It seems to be a Hollywood chic to adopt a British accent for a UK role or 9even an ancient warrior), but the reverse is just as prevalent with Brits, Aussies, or other an actor of another nationality playing an American character. I realize that plenty of actors and actresses were born or even partially raised abroad, but this list is a reflection of actors whose primary dialect is not American. This list excludes Canadian actors/actresses.
Hails From: London, England
Noted Roles: Spiderman 2, Boogie Nights, a guest star on Law and Order SVU and Trial By Jury
Hails From: born in Ely, England, raised in Victoria, Australia
Noted Roles: Memento, Factory Girl, LA Confidential
Hails From: Bury St. Edmonds, England
Noted Roles: Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Hollywoodland
Hails From: Manchester, England
Noted Roles: Law and Order, RFK
Hails From: Perth, Australia
Noted Roles: Brokeback Mountain, The Dark Knight
Hails From: Oxford, England
Noted Roles: House MD
Hails From: Reading, England
Noted Roles: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Little Children, Titanic
Hails From: Haverfordwest, Wales
Noted Roles: Batman Begins, American Psycho
Hails From: London, England
Noted Roles: There Will Be Blood, Gangs of New York, The Crucible
Hails From: London, England
Noted Roles: Leon, The Fifth Element, and Romeo is Bleeding
Contributor: Ginger Lee
Alfred Molina also did an American accent in Maverick (with Mel Gibson, Jody Foster, and James Garner)
He also did a “Russian” accent in The Man Who Knew Too Little. Talent!
I never, ever, do this, but I have to point out a great one that was missing. Peter Sellers in “Where Does it Hurt?” All you have to do is hear him say, “Hopfnagel here, talk to me,” and you’ll see why.
How about a follow-up list: Americans trying to do other accents? Meryl Streep in Evil Angels, anyone?
I love Boogie Nights…anything by PT ANderson…amazing stuff,esp. Magnolia
astraya – meryl Streep is brilliant – one of my favorite actresses
meryl Streep is brilliant – one of my favorite actresses
jfrater – ugh. I cannot stand Meryl Streep (though I’m not sure why exactly).
To turn things on their side a little…have you heard Madonna’s derisible attempts at adopting a London accent??!!
Ok, wow- I feel like an idiot. I never knew Guy Pearce, Heath Ledger, or Gary Oldman weren’t from the states. Great actors, though.
i can’t even understand Colin Farrell when he’s not playing an American
You can’t tell that Melanie Lynskey is from New Zealand because her character speaks perfect “American” on the tv show Two And A Half Men.
p.s. Melanie Lynskey’s imdb bio
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001491/bio
kiwiboi: I have! I don’t think she knows what she is anymore!
Brilliant list as always
Heath should get number 1, more of a shocker awsome number 1 noone would deny. Even if debated shock value always makes for a good read.
gary oldman should be noted in batman begins and harry potter too!!! he is a really good actor! great list
it might be too late to do so, but i would venture to guess we know how all these people sound speaking “american”. i haven’t heard most of them with their natural accent, i.e. english, australian, welch, etc. are there videos out there with the original inflection?
the first time i heard hugh laurie without his american accent i almost felt betrayed. i had no idea he wasn’t from our side of the pond.
Heath Ledger in a film called Two Hands (brillian film), Guy pearce in Priscilla Queen of the Desert (also spectaucular). Seriously, check them out.
Hey — interesting list but where’s Tim Roth? Excellent actor. Plays an American so convincingly in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Gridlock’d, Dark Water, & Funny Games, to name just a few, that I’ll bet lots of American viewers don’t realize he’s a Brit…
He keeps his accent in Pulp Fiction….
Colin Farrell’s “real” accent is put on.
Great list. Special shout-out for Anthony LaPaglia who I bet most Americans would think is American (CSI, Frasier, Without a Trace)…but is in fact Australian. Interestingly its said that Anthony LaPaglia, originally from South Australia, had to re-learn his Australian accent in order to play the starring role role in the 2001 Australian film Lantana.
Christain Bale should not be on the list, his accent sounds so unnatural in American Psycho it’s practically painful. Gary Oldman on the other hand is probably one of the most underated actors around.
dischuker: Not all movies are made in Hollywood. Hugh Laurie, for instance, has been famous in the UK for over 20 years.
BTW, I think his Yank accent in Street Kings is a clunker.
