I’ll add to the parade of dismal British attempts by nominating the entire RSC cast in their recent premiere of Tom Morton-Smith’s (somewhat overly acclaimed in my opinion) Oppenheimer. I’ll grant some leeway for it being theatre rather than film (though you presumably don’t have to project that much in the Swan at Stratford), but none of them were remotely convincing. Throw in some hammy German and Hungarian accents as well.
There’s exactly one character in the play who’s English. And they did him with a fake sounding Thirties accent.
Well, I don’t know whether you’re joking–I see your post has already received what seem to be a couple of joking replies–but as bump said, in the Taken movies, as well as Non-Stop, he’s supposed to be American.
If you’re saying it sounded like he wasn’t even trying, what bump said. It certainly sounded to me like he was trying.
This doesn’t really qualify for this thread, because her accents all sound great to me, but in Orphan Black, Tatiana Maslany plays
many clones, from different countries, who sometimes have to pass themselves off as other clones. So, this Canadian actress plays an American clone with a flawless American accent, but she adopts a total Eliza Doolittle cockney accent to try to pass herself off as the lower-class British clone, or the Ukrainian clone tries to pass herself as American, and it’s just hilariously bad.
I was aware that Gillian Anderson does sound British when at home in England but I was under the impression it was a very mild accent and not as pronounced as her native American accent. She specifically pointed out that her children have very strong British accents.
As was mention earlier John Barrowman grew up with a Scottish accent but worked very hard at sounding American when his family moved to the US in his teens. He can switch back and does when he is around his family. To me his Scottish accent sounds over exaggerated.
Another one similar to that is Fraiser’s Dad John Mahoney. He grew up in Blackpool and emigrated to the US when he was college age. After joining the Army he worked hard at losing his accent to keep from being teased by the other soldiers. I have never heard him attempt to speak with an English accent.
Oops, I do know the difference, I meant his native Scottish accent, or an English one. If I’m remembering correctly, he did an English accent like everyone did in 300 and that was fine.
A lot of folks disagree with me, but I thought Brad Pitt’s Hillbilly accent in Inglorious Basterds was pretty bad. He sounded like an outsider unsuccessfully trying to imitate East Tennessee dialect.
It does to this Scot too. His American accent also sounds a bit exaggerated to my ears, but then he’s an old-fashioned song and dance man at heart, and he’s kinda always “on” anytime I’ve seen him on TV.
She grew up in England. Why would her natural accent be American?
“Spent portions of her childhood in the UK” - You make it sound like she was there only intermittently.
Thick Cajun accents don’t even sound like English. People think that coach in “The Waterboy” was a joke, but if they’d ever really heard real Cajuns, they’d realize that it’s closer to the mark than not.
Nah, it’s pretty heavily Midwestern (he did partially grow up in Illinois), but not really exaggerated, at least not to my ears.
Exaggerated would be most British actors trying to speak in an American accent and getting the vowels and sounds right, but still overenunciating for the accent in question- usually sounds like they’re overdoing the pronunciation in a way that a native never would. Barrowman doesn’t do that at all.
It just seems like he’s using a stage voice, projecting a bit, if that makes any sense? It’s maybe just his way though, he’s got a fairly unusual history and job after all. 
That’s what Barrowman does with his Scottish accent I think. He’s not in Lulu or Sheena Easton territory though.
That’s ridiculous, her accent as the British (main character) clone is really very good. Not as good as the chap that plays the male lead though, his English accent is phenomenal. Probably the best I have ever heard.
IIRC. There was a scene in Buffy or Angel where Spike had to try and fake an American accent, so it was an American doing an intentionally silly English accent pending to do an American accent. It was as amusing as it sounds. I had a good old chuckle.
The UK spy series Spooks (broadcast as MI-5 in the US) had a character of a female CIA agent. It’s been a couple of years since I watched the show, but I remember the accent being pretty bad.
It was bad; I was distracted and couldn’t watch the show, and I’m completely drooly David T fangirl.
I know Americans have a much “flatter” accent than people from England/Ireland/Scotland/Wales, but his was really laughably flat. I wish the show’s writers had come up with a backstory and let him use a British accent.
I think the worst American accent in the history of bad American accents was Nicola Bryant as Perpugilliam “Peri” Brown in classic Doctor Who. She was a companion for the Fifth and Sixth Doctors, and her voice was so annoying she was almost unwatchable for me. I suspect the only female Americans she’d ever heard were brassy diner waitresses.
He was born in Oklahoma. What little I’ve heard from him in that movie sounded authentic as far as a southeastern kind of accent goes.
She talked? I swear to Rassilon, I never noticed.
Speaking as a small-town Southerner (in origin, at least), I’d say he does the accent reasonably well. Not perfectly, but passably. There are a lot worse fake Southern accents out there.
Weirdly, British actors seem better able to do fake Southern accents than American actors who are not from around here.
I watched a couple of episodes on Netflix. Did you notice that it was Danny playing MLK in Selma. I too noticed the CIA agents peculiar accent. Perhaps it’s mid-Atlantic as the role was played by an American who moved to the UK in the late 90’s.
The was an American character on Luther played by Scottish actor Ross McCall. His accent was so bad I think it might have been intentional.