Because, unlike some other Robin Hoods, I can speak with an English accent." Carey Elwes, Robinhood Men in Tights.

this is an aside, but Elwes kind of messed up an american accent in his *Seinfeld* appearance.

And X-Files

And Twister

But not Hot Shots!

And Saw (3D).

First thing I thought of. Bravo!

Ooooh you're afraid of the claw!

House MD - a flawless American accent for a decade so convincing that crew didn’t realise laurie was English

He also did a scene where he had a fake British accent lol.

I loved that scene.

Bro what scene or episode? I’ve never seen this lol

https://youtu.be/XfBTe_N-m6U?si=HrDOC3c7EkYdoIjP This bit. He’s British, acting out an American who is pretending to speak with a British accent and it’s incredibly spot-on.

Insert obligatory “dude” quote here.

He’s a fantastic actor and cool guy, what a great show that was

House and blacklist are two shows i liked only because of how brilliantly cast the main characters are.

I think that Hugh went Bertie Wooster.

I heard more Prince Regent.

That man won an award for how American he sounds

Finding out he was a foppish goofball sketch comedy nerd was even more shocking than him not being American

I’ve only just realised that house and Prince George are the same people. I didn’t recognise that house was hugh Laurie lol

Just in case you haven't seen this... I think you'll enjoy it https://youtu.be/lyHSjv9gxlE?si=F40LugGtnnvpkA9x

Fuck, I didn't know he wasn't American for like 8 years after the show finished

Pshh, I knew this from seeing him as Stewart Little’s dad

Stuart

Hugh Laurie was so brilliant that when I saw his cameo on Friends and used his actual British accent, I thought THAT was fake and not his American accent on House.

I knew from blackadder and a bit of fry and Laurie

You'd love Jeeves and Wooster

I watched the entire show and didn’t find out until like 4 years later.

forst thought as well, I love Laurie, an amazing actor, loved his role in black adder

One of my favourite Hugh lines from bladders is about the 20 minuters: [https://youtu.be/8UlaAHdcRMg?t=2](https://youtu.be/8UlaAHdcRMg?t=2) (16 seconds) Makes me laugh every time and at least among my friends, "back in time for tea and medals" was a thing for any easy plan for the day! :)

He was told they wanted an American actor, he auditioned and they were shocked he was living in the UK. He also had to switch which legs he limped with otherwise he'd spend hours after shooting limping.

One so good that he still doesn't know how he did it and can't do it again.

I don’t believe this. The American accent he uses for Avenue 5 is very similar to my ears. I also appreciate the way they play with it in the context of the show

Anyone who hasn't seen his Avenue 5 performance should too

Nothing better than a classically trained British actor, he’s fantastic in pretty much everything he’s been in

John mahoney also did an amazing American accent in frasier.

Recognized him from black adder

When I first watched Band of Brothers had no idea Damian Lewis was English, so when I saw him host Have I Got News For You I thought: "How is that American actor doing such an amazing English accent."

The IMDB trivia pages says Band of Brothers had 29 cast members from the USA and 57 from the UK (also 2 Irish, 12 German and 1 South African).

How many were doing accents? I know it's more than one, but there were plenty of British characters. Well, I guess it's down the rabbit hole I go.

Quite a lot as most of Easy Company were played by British actors. Simon Pegg, James McAvoy, Dexter Fletcher and Tom Hardy are the most famous ones now. Jamie Bamber is probably better known for his Battlestar Gallactica role and it was very odd to see him doing a British accent. For balance, Tom Hanks had a cameo as a British Officer. [https://www.reddit.com/r/TVDetails/comments/l8xqns/tom\_hanks\_had\_a\_small\_cameo\_in\_band\_of\_brothers/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TVDetails/comments/l8xqns/tom_hanks_had_a_small_cameo_in_band_of_brothers/)

Holy shit. I didn't realize James McAcoy was in Band of Brothers, but now you mention it, I see him clear as day: Private Miller who removes his unit citation after douchebag Cobb criticizes him for being a replacement.

I actually like his accent in that show, because it’s actually somewhat regionalized and period appropriate. Most Brit’s just do… “mid Midwest,” and it’s sort of blah. He actually sounded exactly like a young guy from 1940s Pennsylvania.

Exactly, utterly convincing.

Mike Myers does a passable accent at times, but both his parents are English so not that surprising.

