Celebrities you were surprised to learn are not American (or Canadian)

[Tangent]

I was surprised to discover that **Yvonne Strahovski **(“Sarah” on Chuck) is Australian. She does a very convincing American accent.

[Omniscient]

@Rodgers01

John Mahoney, aka Martin on Frasier - British.

And being born outside North America and moving here at a very young age doesn’t count - so don’t list Bob Hope, for example.

@Wendell_Wagner

Rodgers01 writes:

> . . . we all know that Nicole Kidman and Mel Gibson are Australian . . .

Um, you are aware, aren’t you, that Mel Gibson was born in the U.S. and his family didn’t move to Australia until he was 12? And that Nicole Kidman was born in Honolulu and spent the first year of her life there? And she spent the next three years in Washington, D.C.? Yes, her parents were Australian, and they were only in the U.S. so her father could do his Ph.D. and then a post-doc. Still, you could have picked better examples. How about Anthony LaPaglia, who didn’t come to the U.S. (from Australia) until he was an adult, at which point he decided to use this thick New York accent in all his roles?

Heh, I was going to beat him up a little over his choice of John Mahoney. While he was born in England he moved to the US as a teen and has essentially lived his entire life as a Illinois/Chicago resident and even served in the US Army. He carries no Brit accent in his daily life and has been an American citizen for 50+ years. Considering his embracing of Chicago as home I would wager he self-identifies as American.

[Maastricht]

I don’t know if it will come as much of a surprise, but actors Rutger Hauer, Jeroen Krabbeand Famke Janssen(X-men), and directors Jan de Bont (Speed) and Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct, Robocop, Zwartboek) are all born and bred Dutch.

[Aspidistra]

I wonder how many people know these actors as Australian…

Rachel Griffiths
Toni Colette
Portia di Rossi
Simon Baker
Hugo Weaving
David Wenham
Cate Blanchet
Miranda Otto

The Lord of the Rings, in particular, was full of 'em

[Girl_From_Mars]

Matthew Rhys who plays Kevin on Brothers and Sisters is Welsh. Good friends with Ioan Gruffudd (Mr Fantastic in the Fantastic Four) who is also Welsh. His first language is actually (you guessed it) Welsh.

[don_t_ask]

I was interested recently by a TV show about the Australian accent, a subject that I would have expected to be deathly dull. Because John Clarke was on screen as I flicked channels, I watched it all and it was full of interesting stuff. Apparently the Australian accent is considered “pure” because there are virtually no regional variations and the sounds are simple to make.

Rachel Griffiths explained that Australians speak with a really relaxed palate and tongue but everyone else uses them more. She said that it is easy for Australians to speak with British and American accents because all other accents require additional effort only, nothing needs to be taken away. A voice coach agreed and they demonstrated, saying “The master asked to pass the banana,” in a variety of accents.

So just a bit of good luck for Aussie actors.

[WotNot]

@Girl_From_Mars

Matthew Rhys who plays Kevin on Brothers and Sisters is Welsh. Good friends with Ioan Gruffudd (Mr Fantastic in the Fantastic Four) who is also Welsh. His first language is actually (you guessed it) Welsh.

Owain Yeoman, who plays Rigsby in The Mentalist, is Welsh as well. Surprised me.

[mecaenas]

@joebuck20

You can detect a trace of an accent in the early Lethal Weapon films. But anything he’s done since about 1990 or so, you’d never guess he had spent a bulk of his childhood outside the U.S.

Erm, he spent the bulk of his childhood growing up in New York. They moved to Australia when he was 12.

[GuanoLad]

@WotNot

Owain Yeoman, who plays Rigsby in The Mentalist, is Welsh as well. Surprised me.

Doggone, I didn’t know that. Wow, accents are really getting nailed brilliantly these days.

[wolf-alice]

I saw Muriel’s Wedding mid-way through a Six Feet Under box set.

“… Huh. Why’s Brenda doing an Australian accent?”

Internet, MY MIND WAS BLOWN.

[Wargamer]

Damian Lewis, who played Dick Winters in HBO’s Band of Brothers miniseries was born and raised in London. According to IMDB, he was so good that several of them couldn’t believe he wasn’t an American.

