# Are there any American actors who have accurately imitated a British accent? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 11, 2019, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354 "2019-06-11T03:43:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![vperry1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ee7513/32.png) [@vperry1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vperry1)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354/61 "2019-06-12T18:28:18Z")
Lake Bell did a pretty good job in Man Up with Simon Pegg. Here’s a quote from IMDB. “Simon Pegg revealed that American actress Lake Bell stayed in character with her English accent during filming, even when not before the camera. It wasn’t until photography was done and she thanked the assembled crew that they realized she wasn’t English.” I’d say that counts as a pass. ---
**Author:** ![Dandan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a87d85/32.png) [@Dandan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dandan)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354/62 "2019-06-12T19:03:25Z")
In “Good Omens”, on Amazon, Michael McKean (Jimmie’s brother Chuck, “Better Call Saul”) does a wonderful job as the crusty old Witchfinder Sergeant. Yanqui here, so I’d like to be told, as gently as you can, just how wonderful a real live Brit might have found his accent. Considering that there are accents and dialects galore over across. I’d ask my brother-in-law, but he’s been here since 1970, and on visits back “home” he’s been pegged as Rhodesian or, most recently, an American. Dan ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354/63 "2019-06-12T19:16:51Z")
Irish actor Jason O’Mara, when he played an American agent in The Agency, had to go undercover as an IRA activist, and people complained that his Irish accent was bad. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354/64 "2019-06-12T20:24:49Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > That’s not _necessarily_ inaccurate. I knew a family who all had different accents; the man was from New Zealand and the woman from Australia, each having the appropriate accent. They raised their daughter in England, though, so she had an Estuary accent. Then Ned Stark must’ve got on a plane and done a huge adoption frenzy. I’m okay with the accents, it’s just funny. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354/65 "2019-06-12T20:57:27Z")
How about a Canadian doing an English accent? I like Mike Myers’s accents in the Austin Powers movies, and in Bohemian Rhapsody. But I can’t say if they’re authentic or not. Can our UK Dopers weigh in and tell us what they think? ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354/66 "2019-06-12T21:19:11Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Irish actor Jason O’Mara, when he played an American agent in The Agency, had to go undercover as an IRA activist, and people complained that his Irish accent was bad. There are different Irish accents; was he maybe doing an accent from a part of Ireland he’s not from? Even Americans can hear the difference between a Dublin and a Belfast accent. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2019, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354/67 "2019-06-13T01:32:55Z")
> [@teela\_brown](#): > > How about a Canadian doing an English accent? Also Tatiana Maslany from Orphan Black. She’s Canadian but played a bunch of different characters with different accents on the show. Because it aired on BBC America, I’ve found a lot of people mistakenly think her English accent is the “real” one (also because that’s her “primary” character) but nope. The guy that played her gay bestie/brother, also not English. ---
**Author:** ![Brayne\_Ded](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Brayne\_Ded](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brayne_Ded)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2019, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354/68 "2019-06-13T08:41:27Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Irish actor Jason O’Mara, when he played an American agent in The Agency, had to go undercover as an IRA activist, and people complained that his Irish accent was bad. Obvious question: \*which \*Irish accent? There is more than one. ---
**Author:** ![Brayne\_Ded](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Brayne\_Ded](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brayne_Ded)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2019, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354/69 "2019-06-13T08:44:27Z")
> [@teela\_brown](#): > > How about a Canadian doing an English accent? I like Mike Myers’s accents in the Austin Powers movies, and in Bohemian Rhapsody. But I can’t say if they’re authentic or not. Can our UK Dopers weigh in and tell us what they think? The Canadians often sound somewhat British and are hard to tell apart, it could be just a somewhat generic accent from southern England with no regional variations. And there are plenty in southern England, within London itself, for one thing. In short, the poor Canucks have a perpetual identity crisis. But they’re nice people. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2019, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354/70 "2019-06-13T11:53:32Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > It’s the same with dialects and languages in general. Land area is not the important factor. Important factors are a stable population over time and relative isolation from surrounding areas. Part of it might also have had to do with the range of ethnic origins of the population in different parts of the country - Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Jutes and Danes, and so on. More recently, the development of recorded and broadcast sound has had some interestingly contradictory effects, although it’s only been about 3-4 generations. There was a [fascinating TV documentary](https://youtu.be/ywg03b574oQ) about a recorded archive of accents, collected by a German language researcher from British POWs in WW1 (so before broadcasting and sound movies). The different variations were played and discussed,so that they could hear their relative’s recording. But when the BBC was set up, its initial local stations soon standardised on the middle-to-upper class “educated” (RP) accent, to the point that when in WW2 the news was read by Wilfred Pickles with a (to today’s ears) barely noticeable [Yorkshire twang](https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/997887608330928128) in the voice,[there were complaints](http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/yourvoice/accent2.shtml). But when commercial television was set up as competition to BBC TV, it was on regional franchises, so it became important to them to portray a distinctive regional identity, which necessarily favoured people speaking regional accents (though these tended perhaps to consolidate into something a bit more generic than had prevailed before recorded sound). And nowadays, accents are still changing, with street language picking up intonations and slang from more recent immigration communities, and accents around London merging into a more generic “estuary” mixture, as RP-speakers adopt some sounds once considered “common” and downmarket (diphthong vowels and glottal stops, for example), and people whose ancestors would once have been “Gorblimey guvnor” cockneys adopt RP grammar and turns of phrase. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2019, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354/71 "2019-06-13T13:06:53Z")