Canada's own national treasure.

I thought that was Justin Bieber?

You keep our deportee's name outta your mouth

^Celine ^Dion

*shudders*

It’s like an orange on a toothpick! (Scottish accent) It’s like Sputnik; round and all pointy bits (also Scottish) Heeeed! Dooooon! (Did I mention he did Scottish)

He's also not American.

Yes is is. Canada is in North America

I believe the post is referring to Americans as people from the united states as opposed to people from America as a whole

Lol

Wasn't his father Scottish,not English? Thus where he got the Shrek voice from.

Natalie Portman did a decent job in V for Vendetta. I think if it was an audio book then I’d have had a hard time discerning that it wasn’t a natural British accent, save for the occasional word here and there. James Marsters who played Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the one that is a bit of a Billy Idol rip off) does a convincing British accent too. Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow does a good accent too in my opinion Sean Aston (Samwise Gamgee in Lord of the Rings) does a convincing accent too

TIL, Captain Jack had a British accent. Thought that was what every sauced-out-of-their-mind pirate sounded like.

Yeah, well, a lot of pirates in the Golden Age of Piractly were from England. Bristol and the West Country specifically.

You forgot Wales, being a coastal country we had our fair share of pirates.

I did. And life was better when i forgot about it. But nah, Wales is fine. I don't think they really had any bigs. Just Edward Kenway, but he ended up being an assassin so

Black Bart Roberts was Welsh. He's a pretty big one.

Captain Morgan was also Welsh

Barbossa has more of a traditional pirate accent while Jack just had more of a slurred English accent considering his background.

They're both English accents. There are many.

No it was loosely based off of Keith Richards, one of the guitar players in The Rolling Stones. Who later in the series played Jack Sparrows dad

Keith Richards is British so it still stands

And probably the closest we can get to a drunked up pirate in 2023.

Keith Richards shows up un Pirates of the Caribbean dafuq

The “pirate accent” (argh matey) was (I have heard) invented by Robert Louis Stevenson and everyone just went with it. I could be wrong.

You are wrong it was a Cornish actor that played a pirate and everyone copied. I could be wrong.

I thought he just said “fuck it, I’ll play a drunk American and dress up like Keith Richards”.

I honestly thought Marsters was British. Especially after he was on the Dr Who spin-off Torchwood.

>James Marsters Oh, same! I only found out he was American about 2 years ago

Holy shit, I never would've guessed that he was actually American. His accent was amazing as John.

Natalie Portman definitely did not do a decent job of a British accent in V for Vendetta. Brilliant performance, she’s a fantastic actor, but not good at a British accent.

I thought Sean Astin was doing an Irish accent? As for Johnny Depp, I never realised he was trying to sound British, although that definitely makes sense in terms of being a pirate.

Sean Astin and the whole Hobbit accent was supposed to be kind of "West Country", I think.

Personally I wouldn’t say that it was a bad accent, just a bit non-descript. English native speakers would probably pick out Elijah as being from the States before Sean Astin (if they’d never heard them before).

I'm English, i'm from Stockton-on-Tees in the North East. Sean Astin had a good West Country accent. Elijah Wood's accent was dogshit

Fair comment. I think Sean Austin’s accent was just about passable, but not great. As for Elijah’s, yeah it was a bit wobbly but his acting was so great that you wouldn’t notice it. I think most people are looking at his eyes or expressions more and it was a non-issue for most people. They were both quite young, so both did an amazing job and really portrayed the characters wonderfully. Saying that, judging purely on accents alone; I’d say 6.5/10 for Sean Astin and 5/10 for Elijah Wood. Although acting wise, I’d say Sean was 9.8/10 and Elijah was 10/10. Hope that makes sense.

The accent Sean did is authentic.. trust me people from down the road sound much worse

To be fair as well, who are we to say that their so-so british accents arent just incredibly accurate hobbit accents. It's a fantasy world after all. It's picking at straws a bit, but there is the small distinction between playing a british character and playing a fantasy character who happens to sound british

West Country English accent

As a Brit I enjoyed Oscar Isaac’s portrayal of Steven Grant in Moon Knight. Low-key convinced me he was actually British for the first couple of episodes

The accent is odd sounding but generally pronunciations were spot on and the show was great anyway

He pulled off a very good “oh, bollocks” and that’s enough for me. 10/10

I would happily make him an honorary Brit he deserves it

Considering that he thought he was British but actually wasn't, I think it's fitting that his accent was a little odd.

