# Why so many non-Americans play Americans now? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 23, 2013, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-many-non-americans-play-americans-now/653742 "2013-03-23T14:31:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-many-non-americans-play-americans-now/653742/61 "2015-02-05T12:41:09Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > I was going to start a thread about the current British Invasion, but this one will do. These Brits are everywhere, in major roles on U.S. tv, playing Americans. On AGENT CARTER, the oh-so-British Peggy is of course played by the oh-so-British Hayley Atwell; for contrast, they love pairing her with all-American Howard [del]Hughes[/del] Stark, as portrayed by – fellow Brit Dominic Cooper. ---
**Author:** ![BOOM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c4cdca/32.png) [@BOOM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BOOM)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-many-non-americans-play-americans-now/653742/62 "2015-02-05T13:07:10Z")
To take it to the logical extreme, look at Game of Thrones - filmed in hot, cold and temperate climes so no actual need for HBO to use a UK base, except maybe the acting pool. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-many-non-americans-play-americans-now/653742/63 "2015-02-05T13:14:39Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > At what point was Meryl Streep not one of America’s most famous and acclaimed actresses for two decades? “_Manhattan_ was he first and last movie where I got higher billing than Meryl Streep.” --Michael Murphy Put it this way: Would you rather watch Hugh Laurie as an American doctor or Dick Van Dyke as a British chimney sweep? ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-many-non-americans-play-americans-now/653742/64 "2015-02-05T13:19:59Z")
> [@kaemicha](#): > > On the cable networks there are so many Canadians-and I love Canadians, but the cable channels hire them since they work cheaper and that wouldn’t bother me except I can hear their aboot slip out, too many times. Just the other day, I had the rare experience of seeing it go the other way: Willem Dafoe and Juliette Binoche (neither of whom are Canadians, I think) playing Canadians in _The English Patient_. I recall that they threw in a few conspicuous “aboots” and maybe a “got” or two (vs. American “gaht”), then seemed to forget to keep it up as their performances went on. That was my impression, anyway. ---
**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:** [February 5, 2015, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-many-non-americans-play-americans-now/653742/65 "2015-02-05T13:58:54Z")
Horatio Hellpop writes: \> Put it this way: Would you rather watch Hugh Laurie as an American doctor or Dick \> Van Dyke as a British chimney sweep? That’s not an accurate comparison. You’re comparing a 2004 to 2012 TV series to a 1964 movie. As I said in an earlier post, there was a huge change in how well actors were able to do accents that happened around 1990. (Yeah, it wasn’t really an immediate shift since it happened over time, but that’s about as close as I can get to specifying when it happened.) Actors and their managers and their accent coaches and all acting schools decided every actor, if they ever wanted to make it big, had to learn to do a variety of accents of the English language. It’s part of globalization. Actors now know that sticking to roles within their own country isn’t good enough. They have to be able to portray characters from anywhere in the English-speaking world at the very least. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-many-non-americans-play-americans-now/653742/66 "2015-02-05T15:26:51Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > That’s not an accurate comparison. It might be unfair, but it’s the one Brits usually cite for why Americans should never play Englishmen. Robert Downey Jr. did an okay job as Sherlock Holmes (at least, he wasn’t the franchise’s biggest problem), but I couldn’t help but wonder if they’d run out of Englishmen or something. Kevin Costner as Robin Hood was just unconscionable. It’s like having Bieber play Nelson Mandela! ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-many-non-americans-play-americans-now/653742/67 "2015-02-05T16:38:13Z")
Why a Norman would try to sound English is beyond me. ---
**Author:** ![CGav8r](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@CGav8r](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CGav8r)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-many-non-americans-play-americans-now/653742/68 "2015-02-05T16:43:14Z")
I’ll say actors of previous generations didn’t really do American accents; they adopted the [Mid-Atlantic accent](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_English)(sometimes known as Transatlantic) - I’m thinking of Cary Grant and John Houseman as examples (but it was also used by Americans like Katherine Hepburn and Grace Kelly). Without doing a spreadsheet or pie chart, I’m guessing there is a huge increase of Brits playing American, and they can do a better version of our accents. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-many-non-americans-play-americans-now/653742/69 "2015-02-05T17:09:30Z")
As I have heard it explained, the reason for the excessive international presence in Hollywood is that the industry is so risk adverse, that they just want to bank people who are known to be bankable. That creates a catch-22 situation where they won’t fund any unknowns, since they aren’t bankable, which leads to the effect that no new talent can appear on their radar, since there’s no funding for them to show their stuff. The catch-22 is solved by non-Hollywood film productions. If a British film (e.g. Trainspotting) gains a following, then the director and all the actors are imported. If an Australian film (e.g. Heavenly Creatures) gains a following, then the director and all the actors are imported. You end up with the result that the majority of A-list actors and directors are all foreign imports. ---
**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:** [February 5, 2015, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-many-non-americans-play-americans-now/653742/70 "2015-02-05T21:32:48Z")
> [@CGav8r](#): > > I’ll say actors of previous generations didn’t really do American accents; they adopted the [Mid-Atlantic accent](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_English)(sometimes known as Transatlantic) - I’m thinking of Cary Grant and John Houseman as examples (but it was also used by Americans like Katherine Hepburn and Grace Kelly). > > Without doing a spreadsheet or pie chart, I’m guessing there is a huge increase of Brits playing American, and they can do a better version of our accents. It makes sense. There is far less opportunity for Americans to play British roles, and the accent is less familiar (considering all the pop-culture the U.S. has dropped on the world for the last 100 years.) Still, some Yanks have managed it. Gillian Anderson, who I thought _was_ English, gets decent reviews. As did Rene Zellweger and Denzel Washington. There some actors who should give up on trying to sound American, like David Tennant, Jason Statham and Liam Neeson. I remember noticing David Harewood coming up with some really odd pronunciations in Homeland. He sounded like he was from a heretofore undiscovered land. ---
**Author:** ![BOOM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c4cdca/32.png) [@BOOM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BOOM)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-many-non-americans-play-americans-now/653742/71 "2015-02-05T22:22:24Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > Still, some Yanks have managed it. Gillian Anderson, who I thought _was_ English, gets decent reviews. She kind of is, partly. She was at school in London until age 11. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2015, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-many-non-americans-play-americans-now/653742/72 "2015-02-06T02:19:22Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > Also, a lot of those cable shows are filmed in Canada (again, cheaper) thus hiring Canadians means not having to deal with a lot of messy work visa issues or whatnot. You see a LOT of the same actors showing up on these shows, it starts to be a little game. How long until that one guy shows up? Oh here he is! There’s also the tax break issue. To get the tax breaks of filming in Canada a certain percentage of roles must go to Canadians (along with the majority of production crew jobs). ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2015, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-many-non-americans-play-americans-now/653742/73 "2015-02-06T09:45:42Z")
Well if they **are** Americans they can’t **play** Americans. It’s called acting old chap. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-many-non-americans-play-americans-now/653742.md?page=3)