I’d noticed that he talks a bit funny, but wouldn’t have pegged him for being from elsewhere.
I thought the same thing with Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine (the first thing I ever saw her in). There were two or three syllables in that movie I thought sounded funny, but I didn’t think she was anything but 'mercan.
Similarly, Charlie Hunnam is from Newcastle, and his character on Undeclared was British, but he’s a native Northern Californian in Sons of Anarchy, and is using an American accent in interviews. He sounds funny to me, but that may be just because I know him as having an accent (and a joke from Undeclared in which he was trying to use a Varsity Blues accent, which his current speech remind me of).
Before House I knew HL only as Bertie Wooster. His America accent is so good that I keep forgetting he’s British. (I recall once hearing a pretty bad American accent in the Inspector Morse series – a woman who sounded as if she’d modeled her American accent on 1930s gangster movies.)
I’d say if you ask the average House fan on the street if Hugh Laurie is American or English, they’d say American.
That’s how good his accent is. Hell, he even fooled the producer!
As for being House on set, even when the cameras aren’t rolling, I can totally see that. It’s a whole 'nother persona PLUS an accent, and turning it on and off again would be very confusing and tiring. He walks on set, he’s House. I’ll bet he even uses the cane in between takes.
All this praise (deservedly) for Laurie, I have to give a shout out to Brit Damian Lewis, whose American accent in Life (as well as Band of Brothers, Keane, etc.) is also impeccable.
I read that Patrick Dempsy was up for the role of House and was crushed that he didn’t get it.
I am ALWAYS surpised when I hear someone playing an American isn’t American. I have never been able to pick out a fake American accent, although I can spot a fake southern accent a mile away. American actors have (to my ear) a flat, non-descript, could be from anywhere accent, which I suppose is what a non-American actor would learn, so everyone sounds the same to me.
I listen to a lot of British radio, and I hear that accent a LOT. There’s some small subset of British actors that think we were all raised on the mean streets of Brooklyn in the 1920s. And overenunciate everything.
I’m a Doctor Who fan and this show has had some truly awful American Accents. However Laurie and Anna Friel from *Pushing Daisies *are dead on in their accents.
Besides the accent, Hugh Laurie also nails the mannerisms and patterns of speaking of an American. Like when he (as House) mocks someone in the tone of a snotty teenager or uses his idea of “urban” lingo with Foreman, he does it fluently. (I’m sure English teenagers have their equivalent of, “Nuh-UH, Mom,” but they probably don’t put it like that.) I find this even more impressive than his accent, because it’s more subtle. He’s got an excellent ear.
I find that when I hear foreign actors performing with an American accent, it often sounds like they’re putting on some sort of voice, but not they they’re putting on an accent.
I thought there was something slightly peculiar about the way he talked the first time I saw the show, but it never occured to me that he was British. The same thing happened with Lucy Lawless as Xena. I always thought she was just affecting a sort of deep, breathy sexy voice for the character.
Speaking of suprises, check out this video of Gillian Anderson: Gillian on the BBC She lived in England as a child, and America as a teenager, so she speaks naturally with both accents. After the X-Files she moved back to England and went back to that accent. A while back I saw a bunch of Youtube videos of her on British talk shows and it was strange to hear her sounding British, but I got used to it. Then she came back and went around American TV to promote the X-Files movie sequel, and she had the red hair and American accent.
(BTW, the other clip I was going to link to to show her English accent was this NSFW video of her on the Graham Norton show: http:/ /www.you tube.com/watch?v=XZwwqp3FAfg and also watch the other segments of it.)
I find his Brooklyn (or Queens or Long Island, whatever it’s supposed to be) accent quite irritating - I can nearly always hear the Australian one trying to break through. Same with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, come to think of it - I find her accent unconvincing at best. With her, it’s not that I hear a bit of London, but that she’s just laying the NYC/Long Island accent on a bit too thickly.
The alternative is that I sound like that, and I refuse to consider the possibility. :eek:
This is how I feel. I think it’s because I first saw him on Jeeves and Wooster (for what it’s worth, the American accents on that show were awful). If I hadn’t seen him on that show, I’d probably just think his voice was really annoying, but as it is, it’s hard for me to watch since it’s such a departure from the other roles I’ve seen him in (J&W, plus Blackadder, which was hilarious) which have generally been comedic.
Actually not being a fan I had no basis in his Englishness – the sound was just wrong. His speech is like listening to a blender full of marbles. After a Leno appearance I found him more than tolerable as House.
Very rarely an odd syllable comes out, but he’s spot on most of the time.
I remember being very surprised to learn that Vivien Leigh was English. Her Southern accent as Scarlett O’hara was very good. Most people tend to overexaggerate it and end up sounding like Eunice. (I’m looking at you, Julia Roberts, which is odd because she’s a Georgian. But I found her accent in Steel Magnolias to be so put on that it distracted from the movie.)
It’s a pretty good accent. I had no idea who he was until I started watching the series late in its first season and then found out how many other things Laurie had done already.
He’s good, but the one that just blows me away is Jamie Bamber, who plays Apollo on “Battlestar Galactica.” When I saw an interview with him speaking in an accent as English as bad food, I just about crapped.