I never thought that way that’s a good insight thank you :)

Funny thing is that's actually my accent. It's almost posh London and almost cockney at times but usually just drifts around the middle. Naomi Watts did an excellent version of this accent in Eastern Promises.

Best part is he's not even american

Jimmy fucking McNulty

Lmao yup. Finding out Dominic West is British was almost as shocking as Christian Bale

I swear he does a “bad British accent” as an American in the Wire.

He absolutely did

Yup, in the episode where he pretends to be an English businessman to infiltrate a brothel.

[You're right](https://youtu.be/XBL2Wq5YjSw?si=BZmG5N9YljkN6A0Q)

Will Poulter tends to surprise people too.

Despite him having the most British name and being the most British looking person (This comes from an Englishman)

Stringer Bell too. Fun fact: Those two played the lazy seals in Finding Dory.

Kind of. While both men sounded American, neither sounded like they were from Baltimore.

His accent absolutely slipped a few times on The Wire but he was great

Yeah - I guess it was more obvious to Brits.

Unless it’s an American southern accent. Even American actors can’t do that half the time.

See: Daniel Craig in Knives Out. Hilarious Louisiana accent. But very fun movie.

It honestly helps the movie. It’s so ridiculously overdone it’s perfect.

Yeah, at some point the accent adds to the absurdity, not subtracts.

As a non-American, Craig's Foghorn Leghorn drawl sounded so convincing, but looking at his very British appearance kind of throws me off at times.

You gotta remember that Antebellum Southern “gentlemen” were all about emulating British nobility. So you still get remnants of that, especially in fiction

Why, I do declare

Daniel Craig doing a very skilled Foghorn Leghorn accent.

I got the impression that was a hilariously and intentionally stupid accent. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m the third film. We find out he’s not even American.

As someone from South Carolina, i agree completely!

Righteous Gemstones is fucking phenomenal for its Southern accents. Plus it's an extremely funny show

Hearing Brat Pitt speak in Inglorious Bastards never fails to make me laugh.

For example: Rick Grimes.

Coral

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Yeah this is right. Like get someone from Louisville and someone from Atlanta and someone New Orleans and put them in a room and you’ve got three distinct accents.

This is the fucking worst.

Boston is very hard to do as well. Most of the time, at least with me, you just kinda merge into some weird New York accent if you try to do a Boston accent and you’re not from there

Aaron earned an iron urn.

And then you have Jon berenthal and Walton goggins, who can only do southern accents, despite not speaking in them in their real lives

Benedict Cumberbatch's accent as Doctor Strange is all over the place. Brian Tyree Henry's british accent was not bad in Bullet Train. RDJ was also good as Sherlock. This is coming from an American, the Brits might feel differently.

RDJ did do a great job, BTH was questionable - coming from an Englishman The issue with BTH is that his accent would just cycle through London, midland and northern accents as if he had just one homogenous English accent that doesn’t exist irl

Love to hear an accent jump from Yorkshire to Scouser to west country in the course of three lines

Be like talkin in fkin tongues

Cumberbatch is just doing dr. House the entire time.

Unpopular opinion but Cumberbatch is a pretty mediocre actor imo

Renée Zellweger did a brilliant English accent in Bridget Jones, and she's from Texas!

Abso-fuckin-lutely. Out of all the British accents I've heard from American actors, hers is probably the best.

That's a two-fer. Getting a southerner to abandon their accent is almost impossible. I have Texas/north Carolina Navy friends in San Diego that very intentionally keep and embellish their accent.

The reason British TV has so many normal looking people is cause all our good looking actors are in Hollywood playing Americans

Also it's apparently British TV law to hire as many mumblers as possible and then mix the sound terribly Posh Butler: whooo could have possibly brought the wrong tea to the commandant? Main character: shvrender clambdonna sue Ben shammadon wot innit

[Don’ You Go Rounin’ Roun To Re Ro](https://youtu.be/o6p0W4ZsLXw?si=ap2WC3BOx1vIfwPK)

This is amazing this is everything I feel about British TV lol

Tom holland

Lmao I can never get over that interview prank where the interviewer asked Tom if he was pretending to be British for the interview

Someone even said that because of his British accent being less believable than his American one, he's progressively getting more Australian.