I don’t wanna sound ignorant, but I think that the ‘generic’ mid-west American accent is pretty easy to do. Not being American though, I guess I don’t really know what the ‘official’ accent really sounds like:P
Oh yeah, I just wanna say that I think the New York accent is awesome and really hard to do:)
jfrater: The list submitter didn’t include Russell Crowe. How would you rate him? Re Meryl Streep playing Lindy Chamberlain: Lindy was born in NZ, but lived in Australia from the age of 1. She has a strange accent, which I don’t know where came from.
Because I emphasise English as a world language, I often (attempt to) use other accents. I can do American well enough to fool Korean students, but not American colleagues and the Korean wife of one.
When I was travelling in Europe, I said “Danke schoen” (add umlat) to a woman in Germany and she replied in full-on German. I said I didn’t speak German and said “But your accent is so good!”. I’d just sung Mahler 8 in the Albert Hall, and we’d had German drilled into us. A singing friend of mine said that Italians keep complimenting her on her accent and speaking to her in Italian, which she doesn’t actually speak.
Let’s not forget the women. Minnie Driver does a wonderful American accent.
WHERE is John Barrowman?
Half the cast of Without a Trace are non American, 2 Aussies and 1 English.
But my all time favourite accent was Tommy Lee Jones in Blown Away (I know it’s not an American accent but it still makes me laugh).
Oh my gosh I was totally thinking of Blown Away too. But I was thinking of the American accent he does in the beach scene. It's so cool because rather than just using his real Texas accent, he "fakes" an american accent using a lighter voice and too-high vowels so that he sounds like a foreigner trying to do the accent.
I forgot about Sean Connery – he does an American accent (that would be the part of America from the east coast of Scotland)
Wow. How did I not know Alfred Molina and Gary Oldman were Brittish? I am blown away, cool list!
@Drogo,
Thank you thank you thank you
I knew she looked familiar, but I never bothered to look her up. Her accent is so perfect. And she is one of the best things in 2 1/2 men. Heavenly Creatures is one of Jackson’s best. Sorry for getting off track a little, but thanks again.
Gary Oldman’s sister is an excellent actress. She has a right old Cockney accent in the British soap-opera Eastenders. Here’s a sample (she’s the one that gets kissed by the dog) :
Again…slightly off-topic, but if there is an Oscar for the most notoriously bad attempt at a foreign accent in a movie, Dick van Dyke wouls surely be a nominee for his role in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It is cringeworthy…
From IMDB :
“In Britain, his attempt at a Cockney accent in Mary Poppins (1964) is so notorious that a “Dick Van Dyke accent” is an accepted slang term for an American’s unsuccessful attempt at a British accent. Despite that, he is quite popular in Britain.”
I watched Frasier for years before I learned that John Mahoney (Martin Crane on the show) was born in Blackpool, England. Apparently he lost his original English accent while serving in the U.S. army.
Interesting list. Here’s an amazing British accent from Americans: James Marsters and Juliet Landau who played Spike and Drusilla in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
You are so very, very wrong. The guy who played Wesley Windam Price had a good english accent, the two you mentioned are only a couple of steps above Dick Van Dyke.
You know, as much as he is a religious crackpot (at least he’s not a scientologist), I never hear Mel Gibson’s Aussie accent.
Someone should do a list of American entertainers who do/did a horrible job imitating British accents…like Madonna or Dick Van Dyke.
You know, as much as he is a religious crackpot (at least he’s not a scientologist), I never hear Mel Gibson’s Aussie accent.
Did he not have an Oz accent in the first Mad Max? Or in Tim? I think he did, but I’m not entirely sure…
kiwiboi- He did in Mad Max, but when they first released it in the states, they dubbed over his voice with an American, as to sell it better (much like the Governator’s Hercules In New York). Since then, though, I haven’t been able to discern one.
Someone not on the list that I like is Ian McShane from Deadwood. He hails from England.
Ginger Lee, brilliant list, though I might have changed the order a bit and included examples of the actors real accents as an example of what excellent accent work they had to do to over come their natural speaking voice. It would have been more powerful.
Otherwise, fantastic!
Disc, you didn’t know Hugh Laurie was a Brit? I was leery of his being able to pull off an American accent! But he does it so fabulously, even I forget he’s not one of “ours” during “House”.
Daniel Day Lewis can do anything. He’s absolutely amazing. Perhaps the best actor of that generation.
