# Brits: Are there any Yank actors who can play a convincing Brit? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 7, 2008, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-are-there-any-yank-actors-who-can-play-a-convincing-brit/471587 "2008-11-07T03:48:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2008, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-are-there-any-yank-actors-who-can-play-a-convincing-brit/471587/81 "2008-11-09T23:01:03Z")
Illuminatiprimus writes: \> I thought the two main characters in Princess Bride were English until I found \> out otherwise. Cary Elwes, who plays Westley (the male lead in the movie), spent his entire childhood in England, although he’s lived in the U.S. since graduating from high school. gnagtcha writes: \> Just watched Anjelica Huston in Agnes Browne. I’m not sure if she was \> supposed to be Irish, Welsh or Cockney English, but, she sounded convincing to \> me. Anjelica Huston spent most of her childhood in Ireland. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-are-there-any-yank-actors-who-can-play-a-convincing-brit/471587/82 "2008-11-10T01:45:02Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > Ewan McGregor is an example of a British (Scottish) actor who can’t do a convincing American accent. I think very highly of McGregor as an actor, but his American accent is pretty cheesy. But it made for a great moment in _The Island_ when his Scottish character met his American “insurance policy!” The sudden change of accent was fun. ETA- oh, and a terrible American accent? How about the insanely shitty Elvis impression Hugh Jackman did in _Happy Feet_? ---
**Author:** ![Enter\_the\_Flagon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Enter\_the\_Flagon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enter_the_Flagon)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-are-there-any-yank-actors-who-can-play-a-convincing-brit/471587/83 "2008-11-10T02:25:46Z")
I’m sure that I’ve heard a Brit or two panning Forest Whitaker’s accent in “The Crying Game”, but it seems it was good enough to fool Michael Caine: [http://www.contactmusic.com/new/xmlfeed.nsf/mndwebpages/caine.%20whitaker%20best%20cockney](http://www.contactmusic.com/new/xmlfeed.nsf/mndwebpages/caine.%20whitaker%20best%20cockney) “I’d never heard of Forest Whitaker and he was a black Cockney soldier. His accent was absolutely perfect and when someone told me he was American I didn’t believe it because Cockney is very hard to do.” ---
**Author:** ![YPOD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e99b99/32.png) [@YPOD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YPOD)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-are-there-any-yank-actors-who-can-play-a-convincing-brit/471587/84 "2008-11-10T03:28:56Z")
A little bit dated maybe, but Richard Chamberlain (Shogun) and Barry Morse, who was originally the cop on the Fugitive but became the scientist on Space 1999? ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-are-there-any-yank-actors-who-can-play-a-convincing-brit/471587/85 "2008-11-10T04:29:44Z")
> [@Hostile\_Dialect](#): > > ETA: If you’re looking for it, you can tell he’s straining it a little during the more frantic scenes in _American Psycho_, but he seemed totally convincing in _The Dark Knight_. I’ve often noticed that when British (et al.) actors portray Americans, even a good American accent falters a bit when the character is supposed to be upset or agitated. > [@](#): > > I’m curious: what, exactly, does a badly-mimicked American accent sound like? Does anyone have some YouTube links they can share? Can’t help you with the YouTube links, but I would say that “bad” accents are usually bad because they are overdone. So I would expect that, in an American accent being badly done by a non-North American English speaking actor, the "r"s at the ends of words would be over-enunciated, “gotten” would be used instead of “got” more than we actually do use it, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-are-there-any-yank-actors-who-can-play-a-convincing-brit/471587/86 "2008-11-10T05:12:36Z")
> [@Hostile\_Dialect](#): > > Woah, you’re in the US! Welcome! Awwwww - thank you! You clearly missed the dopefest thread I started in MPSIMS informing people of my international roaming. Unfortunately I’ll not be far enough across the country to make it to the LA dopefest. ☹ 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2008, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-are-there-any-yank-actors-who-can-play-a-convincing-brit/471587/87 "2008-11-10T14:54:21Z")
[QUOTE=usram] Hmm, well I suppose the writers did their best, but somebody who went to Eton would have been a commissioned officer in the army, not a mere NCO. And “Jonathan Quayle Higgins III” - that roman numeral is decidedly Not British. In fact we use it ourselves as comedy shorthand for the spoiled offspring of moneyed American families. [/QUOTE] > [@vison](#): > > As I recall, his first war stories involved him being a ‘batman’ for an officer, but as the Magnum series went along, Higgins got posher. Not much posher, but a little. > I thought it was a barely passable accent. Barely. But it was still a fun show, she said wistfully . . . You know, that makes the show much more interesting: Higgins as a con artist pretending to be some English gentleman type, not quite getting it right, but enough to fool the people (and private detectives) of Hawaii. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-are-there-any-yank-actors-who-can-play-a-convincing-brit/471587.md?page=4)