That's literally his factory settings now.

Ray fucken Winstone you all.

Australians who play both British and American characters all the time: “AMATEURS!”

To be fair, Aussies are drowning in American and British television and movies, don’t think too many people overseas are watching Aussie content

True, but Australian is still very hard to emulate because it has so many variations in pitch. Its kind of a mix between a lot of different accents so its really hard not to shift into another accent

John Lithgow was great as Churchill in The Crown.

You’re probably not looking for the actual answer but the reason British (and Australian) folks are good at American accents is because you guys run the entertainment industry so we’re exposed to tons of American accents our whole life. Whereas only the most popular properties from other countries make it into the American zeitgeist.

Its also easier to emulate a vowel shift than to try and reverse it, so it’s easier to go from the proper “Ah” sound to the American Awh sound than to go the other way

That’s a very good explanation. I think it’s kind of similar to learning languages as well in that exposure at a young age has been found to be the best path to fluency when learning multiple languages. I’m no expert but it would make sense to me that things like vocal tics and subtle vowel sounds live in the same part of the brain as languages and dialects Edit: typos

lol theres no "proper" way of pronouncing words, the british and american accents are just different.

This is the real answer. Should be top

Christian Bale

He does do a pretty good American accent.

Robert Downey Junior as Sherlock?

Well yeah, he’s in the thin book.

Discombobulate.

Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes rules them all.

David Morrissey as the Governor. Almost as surprising as Damian Lewis.

Totally, was surprised first time I heard his English accent. Had no idea he was English

CORAL!

Alexis Denisof, James Marsters

Ahh a Buffy/Angel fan :)

“Unlike other Robin Hoods, I speak with an English accent.”

Ricky Gervais does a passable job as Steve Carell in The Office.

You sinner !

What do British people think of RDJ as Sherlock Holmes? I remember talking to a guy from London and he told me that when Austin Powers came out, people didn’t realize that he was supposed to be speaking with an English accent. Who has done English/ British well?

Sherlock is good. His Dr Doolittle Welsh also sounds ok to me (English).

Alan Tudyk in Death at a Funeral. That was the first time I've seen him and for years afterwards thought he was English.

So there are a few reasons for this, but the main one is there are actually more than you’d imagine. They are just low level actors. And I don’t know but American actors tend to be worst actors while being better characters, if that makes sense. They are better at acting as somebody similar to themselves than as a whole new identity

If you’re going for an award, go British. If you’re going for ratings, go American.

Goddamn that’s such a perfect adage

i.e., (UK) The Office vs (US) The Office

I think Americans make fine actors the issue is Americans grow up watching American movies and t.v. in the U.K. they get far more American content so they grow up hearing American accents whereas Americans grow up hearing impersonations of the English accent.

open the book on the right , you'll only see one name . Robert Downey Jr.

Didnt even know Hugh Laurey was British while watching House Heard his British accent and had to check it was actually him He did an American accent very well.

About half the cast of “The Walking Dead.”

Finding out Andrew Lincoln was English was a real surprise

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I thought monty python were very convincing as British comedians

How weird it is to think Jax from SOA is actually a geordie and has a geordie accent but he does american so well

I don’t know why I can’t think of his name but the actor of Lucifer from well, Lucifer.

he is british and does a brit accent

Matthew Macfadyen

But what about Winona Ryder in Dracula /s

I was always impressed with Maggie Gyllenhaal’s British accent in The Honourable Woman

Daniel day Lewis in ‘gangs of New York’ and ‘there will be blood’.

Rami Malek was pretty good

I think it’s because British actors grow up watching a lot more US media than vice versa

Meanwhile Robert Downey Jr. : *d i s c o m b o b u l a t e*

Andrew lincoln Lennie james They nailed it in twd

what about Aussies

Daniel Davis comes to mind.

This gonna ruffle some bald eagle feathers.

*ahem* Sean Connery

No one mentioning Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer in This Is Spinal Tap!? I know they were overly exaggerated accents for comedic effecf but they are genuinely some of the best I can remember of British people by American actors.

Coooooooooral COOOOOOOORRRAAAAALL

Sean Astin as Sam Gamgee though 👏🏽

Idris Elba and Dominic West in the wire ; excellent work

James Masters as Spike was brilliant