I was expecting Hugh Laurie to be number one… I actually prefer his American accent, and I am one of those girls who goes crazy for a British accent! Oh, I like the New Zealand accent too! For the longest I didn’t even know Kate Winslet wasn’t American! Yay for accents!!
The best thing is… nobody and I mean NOBODY can do an Australian accent like an Australian. There will never be a list for Australian axxents because there isnt anyone who do one like we can…
New Zealanders can.
I gotta nominate Damian Lewis here (lead actor in Life, Dick Winters in Band of Brothers). British actor, awesome American accent, and one of the few (if not only) cases where I prefer the fake American to real British; his accent in The Baker, which I assume is natural, sounds too much like the stereotypical joke of the uptight Brit.
Wow! Fun stuff here. I too would like to se/hear a video with their natural speaking voices. When I drink, I get a southern accent.
Kelly Macdonald in No Country For Old Men, anyone?
good list. i thought christian bale’s yuppy accent in american psycho was amazing
Sorry to be the picky one, but there’s an extra ’9′ in the opening.
13. akelly318: All actors in the Harry Potter series had British accents- it was demanded early on that all actors be British. I get your point, though, he is fantastic.
I’m pretty pleased at the rating on this list. Hugh Laurie sprang to mind at first. Going down, I knew about Alfred Molina (great accent in Spiderman II, loved him in Chocolat) and Christian Bale.
I’m okay with accents, but I find my Scottish accent fades to Russian at some point. I don’t know why. Cockney is hard because I don’t know all the phrases.
Gunna throw out Brad Pitt in Snatch for the next list.
good list
Americans don’t have accents! Everyone else does!
Spot-on list, especially the top 5.
It’s still freaky how different Laurie’s real voice and accent are so completely different than House’s. He’s even done other foreign accents while using House’s accent, amazing
What about Nicole Kidman? She is a fantastic actress and can mask her Aussie accent. Notable: The Others and Moulin Rouge.
Damian Lewis in Band of Brothers
Hugh Grant in Mickey Blue Eyes…(laughs)…just kidding
This is a good list but Linus Roache’s RFK accent was atrocious. My mother couldn’t stop talking smack about it when she first heard it.
@Heroajax (#31) I would have to agree, at least with Spike, I was heartbroken the first time I heard him speak “normally” and realized that the accent wasn’t real!
@Matt Howard (#20), I would actually think that a more specific American accent would be easier than a generic one (like a southern accent, or a New York, or Boston accent), as there are more little things to pick up on & imitate. Anyone out there that “does voices” have any insight on this?
The best American TV show ever is THE WIRE. It has two British actors, Idris Elba and Dominic West, who manage to pull off a Baltimore accent. I see others have cited Damian Lewis and Ian McShane, I concur.
The worst American accent by a Brit was Emma Thompson in PRIMARY COLORS. Her ex-husband isn’t much better, as you can see Branagh’s mind working when he’s playing an American.
See, I’m please (as always) to see Aussies added to the lists, but I reckon a better follow up list would be FAILED attempts at foreign accents. I seriously have not heard more than a handful of half-decent attempts at the Aussie accent…
42. Hilly- Nice! I was amazed at Kelly MacDonald’s West Texas accent. Damien Lewis has been mentioned, too. Another good choice.
Great list! If/When you watch The Dark Knight, when Harvey Dent, Lt. Gordon and Batman are arguin on the rooftop, Oldman lets his British (original) accent slip through. A minor slip up, and, considering his works throughout his career, he’s allowed a slip every now and again
Very good list overall. Thank you for not including Ben Kingsley, the king of awful American accents. I can’t believe some people actually think his is good. I would have replaced Linus Roache with Lee Evans (There’s Something about Mary) Otherwise your list is perfect.
i think it comes down to the accessability factor and that the Hollywood Big Dicks have a problem with english speaking actors from other countries not making sence to the minds of generic movie going american english speakers. Something about coming across as proper or more intelligent sounding. It’s also about money. The other end of the scope is to create cliches and stereo types. To dum down, such is the case with mexicans, chicanos as displayed in Hollywood California Films. Then theres the aloof canadians and redneck southerners and cartoon blacks ect, ect.
It reminds me of White men playing Indians.
I don’t mean to toss in the race card, but theres something odd to me in all this.
just a tad of thoughts happing
happening
When ever I have seen some of these actors on late night talk sows in america and they speak in their native tounges, The Interviewer(usually Jay Leno) gets his kicks out of asking the actor to speak in english accent. And the audiance laughs and oohs and claps.