Christian Bale. Had no idea he wasn't American until I heard him in interview.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Matthew Rhys! I was shocked when I saw him on an interview a few years ago and realized he was Welsh. He does such a good American accent in everything he’s done.

+1 -- Also Damien Lewis -- though he's not quite as good as Rhys. Lewis has said that the hardest American accent sound for Brits to master is an "r" in the middle of a word. He gave an example if dialogue from Band of Brothers where he had to say "It hurts."

That's so funny because I remember after watching the interview with Rhys and then the Americans, he does occasionally pronounce information like "in-fuh-mation" but I don't think I would have realized it if I didn't know he wasn't American.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Matthew Rhys! I was shocked when I saw him on an interview a few years ago and realized he was Welsh. He does such a good American accent in everything he’s done.

+1 -- Also Damien Lewis -- though he's not quite as good as Rhys. Lewis has said that the hardest American accent sound for Brits to master is an "r" in the middle of a word. He gave an example if dialogue from Band of Brothers where he had to say "It hurts."

DP. Not to derail, because the OP was about American actors doing other accents (despite the thread title) -- but, YES! This is a great example you give. The hard "R" sound in so much American English is tough for Brits and sometimes a less experienced British actor will bear down too hard on the R and over-emphasize it. I think the flip side is true as well; Americans doing various British accents seem to have a hard time being convincing with the softer, "ah"-like R. Think, "It hurts" but with (let's say) an English received pronunciation accent, like, "It huhts" -- so easy to overdo the lack of the hard R.

There is a terrifically interesting dialect coach who works with a lot of actors and who does very informative YouTube videos. Erik Singer. Look up some of his videos. Fascinating. And he does a lot more than just US-British and British-US dialect coaching. He talks about the Leo DiCaprio "Blood Diamond" accent in one of his videos, I believe.

Anonymous wrote:The cop Jimmy from the Wire was a Brit and I couldn't tell. It was hilarious, looking back, when he tried a British accent to go undercover.

i always could tell he had an accent as Jimmy. And that episode with him going undercover as an English gentleman caller was funny as hell.

same with portia de rossi. i can hear her accent sometimes in arrested development but she mostly pulls it off.

Anonymous wrote:Matthew Rhys! I was shocked when I saw him on an interview a few years ago and realized he was Welsh. He does such a good American accent in everything he’s done.

+1 -- Also Damien Lewis -- though he's not quite as good as Rhys. Lewis has said that the hardest American accent sound for Brits to master is an "r" in the middle of a word. He gave an example if dialogue from Band of Brothers where he had to say "It hurts."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is a train wreck

Really? Why? It was just a question. Relax.

I love the question and think it’s an interesting one. Everyone is being weird and combative (including you) and lots of poor reading comprehension.

To be fair, it started with the sucky writing.

Anonymous wrote:I'm watching Mare of Easttown and there's Kate Winslet and Guy Pearce and they are just some of the many actors who are able to sound totally American despite having British or Australian or whatever accents. So I'm wondering, are there any American actors that you know of who have pulled off sounding like they are from another country, with a legit sounding accent? i can't think of any. I'm not sure audiences in other countries would even put up with that.

OP, maybe ask the moderator of the forums to change the title if he will do that. The thread title is the opposite of what you're asking about in the post. That's why the replies are all over the map and so many are addressing the title, not the content of the actual post.

The cop Jimmy from the Wire was a Brit and I couldn't tell. It was hilarious, looking back, when he tried a British accent to go undercover.

Not only is Jimmy McNulty a Brit, but the kind of Brit that has a family home like this (his wife is a viscountess and daugther of a knight):

Anonymous wrote:Matthew Rhys! I was shocked when I saw him on an interview a few years ago and realized he was Welsh. He does such a good American accent in everything he’s done.

Me too!

Nicole Kidman
Naomi Watts
Russell Crowe

Anonymous wrote:Hugh Laurie as Dr. House. Perfect American accent. Also Matthew Rhys
In the Americans. I think he is Welsh or Scottish.

Rhys is Welsh. Even more impressive since English is his second language.

Anonymous wrote:Jennifer Ehle, who played Elizabeth Bennet in the 1995 BBC version of pride and prejudice, is American, I believe. But with British family members I think.

Her mother is the British actress Rosemary Harris and her father is an American author. She officially grew up largely in the US but spent a LOT of time in the UK and her drama training was pretty much split between US and UK drama schools. So she's got the goods to deliver a more than credible British accent.

Totally separate from the reply above:
I'll note that when we talk over here about American actors "doing a British accent" or "doing an English accent" we are off the mark. The differences in accents just in England alone, much less across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland (yes, Northern Ireland sounds different from the Republic of Ireland, and Belfast can sound different from other parts of tiny Northern Ireland) -- the differences can be VAST. My husband is English and even he has to work hard to comprehend accents in some "British" shows. It's fascinating and important, too, because accent is tied there not only to location but still very tied to notions of class in ways that don't always translate, pun intended, for Americans.

Hugh Laurie as Dr. House. Perfect American accent. Also Matthew Rhys
In the Americans. I think he is Welsh or Scottish.

Anonymous wrote:A lot of people are surprised when they find out James Marsters and Alexis Denisof from Buffy/Angel aren’t British.

Denison, yes; Marsters, not so much. Also funny is that the guy who plays Giles has a totally different British accent in real life.

Jennifer Ehle, who played Elizabeth Bennet in the 1995 BBC version of pride and prejudice, is American, I believe. But with British family members I think.