British dopers: What American actors do you believe to have good British accents?

What did you make of Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond?

It is peculiar, but not unique. There was a recent thread about how Lithgow and James Spader share similar vocal intonations, accents and mannerisms. I found it uncanny.

It’s a terrible South African accent. Which is OK, since his character isn’t South African :slight_smile:
I’m joking, there really isn’t a lot of difference between the two. It was an OK accent. He gets extra props for good use of the word doos.

At the wrap party for Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers, Bernard Hill, who played Theoden, couldn’t figure out why Brad Dourif (Wormtongue) was affecting a bad American accent.

Dourif is American, of course; he just kept his voice in character all through shooting.

What about Matt Damon in Invictus? A dialect coach who’s made a few YouTube videos breaking down different actors’ accents, said that Damon did a fair bit of research to get the voice right, and did a good job. Certainly he sounded like the South Africans I know (I can generally pick up the difference between a South African and an Australian voice). Of course, that dialect coach is an American…

This surprises me. It was mostly mumbling and I have no idea what the real Winston Churchill sounded like, but all I could hear was John Lithgow which made me think it was a bad accent.

To be fair, I’m terrible at noticing actual bad accents too.

James Marsters is excellent. You wouldn’t know he wasn’t English.

I don’t remember hearing any complaints about the American actors in the* Lord of the Rings *movies - Astin, Wood and Mortensen.

Viggo Mortensen barely counts, he is also fluent in Danish, Spanish (Argentinian Spanish anyway), and possibly a couple other languages. He’s sort of a polyglot.

It was serviceable. Not bad, but I think I was distracted in that he didn’t actually sound like Pienaar.

I don’t think John Hillerman has been mentioned yet…

But they weren’t necessarily doing British accents.

I had never noticed the similarities before. That is uncanny.

Astin *certainly *wasn’t :smiley:

Any opinions on Tatiana Maslany and Jordan Gavaris in Orphan Black?

Canadians don’t count!

I’m not British (Irish) but Ben Schnetzer (a New Yorker) did a perfect take-off of Mark Ashton’s accent in the film Pride (2014). Ashton was a Northern Ireland rared lad but had lived in England for quite a few years when the events that inspired the film transpired and honestly I have never heard a more nuanced put on accent. Schnetzer puts in a great performance but he also sounds, to my ears, perfect portraying an Northern Irish kid living in London. I was shocked when I found out the actor wasn’t British or Irish.

Tangent:

John Noble (Denethor) seems to always have a strange accent while acting. Half Blue Blood American, half RSC British. I was amused when in Legends of Tomorrow they travelled back in time and met him on the set of LoTR and he was speaking in a very Australian accent.

They had perfect Shire accents.

Did he do a South African? Even though I knew he lives here, for some reason at some stage I thought he was South African.

And so am I now, not having realised this before! To my London ears it was entirely convincing, and I suspect there are a lot of British actors who aren’t too hot at “Norn Ireland” either.

I’ve heard similar stories before, and I’m not suggesting you are wrong, but I have to say It would surprise me greatly to learn that Bernard Hill didn’t already know who Brad Dourif was.

Well, maybe, but he wouldn’t necessarily know Dourif’s nationality. Dourif’s had a long, respectable career…as a character actor. He’s never been a Brad Pitt or Robert Redford.