Bristish Actresses with perfect American accent. (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

but I was impressed with both Elijah Wood

Elijah always seems to talk in that fake British accent.

 

[Roby Adams]

As long as we are doing actors as well, Heath Ledger, Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe, and Hugh Jackman all come from down under or around those parts and all have great American accents.

 

[Patrick_S]

Not to take away anything from Ms. Beckinsale, but I'm pretty sure Nick meant to refer to Cate Blanchett --

Michael I think Nick was referring to Beckinsale since she was in Pearl Harbor.

By the way she also did a good job in Brokedown Palace except for one scene where she clearly slips back into her British accent.

 

[Ryan Peter]

Wanna hear a great SOUTHERN US accent by an English actress? Go watch The Apostle with Miranda Richardson.

 

[Jon_B]

Kate Beckinsale does do pretty good at hiding her british accent. I was shocked to hear her interviewed after watching Brokedown Palace.

Jon

 

[andrew markworthy]

With respect, Americans are probably less successful at doing Brit accents than vice versa, and more limited in their range. Most American attempts I've ever heard are either received pronunciation (i.e. like the Queen), Scottish (generally hard to identify with a specific region, but usually closest to a Glaswegian accent) or some variant of a London accent - either reasonably posh (like Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love) or cockney. This accounts for about a fifth of the Brit population. Probably the best Brit accents I've heard are the ones on Spinal Tap - for years I thought all the band members were Brits (okay, one of them is an English lord - and I'm *not* making that up - but the rest are Americans). I'm not sure that this is because an American accent is 'easier' than a Brit one. However, it certainly is the case that Brit actors who go to stage school get intensive coaching in doing different accents. This is in part so that they have a wider range of work options, but (long story) also tied up with the (justifiable) obsession with clear speaking needed for Shakesperean work.

Trivia: the guy who play's Frasier's dad is British.

 

[PhilipG]

Trivia: the guy who play's Frasier's dad is British.

No way! John Mahoney? That makes 2 Brits in the regular cast. Why the heck then can they never find any Brits to play any other non-regular Brit characters? The American-attempted British accents on Frasier are generally appalling, and are the show's only weakness. Funniest was Anthony LaPaglia playing Mancunian Daphne's brother, replete with hammy Dick Van Dyke Cockney accent (although IMDB informs me LaPaglia was born in Australia).

 

[Michael Reuben]

Michael I think Nick was referring to Beckinsale since she was in Pearl Harbor.

Oops. Missed the Pearl Harbor reference. Maybe I have a mental block about that film.
M.

 

[Nick]

I was watching "Broke down Palace" with my Thai friends awhile back and they did made a comment that Kate Beckinsale thai accent wasn't that bad either. She said couple of thai phrases in that movie.

May be she was a dialect coach before she became an actress.

 

[andrew markworthy]

John Mahoney is originally from Manchester (though I should perhaps have added that he's lived in the States for a good many years now). Once you know this, you can occasionally hear a hint of a Mancunian accent. Indeed, he has occasionally helped out the actress playing Daphne (memory loss - Jane Leeves?) with her pronunciation, since she is definitely not a Lancashire lass.

Incidentally, sorry to nitpick, but Daphne's accent is not Mancunian. If anything it's a generic south Lancashire accent (Burnley region) with the edges knocked off so that (with respect) it's more intelligible to American ears. As a good proportion of my relatives are from south Lancashire and I lived in Manchester for circa 7 years, I think I'm reasonably sure of this point!

 

[Ryan Peter]

What did you guys think of Don Cheadle's accent in Ocean's Eleven? I thought it sounded good. What about Brad Pitt in Snatch? Was he remotely close to a pikey's accent?

 

[Jason Seaver]

My Irish roommate says Brad Pitt absolutely nailed his accent in Snatch, but laughed pretty hard at Cheadle in Ocean's Eleven. I have to admit, Cheadle was up to about 8.3 on the Unintentional Comedy Rating, but it worked as that.

 

[Terrell]

Yep! Higgy-baby did a great English accent on Magnum PI.

 

[Julian Lalor]

Kidman was born in America (Hawaii) to Australian parents; her father was teaching at a University and they soon returned to Australia. That is the extent of Kidmans American-ness (until Tom, of course), unlike Gibson who was born in the US to an American father and Australian mother and who emigrated to Australia when he was 12 to escape the Vietnam War (which was odd, given that Australia was also conscripting young men at the same time). A bit of trivia: Gibson's father was a champion on an Australian quiz show (Sale of the Century) around the time Mel was doing the Mad Max films.

