Boo. I was going to nominate John "JD" Roberts for playing an American news anchor.

Anyway, there's quite a few non-American/Canadian people in the Arrowverse that have done American accents:
Paul Blackthorne (Quentin Lance)
John Barrowman (Malcolm Merlyn)
Rick Cosnett (Edward Thawne)
Keiynan Lonsdale (Wally West)
David Harewood (J'onn J'onzz)
Katie McGrath (Lena Luthor) - I should mention that Katie's accent is not great. At times she noticeably breaks into an Irish lilt.
Franz Drameh (Jax Jackson)
Maisie Richardson-Sellers (Amaya Jiwe)
Olivia Swann (Astra)
Casper Crump (Vandal Savage)
Wallis Day (Kate Kane 2)
Dougray Scott (Jacob Kane)

Honourable mention to Katee Sackhoff for her ridiculous British accent as Amunet Black

 

[Welsh_Dragon]

I think it is very difficult for UK actors, who play Americans, to mask an accent from an U.K. audience. I can always pick up a Welsh lilt when listening to a Welsh actor playing an American, even in incredibly talented actors like Anthony Hopkins.

 

[Moliphino]

Scottish accents are something when you have no clue that they are not American, due to their roles.

Kevin McKidd (Grey's Dr. Hunt) and Matthew Rhys (Brothers and Sisters/The Americans) make one fall off your chair when you have no clue.

I'm used to hearing Kevin McKidd with a generic British accent from watching Rome.

 

[Kennywood]

To flip this around, I think the worst American playing a British character was Kevin Costner in "Robin Hood". He didn't even try to use a British accent. He's still lampooned about it.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Gracepoint. It was as bad as Broadchurch was good. They decided to get super cute with the ending.

Lol, Gracepoint, Gracedale, same dif.

 

[loves to dive]

British actors have been doing southern forever, do they do it well? No but then again, some actual southern actors do horrible fake southern accents (Julia Roberts in Steel Magnolia's, seriously? She's from Atlanta for goodness sake, couldn't she remember how to do a real southern accent). Some Scots can do southern pretty well but that might be because a lot of mountain folk have a tinge of Scots in their accents (you would have sworn my Grand daddy was Scots at times and he was born and bred in the north Georgia mountains).

 

[starvenger]

To flip this around, I think the worst American playing a British character was Kevin Costner in "Robin Hood". He didn't even try to use a British accent. He's still lampooned about it.

IIRC he tried but could not do a convincing accent. So it was likely less that he couldn't be arsed and more that he didn't want the bad accent to be a major distraction from Alan Rickman doing Alan Rickman things.

 

[bcla]

Lashana Lynch was pretty good in Captain Marvel.

But the again she had to put on a different accent as 007.

In terms of accents, some manage to pull it off even if they don't understand the language and have to do it phonetically. An Italian friend told me that Tony Shaloub in Big night pulled off his accent perfectly, even though he had to learn his lines phonetically. I heard on the set some of the other actors tried speaking Italian to him and he had to sheepishly tell them that he didn't understand. Same for the Korean-American actor who played Ando on Heroes. George Takei is fluent and tried speaking it to him.

 

[Mysterian]

I think the one that shocked everyone was Bob Hoskins in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". His character spoke with a New York accent. It was really surprising when you heard him doing interviews using his British Cockney accent.

I've noticed this with Gary Oldman and others- Brits seem to handle a New York/New England accent easier. Actually most of Oldman's US accents are like this, except for roles like Zorg in The 5th Element of course.

 

[Mysterian]

Ewan McGregor typically struggles with American accents, though with a Southern accent in Big Fish he could hide his Scottish accent better. In Tales from The Crypt to Black Hawk Down, to Birds of Prey, he just sounds Scottish-American.

Liam Neeson, the same only Irish. He never quite sounds convincingly American.
I agree with BCLA, Idris Elba's Brixton accent does show some times. There's another actor in The Wire who does the same, I forget his name.

I recently saw Miss Peregrine's, and I completely did not recognize that the English blonde love interest in the movie was the convincingly American daughter of Dave Bautista's character in Army of The Dead. And I was surprised that the father in that movie was an Irish actor from The IT Crowd, he does such a perfect American accent. Same goes for Asa Butterfield but I already knew he was a Brit.

As for Non-American characters, Sean Connery makes any accent sound Scottish, be it Russian, Spanish, you name it.

 

[Mysterian]

I almost forgot- Most of Monty Python, except for Terry Gilliam, who's American-born.

Some Monty Python players did a sketch in a film where they portray Americans, and John Cleese had the most overworked accent ever.

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

To flip this around, I think the worst American playing a British character was Kevin Costner in "Robin Hood". He didn't even try to use a British accent. He's still lampooned about it.

Infinite points to your respective Hogwarts House for the use of the Men in Tights gif!

 

[bcla]

Liam Neeson, the same only Irish. He never quite sounds convincingly American.
I agree with BCLA, Idris Elba's Brixton accent does show some times. There's another actor in The Wire who does the same, I forget his name.

I think Idris Elba needs to be himself. It worked pretty well in Finding Dory. I never watched The Wire, but looked it up and that's Dominic West as the other sea lion.

And with someone mentioning Cary Elwes, I heard him on the radio once (Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me), and he was joking around that his nickname was "Accent Man".