Three things: [COLOR=“Lime”]Money[/COLOR], [COLOR=“SeaGreen”]money[/COLOR], and money.
America has been the destination for financial-success-seeking actors since, well since Hollywood invented ‘celebrity’ in the sense we know it today. It’s been the ultimate goal for musicians since The Beatles. America has the most developed, streamlined, flush with cash, new-talent-desiring entertainment industry on the planet. TV reality shows have quadrupled it in the past decade or so. And as far as The UK & Europe are concerned, yeah, our upper crust income tax rates are a lot lower.
Just as an example look at Hugh Laurie. Near as I can tell he’s been a household name comic actor in Britain for over twenty years now. But before *House *he was completely unknown in the US. Also, and this is just a complete guess, but he’s probably earned 50 times as much money in eight years of *House *than in all of his previous career.
Vivian Leigh? Lawrence Oliver? Richard Burton? Alec Guiness. Sydney Potier? Elizabeth Taylor. Gregory Peck. Cary Grant? Peter Sellers. Peter Niven.It’s not new.
One of the things furthermore that I think has happened in the last 50 years (say post 1960) is that Hollywood has preferred star power over acting ability to a level much greater than elsehwhere. The question seems to be that if you have the looks and the charisma then as long as you can say your lines without looking like too much of an idiot, you are in. Actual acting ability seems to have taken a back seat for many years, with far too many actors having limited range. In England, especially due to the RADA and the Old Vic, acting skills are still paramount. In the last decade audiences have gotten tired of of the old formula and what to see some depth. In an era of global communications, its easy for a skilled overseas actor/actress to compete.
Also I think you can, at least initially, pay them less.
Hugh Laurie had to concentrate on maintaining his American accent when working on House. He would stay in character even when not filming a scene because he found it difficult to switch in and out of it easily. When appearing on talk shows or elsewhere outside of House, he spoke in his natural British accent.
Christian Bale, on the other hand, uses his American accent when doing interviews for American TV.
And the opposite works too. Renee Zellwegger in Briget Jones Diary which she did a marvellous job of.
Good point.
Ive been told that American audiences have a particular perspective for characters in films and TV. They are attracted to a star whom they enjoy watching play a part. Tom Cruise is a very good example. He does good work but he is always Tom Cruise acting a role. There is comfort and conformity for the public with an actor they recognise. Michael J Fox is another.
By contrast Meryl Streep went virtually unrecognised for two decades in the US because she was so chameleon-like as an actress. She became the character and wasn’t recognisable from movie to movie. I think Kevin Spacey gets there sometimes too.
Personally I love actors who become their characters. Check out The Wire which had a host of unknown British actors.
As for British and Australian actors gaining American roles? Maybe they are simply very good at the craft. That has always been obvious to me.
It’s not necessary to look for any reasons except economic ones. It’s the same reason that American professional sports teams have so many non-American players these days. (Indeed, it’s the same reason that so many products sold in the U.S. are manufactured somewhere else.) The owners of the film production and distribution companies feel no loyalty to their American employees. In fact, many of them aren’t American companies at all but are international ones. The reasons that it’s easier to hire foreign actors for roles requiring American accents are two. First, foreign travel is much cheaper than it used to be. As recently as the 1950’s, it was still about the same to fly across the Atlantic as to take a cruise ship. Now it’s much cheaper to fly. This means that it’s no big deal to fly the actor you’ve hired for the role to Hollywood for your movie or for a season of your TV show. Second, actors are much better at picking up accents than they used to be. This may be because acting schools and coaches came up with new techniques to teach accents, or it may be that actors are now told that if they want to get any decent roles, they have to learn to do a variety of accents.
If you formerly had your choice of just American (and Canadian, I guess) actors for roles and now have the choice of American, Canadian, British, Irish, Australian, New Zealander, and South African actors, there’s obviously going to be a larger proportion of roles going to non-Americans. Indeed, there are several cases of Europeans (and even actors from other continents) who aren’t even native English speakers getting roles in American movies where they play Americans. If you can do a decent American accent, producers don’t remotely care where you came from. The actors know that they will get better paying roles from American (or international co-production) movies and TV shows, so they are happy to work outside their own country. They have the choice whether to move to the U.S. or to commute for each movie or each TV season for their acting roles.
Elizabeth Taylor is not that great of an example. Taylor was born in England but her parents were American (they lived in England for business reasons). Taylor’s family returned to the United States when she was seven.
Or Thor: you had an Australian (Hemsworth), an Israeli (Portman), a Welshman (Hopkins), a Swede (Skarsgard), a Canadian (Feore), a Japanese (Asano), and three Britons (Hiddleston, Elba, and Stevenson).
Only recent big name movie I know of with an American playing British is Sherlock Homes 1 and 2 starring Robert Downey Jr. There are probably other examples.
Nitpick, I don’t think Canadian actors playing American parts is so surprising considering that most Canadians don’t have a dramatically different accents than Americans in contrast to Australians or British actors.
Also, yes Portman is an Israeli citizen, but she’s also an American citizen, was raised in the US and English is her first language, so I don’t think she’s the best example.
And to show how confusing these sorts of things get, her husband is French. She has homes on Long Island and in London. I would assume that she also has a home in France.
Indeed. Canadians have played Americans for years: Donald Sutherland, Dan Aykroyd, Leslie Nielson, Walter Pidgeon, John Candy … the list is long. Even Fay Wray, of King Kong fame, was originally from Canada.
Any difference in accent would be negligible, as the above (and others) have demonstrated through their careers; so Canadians playing Americans in American movies and TV shows shouldn’t be surprising at all.
A couple of more examples: Lorne Greene played Ben Cartwright, the patriarch of the Ponderosa, and William Shatner’s most famous role was that of a spaceship captain from Iowa.