[GrandWino]

What, nobody’s mentioned Obama yet? He’s a celebrity, right?

[Wendell_Wagner]

don’t ask writes:

> Apparently the Australian accent is considered “pure” because there are
> virtually no regional variations and the sounds are simple to make.
>
> Rachel Griffiths explained that Australians speak with a really relaxed palate
> and tongue but everyone else uses them more. She said that it is easy for
> Australians to speak with British and American accents because all other
> accents require additional effort only, nothing needs to be taken away.

I suspect that this business about purity and relaxed palates is wrong. It sounds like the sort of guesswork that someone with no actual training in phonetics or phonology would make. I think that there are some much easier explanations. An Australian is more likely than an American or a Briton to grow up hearing accents from other English-speaking countries in TV and movies and thus will know those accents better. Furthermore, it’s clear to me what happens when Australians go to acting classes or acting schools. They are told, “Look, if you want a real career as an actor, you’ve got to learn lots of other English-language accents - American, British, whatever. An American actor can get by without having to learn other accents. A British actor can scrape by O.K. without having to learn other accents. You can’t.”

[An_Gadai]

@ZipperJJ

The Wire was full of surprises…It’s set in Baltimore and everyone on the show has an American/Bawlmer accent.

Dominic West (McNulty) - Yorkshire, England
Idris Elba (Stringer Bell) - London, England
Aidan Gillen (Carcetti) - Dublin, Ireland

I’m not American but I thought Gillen’s accent in The Wire was shaky, it never really went completely off the rails but in some scenes he sounds Irish again.

The first time I saw Colin Farrell in a film (Minority Report) I wasn’t aware he was Irish. There is a scene in the film that seems to suggest they weren’t sure if his accent was right, something along the lines of his dad being shot in Dublin when he was a kid.

[Little_Nemo]

Mila Kunis was born in the Ukraine. She moved to America at an early age but English is not her native language.

[Isamu]

@Wendell_Wagner

Furthermore, it’s clear to me what happens when Australians go to acting classes or acting schools. They are told, “Look, if you want a real career as an actor, you’ve got to learn lots of other English-language accents - American, British, whatever. An American actor can get by without having to learn other accents. A British actor can scrape by O.K. without having to learn other accents. You can’t.”

I’m pretty certain this is not the reason. The reason is that, at least for my generation, a majority of our (worth viewing) TV programing is/was either American or British. If you’re listening to these accents from childhood, you develop an ear for it, and it’s just not that difficult to replicate.

[Wendell_Wagner]

You’ll note, Isamu, that I listed that as the first of my suggested reasons. So all you’re saying is that my first reason (watching a lot of American and British TV and movies) is valid but my second reason (being taught dialects intensively in acting schools) is invalid. Is it actually invalid? Is anyone here an expert on acting schools in Australia? Do they have more emphasis on learning dialects than those in the U.S., the U.K., etc.?

[Isamu]

@Wendell_Wagner

You’ll note, Isamu, that I listed that as the first of my suggested reasons. So all you’re saying is that my first reason (watching a lot of American and British TV and movies) is valid but my second reason (being taught dialects intensively in acting schools) is invalid. Is it actually invalid? Is anyone here an expert on acting schools in Australia? Do they have more emphasis on learning dialects than those in the U.S., the U.K., etc.?

Whoops, sorry I totally missed that line of yours. My reading comprehension failure.

[Starving_Artist]

@Huerta88

Aww GD I’m doing just awesome here.

I could have sworn I “knew” Thomas was actually born in Lebanon…

Probably because he used to talk about being Lebanese all the time. It would be an easy mistake to make.

And with regard to John Mahoney, I’ve read several times that he was British but not once that he’s been here since the age of twelve. I can see how people wouldn’t necessarily know that he’d been here since he was a child. I’ve also read several times that he was only six or eight years older than Kelsey Grammer, whose father he played, when the truth is he’s fifteen years older.

[tacoloco]

A couple from True Blood suprised me:

Stephen Moyer (Bill) - English
Ryan Kwanten (Jason) - Australian

also:

Poppy Montgomery (Without A Trace) - Australian