One thing I’ve noted on scripted and unscripted British TV shows is that the English have adapted the American word “Guys” while almost completely abandoning the classical English equivalents like “chaps” or “blokes”. It’s interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2019, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354/72 "2019-06-13T13:14:47Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > Part of it might also have had to do with the range of ethnic origins of the population in different parts of the country - Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Jutes and Danes, and so on. Right, it’s not that America is less diverse in a genetic or ethnic sense than England, but that there has been a certain degree of isolation and a history of limited movement, plus, much more time for the stew to simmer. North America also has dialects and accents, even developing before our eyes, like the Northern Cities Vowel Shift. But because of communication and transportation patterns, they aren’t necessarily limited to individual cities. North American dialects map – [https://aschmann.net/AmEng/#LargeMap](https://aschmann.net/AmEng/#LargeMap) ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2019, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354/73 "2019-06-13T13:46:51Z")
> [@Brayne\_Ded](#): > > The Canadians often sound somewhat British and are hard to tell apart, it could be just a somewhat generic accent from southern England with no regional variations. And there are plenty in southern England, within London itself, for one thing. In short, the poor Canucks have a perpetual identity crisis. But they’re nice people. In what part of Canada do they sound British? I’ve admittedly not lived there long or toured a lot, but I’ve yet to hear any British accents, except from people who actually came from the UK (and most of those are Scottish.) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stafford_cripps/32/7167_2.png) [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stafford_Cripps)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2019, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354/74 "2019-06-13T20:23:24Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > One thing I’ve noted on scripted and unscripted British TV shows is that the English have adapted the American word “Guys” while almost completely abandoning the classical English equivalents like “chaps” or “blokes”. It’s interesting. ‘Guy’ has been used in Scotland since the 1930s. I think it’s been used in England for at least 50 years. ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2019, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354/75 "2019-06-13T20:32:29Z")
Yes, my pick too. I have rediscovered her works and am smitten with her acting. Especially as Mrs Castaway in Crimson Petal and the White. Good series that. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2019, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354/76 "2019-06-13T21:35:34Z")
By and large, American audiences don’t notice or care if an Aussie or Brit mangles an American accent. In Britain, it’s an entirely different story. If a middle class actor doesn’t nail a posh accent or a Geordie isn’t convincing as Liverpudlian or, heaven forfend, an English actor can’t imitate a Scot, there will be gnashing of teeth and an agonized, nationwide debate. And if a foreigner fails at it…armageddon. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2019, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354/77 "2019-06-14T02:15:25Z")
> [@Smid](#): > > Littlefinger’s was a joke. He shifted between English, something different, Northern Irish and Irish (which he is) and back during not just the show, during a season and sometimes during an episode. > > Non UK people wouldn’t notice it, but sometimes you’d go “Eh? He’s Northern Irish NOW?” I noticed he’d talk differently in different scenes (don’t ask me to identify the accents, though) but thought it was part of the whole “chameleon” thing. Switching accent/dialect/register when you talk to different people, or even within a single conversation, is a negotiation/ingratiation technique. To me one of the difficulties of working in an Nth language is that I can’t do that; in one of my primaries, I do it all the time. > [@BlankSlate](#): > > By and large, American audiences don’t notice or care if an Aussie or Brit mangles an American accent. That would depend on which American accent we’re talking about: “somewhere in the US” can be mangled no problem; something more narrowly identified such as “Brooklyn” or “Louisiana”, you’ll have so much gnashing of teeth dentists will be lining up. ---
**Author:** ![Powers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Powers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Powers)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2019, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354/78 "2019-06-14T16:05:05Z")
Am I the only one who never notices accent errors? Like, ever? Heck, I barely hear any difference among the various non-coastal, non-Southern accents in the U.S. Powers &8^] ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2019, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354/79 "2019-06-14T16:37:36Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > The cast of _This Is Spinal Tap_ all got critical praise for nailing a Squatney accent perfectly. Christopher Guest is a hereditary member of the House of Lords. That’s pretty definitively English. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2019, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354/80 "2019-06-14T18:36:23Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > Christopher Guest is a hereditary member of the House of Lords. That’s pretty definitively English. He hasn’t been in there since 1999, after they got a lot more serious about membership. He’s still a lord, of course, but very few of them are in the House anymore. He doesn’t speak with an English accent, but sure, it probably helps him affect one. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-american-actors-who-have-accurately-imitated-a-british-accent/835354.md?page=5)