I still think of Hugh Laurie as the Prince Regent from Black Adder III, but when I’m watching House I don’t think twice about his accent. It’s good enough that if I didn’t know he wasn’t American I would not have any reason to think he wasn’t from here. Speaking as an American who speaks with pretty much a “standard TV English” accent/non-accent, I’d say he has the same. Most of his inflection variations I put up to character nuance/sounding sarcastic/etc rather than to accent.
Among the people who were fooled was film director and “House” executive producer Bryan Singer.
Here’s some footage of Laurie auditioning for “House.”
I do agree, his American accent has gotten better over time.
How! Haway man!
::ahem::
I mean: cite?
Byker Gruuuuuuuve.
Born in Chicago, apparently grew up in Texas, and college in Boston? I’d’ve never guessed, but it could explain why he does a Brit-Indian mishmash pretty well. I doubt he can remember his “real” accent anymore.
FTR, my non-American friends, and a special call out to the actors in BBC radio, Chicago, San Antonio, and Boston all have VERY different accents, or did before TV started homogenizing American accents, and people from those places sound nothing whatsoever like what I hear on the BBC.
And I don’t understand the love for Bob Hoskins’ accent in “Roger Rabbit.” He sounded like a Cockney trying to do a Bronx accent and not coming close to succeeding.
A Fillet (pronounced as “fill-it”) is a noun used to denote a cut of fish. Properly pronounced in plural, the word is “fill-its”. Adding the “s” on the end means that the “t” on the end cannot be silent. **There is no such word as “fill-ays”. **
Filleting (“fill-ay-ing”) is an action performed on a cut of meat or a surfboard, etc. The word Fillet (“fill-ay”) can also be used as an adjective or adverb, which is why a fillet o’ fish is so named. It describes what has been done to the fish, i.e. the fish is “fill-ayed”, or has been “fill-ayed” – cut a certain way.
Because the French “Filet” Mignon has only one “L”, it is pronounced “fill-ay-min-yon” and not “fill-it-mig-non”. Essentially, the rule would arise out of the same theory, however. The cut of the steak has been derived by an act of “fill-ay-ing” the cut of meat.
Awesome. Just 312,000,000 Americans left to tell.
I am going to go against the grain a little here. I think in most of the cases mentioned where someone is credited as doing a good American accent there is something off-putting about it. I noticed with Bamber, McShane and the girl from Six Feet Under that there was something “off” about the way they spoke before I knew they were not using their native accents. It is to their credit that I couldn’t tell what it was, but still the speech patterns were not natural for someone raised in the States. It wasn’t always something you could put your finger on though.
If I had to try to put it into words I would say that Rachel’s accent came off as being too upper crusty.
McShane could be forgiven because so many people in the Old West were immigrants that the pastiche worked in a way it wouldn’t otherwise. In his case I had assumed he was playing an immigrant because I had never seen McShane in anything before and had no clue what his normal accent would be. But it seemed pretty clear to me his character had not been born in the US and had come over from the UK. He also had a tendency to draw out some words too long trying to get the southern/southwest accent down. But that worked as well because he usually did that when he was mocking someone so you could write it off as being an affectation of the character. Either he was absolutely brilliant in letting just enough through to mark him as an immigrant or the setting conspired to hide what would otherwise have been perceived as flaws.
Bamber’s way of speaking just seemed odd from the get go. I admit I was shocked to hear his true accent but I had picked up that something was not right before then. Certainly Bamber’s accent was nothing like his father’s accent on the show. Apollo did not look, speak or act even remotely like Adama. But that is not uncommon even for American actors. Maybe Bamber just had a bit of that tight, English bulldog jaw. I would have to go back and watch some early episodes to see what I twigged to.
And as far as Costner goes I thought he had tried an accent early in the movie and just decided to drop it after about one or two scenes. It was horrific so he made the right decision. His cadence to me has always been that of someone just learning to read so adding an accent on top of that was just hysterical.
They made Al Swearengen in Deadwood an English immigrant who’d been raised in a Chicago orphanage; the real Al was native born. This was to allow for any discordant accent–although I didn’t really notice any.
Jamie Bamber’s character came from Outer Space! And many of his co-stars were from Canadian Outer Space!
This is an old thread that has been revived, folks, in case you hadn’t noticed.
Anyway, the McDonalds product is not called “Fillet o’fish”. It’s Filet-o-Fish, spelt the French way and therefore naturally pronounced that way, whether you’re American or not.
I’m just giving a nod to Daniel Davis as Niles the Butler on the Nanny. For all the stately Britishness of his voice, he is really from Arkansas.
Feeyay?
OK, pronunced *roughly *the French way. Rather than “fill it”.
Londoner here. I’d never heard it pronounced nou-gah until I came to the states.
Are Sophie’s various American accents in Leverage OK? She’s supposed to be putting them on, so they’re not meant to be perfect, but are they believable?
Nougat = either Nugget or noo-gah in England. It’s more of a class thing than a regional thing and the divide isn’t universal. A few years ago there were some Milky Way ads in the UK which sprouted a debate on the topic on a British messageboard, and that bore out my real-life experience.
Ah, but that would be the fat Zellweger twin, I have to wonder if the thin Zellweger twin is as good with the british accent… 
(I have a theory that theres two of them, because she can’t get that thin afterwards.)
I always assumed it was a joke, but it irritated the hell out of me anyway, because I don’t think it was.
In Arrested Development, the character of Uncle Trevor (Wee Britain parts, with Rita) clearly speaks with an heavy australian accent. It surprises me now to find that he’s canadian, so I assume now it wasn’t a joke. Charlize Theron’s accent was pretty bad, but compared to Trevor, she was like the Queen…
He’s trying (and failing TERRIBLY) to do a cockney English accent, which if mangled enough will sound Australian. I knew the actor wasn’t English as I’d seen him in something previously and he had spoken with his normal accent, so I just took it as part of the good natured Brit bashing that was that particular story arc.
I listen to a lot of audiobooks (have one going in my left ear right now…). Many of the best are read by Brits. Which is wonderful.
Until an American enters the scene: “Waaall, pilgrim, back home in New Yawrrrk, we don’t cotton to tawk lahk thaaattt…”
Yep, I’ve heard multiple characters that were supposed to be Manhatten lawyers (or even Boston aristocracy) sound just like John Wayne.