I find Kidman's American accent to be more trans-Pacific than American proper (although its better than her English accent - in moments of stress during Moulin Rouge it descends into strine - although having that movie made in Australia and being around Australians may have had some influence there). The American accents of fellow Australians Blanchett, Judy Davis, Frances O'Connor, Naomi Watts (who was born in the UK but grew up in Australia), Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe (albiet via Auckland) more convincing. Perhaps most extraordinary is Anthony LaPaglia, who I thought was Brooklyn born he looks so Italian-American but is in fact from Adelaide in Australia (his real accent is on display in the wonderful Lantana).

As for Americans doing Brits, Streep was dead on in Plenty (what a shock) and even did the impossible - a good Australian/NZ accent in Evil Angels (A Cry in the Dark). Zellweger's accent was bland but very good in Bridget Jones's Diary as was Glenn Glose's in 101-102 Dalmations. Leonardo's Irish accent in the trailer for Gangs of New York is up there with Cruise's in Far and Away in the cringe stakes, although Lewis' American accent seems pretty spot on (I do find it amusing that you have an American actor playing an Irishman against an Irish actor playing an American in this film).

Denzel Washington had an excellent accent in a Brit film of a decade ago (I think called For Queen and Country), but Cheadle's cockney in Ocean's 11 was so bad I thought that it was a joke until I realised he wasn't going to stop it. As bad as it was, it pales against the grand-daddy of all bad British accents: Keanu in Bram Stoker's Dracula. In fact, that whole movie is a litany of bad accents (great film, though).

 

[PhilipG]

Incidentally, sorry to nitpick, but Daphne's accent is not Mancunian. If anything it's a generic south Lancashire accent (Burnley region) with the edges knocked off so that (with respect) it's more intelligible to American ears. As a good proportion of my relatives are from south Lancashire and I lived in Manchester for circa 7 years, I think I'm reasonably sure of this point!

I said the same thing to a friend of mine a year or two back (that there's no way that's a Manchester accent). This is just from watching half an ep of Corrie once. He replied that it is a genuine Manchester accent, since he'd been living there for a few years some time back. Can't remember if he said north or south of the city, but he said there were big variations depending which part of Manchester you were in...

 

[Paul Mason]

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned Meryl Streep yet. She's done various accents apparently very well. Her British accent in Plenty was posh but very good. IIRC posh was appropriate for the character.

Gwyneth Paltrow always seems too nasal to me - but then so does her American accent.

James Marsters in Buffy is variable but usually good.

Johnny Depp in From Hell is pretty good (must be all those episodes of the Fast Show he watches)

Someone mentioned Kenneth Branagh. He's actually Irish but has totally lost that accent (though he can still put it on). Even though I'm not American I thought his accent in "Dead Again" was very dodgy.

Mike Myers can do both English and Scottish very well.

Someone mentioned Daphne in Frasier. I have to mention the truly awful accents they've had on that show. Clive - Daphne's ex-fiance - was a real Dick Van Dyke. Anthony LaPaglia was better but not by much - fortunately he had personality and like the man said "personality goes a long way"

 

[andrew markworthy]

Philip, Daphne's accent could at a stretch be from one of the northern parts of Greater Manchester, but in old county terms, that's south Lancashire. Thus, we're both right!

I happened to see Plenty on the TV with an expert on psycholinguistics who spent a lot of the movie pointing out how she could detect Streep's underlying American accent. She can do this with practically any actor doing anything other than their native voice. I gave her a tape of Mary Poppins one Christmas...

 

[Mike Broadman]

Gwyneth Paltrow always seems too nasal to me - but then so does her American accent.

As mentioned before, Paltrow is American. I remember when she hosted Saturday Night Live, she began her monologue with an English accent (this was when Shakespeare in Love was big). Ben Affleck "interrupted" her and convinced her that she needn't fake an English accent to be taken seriously as an actress.
And what, no credit to Madonna for her English accent?:rolleyes

 

[Paul Mason]

Mike - I was aware that Gwyneth Paltrow was American.

 

[Ryan Peter]

Geezus, have you guys forgotton about Corky St. Clair's dead-on British accent which he displays at the end of "Waiting For Guffman"? I swear I thought Corky was from Merry Olde England when he began talking with that accent.