Buffista Movies Across the 8th Dimension!
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
I'm sure there are equivalents in the US, but you don't notice because you don't clock they're not American.
I notice this more with Australian actor than British, but it's the toupee fallacy - since you only notice the bad ones, you think they're easy to spot.
I've been re-listening to the Outlander series, and to my ear, Davina Porter switches effortlessly between a variety of UK-based accents, but chokes when it comes to Americans. Her Bree, with two British parents, I can forgive, but her Joe Abernathy is kind of painful.
Camilla Luddington on Grey's Anatomy is one I didn't notice -- mostly. I think her accent is almost perfect, except she can't quite say "anything" right. (But could her name be more English??)
Well, it varies. The best are the ones where you don't realise they're not British, like Alexis Denisof or Kyle Soller off of Poldark. I'm sure there are equivalents in the US, but you don't notice because you don't clock they're not American.
Denisof (like Gillian Anderson, who was raised there) had the advantage of having lived there for years. Stuff made when he was still a UK resident but supposed to be an American character is hilarious because, at the time, his US accent was as god-awful as, say, Kenneth Branagh's. Which is pretty bad.
I watched a cute-if-predictable rom-com a few months back called "Man Up" and thought Lake Bell (who's from NYC) had a pretty decent British accent to my admittedly untrained ears. You can hear her from the trailer: [link]
(If you're interested in the watching the film, the trailer pretty much gives away the entire plot. But hey, it's a rom-com so you know it's gonna end a certain way.)
There was a movie in the 90's called Judas Kiss that had Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson trying to do New Orleans accents without any success. It was really awful. I see now that Simon Baker was in, too, but I Have no recollection of his attempt.
Speaking of Baker, I never guessed that Owain Yeoman was British until he turned up one time on Midsomer Murders using his (presumably) real accent. Same thing for Damien Lewis. I never picked up his real accent at all in either Band of Brothers or Life.
New Orleans accents are always terrible.
Simon Baker is pretty good, but there's some particular vowel-consonant combination that gives him away. I forget what, but it's something to do with an American rrrrrrr.
Agreed on Owain Yeoman and Damian Lewis. (Damian Lewis. Yum.)
Edit: Oh, and Rose McIvwer on iZombie is flawless. I had no clue, and I can usually pick up on it.
I watched a cute-if-predictable rom-com a few months back called "Man Up" and thought Lake Bell (who's from NYC) had a pretty decent British accent to my admittedly untrained ears.
Well she did direct
In a World...
so I figure she has access to good vocal coaches. I highly recommend both that one and
Man Up,
which is very cute. I particularly liked the dynamics of the older couples in the latter.
Agreed on Owain Yeoman and Damian Lewis.
My theory is all (or at least most) of the British actors who cannot manage a good American accent stay in Britain and do tv and theater there. It's a relative few who can make the leap to the US.
Considering how good the British accent tends to sound to American ears, why not just change the character to a Brit if one of those actors gets cast?
Has Tony Head ever done an American accent?
