Why is "Hollywood" turning to foreign actors to play Americans?

[fried eggs]

This isn't an anti-foreigner post, I'm just curious because I've noticed a lot of my favorite shows (like The Walking Dead) are comprised of Australians or people from the UK pretending to be American. It just seems kind of odd that people are being hired to pretend to be American when there are actual American actors in need of work. Are actors given more points if they can fake an accent or something?

[FreakinDJ]

1. I'm sure the Indians felt the same way

[msanthrope]

3. Won on the first post. Well done. nt

[Hekate]

70. Not to mention the Asian-Americans upstaged by Euro-Americans with taped eyelids. nt

[Blaukraut]

2. Cheaper, probably. Also, NZ and Australia really promote acting schools

So a lot of good talent comes from over there. Again, at the fraction of the going rate of an American actor.

[Gato Moteado]

4. hollywood is outsourcing now????

I guess if they had really wanted to save money they could've gone to india!

[fried eggs]

6. That's interesting. But somehow I don't think

the actors I'm referring to are getting a fraction of the going rate. They're very talented. I'm just surprised at the frequency of turning to non-American actors to play Americans.

[Violet_Crumble]

23. Which actors are you referring to?

I'm pretty sure actors like Hugh Laurie, Simon Baker, Hugh Jackman, and Chris Hemsworth would be getting the going rate. It would severely limit the opportunities for British and Australian actors who want to work in Hollywood if the only roles they could go for are ones where a character is either British or Australian. The only one I can think of off the top of my head who auditioned for a role originally written as an American character, but which was rewritten to suit the actor was Jesse Spencer from House where they turned his character into an Australian as they wanted him in the role...

[bettyellen]

86. Dominic West (the Wire) Andrew Lincoln (Walking Dead) and that redheaded guy who stars in Homeland..

totally forgot his name. It seems like it is a "thing" on cable TV right now, no idea why. Walking Dead is pretty funny when you see behind the scenes interviews, because it is three main actors that are British or Australian, and they do southern accents- which somehow feels like an extra layer of "playing American".
Oh man, I am watching too much TV, LOL.

[enlightenment]

5. I think it's just cross-pollination

and whoever is "hot" at the moment. One thing that is changing is the cross-over between TV and film - it's been a pretty strict separation in Hollyweird for many, many years, but not so much in the UK (and presumably Australia). Actors there don't see much problem with taking a film role - then doing a one-off (short series) on TV - then maybe a stage role, etc.

Hollywood has finally discovered that there are film actors who will do series TV; some of them are pretty major "stars", so they bring a certain credibility or panache or whatever to the shows.

It's starting to cross-over the other way, too - I just watched a really decent one-off set in Belfast, featuring an English Detective Superintendent - played by Gillian Anderson (her RP is, um, so-so).

[muriel_volestrangler]

73. Gillian Anderson lived in the UK from a baby until she was 11

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillian_Anderson

That's almost her natural accent. She's done other English parts, like this:

And this is what she sounds like in a British interview:

[enlightenment]

75. I know, but it still slips.

I may hear it because I was listening for it - and that only for episode 1 of the series. After that it didn't matter; she's a good actress and it was an interesting and neatly written plot (except for the weird side-story that didn't really mesh well and seemed to serve primarily as a vehicle to point out what a hard place Belfast can be).

[rdharma]

7. Did you know that the actor who plays "Rick Grimes" (the southern Sheriff's Deputy)......

in "The Walking Dead".... is British?



His mother is from South Africa so I guess that's where he got his perfect southern accent! Nerk nerk!

[fried eggs]

12. Yes, and the Governor and Maggie

[Demo_Chris]

22. Did not know that, but I know he is an astonishingly skilled actor. nt

[MADem]

55. "Brody" on HOMELAND is a Brit, as well. nt

[JNinWB]

8. Simon Baker, "The Mentalist", was born in Tasmainia.

I'm not complaining.

[Violet_Crumble]

15. You might enjoy this. It was a series of ads he did here for a bank with an American accent...

This one he did with no fake accent and it summed up the WTF? Is he playing that guy in The Mentalist?? moment I had when I first saw the ads. This one's really cute...

[flamingdem]

18. omg this guy

is too cute!!!

[Violet_Crumble]

21. I agree. I've got a soft spot for him...

I used to watch him way back when he called himself Simon Denny and was on E-Street. I've only watched a few episodes of The Mentalist, though. Not because his American accent throws me, but because I just can't get into that show

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

74. If you listen to him say "Here are scenes for the next episode" at the end of the show....

....he does it in his own accent.

These ads are trying to portray him as Jane, the character. Even the music is a similar style.

[Violet_Crumble]

82. That he does. I'd never gotten to the end of an episode before, so hadn't heard that...

I'm sure 99.99% of DUers wouldn't hear it the same way, but I don't hear any accent when I listen to that or watch that second clip I posted

[Blue_In_AK]

24. I love Simon Baker.

I think he's cute as a bug. But my daughter who works in Hollywood and has see him up close says he's much shorter than one would think.


Ed. Google says he's 5'9" which is fine by me. My daughter, too, is 5'9" so that.s probably why she thinks he's short.

[countryjake]

52. Cute as a bug! Ha! (I think so, too!)

I can't wait for the show to start...five more minutes.

Love that Patrick Jane, fake American accent and all.

[okaawhatever]

9. I've noticed the same thing. I've also noticed what seems to be the proliferation of foreigners in

news broadcasting. I think to myself, "Did I not pay attention before, or are there actually a bunch of people with accents doing the news." I even wondered if they had research that showed we'd listen more to someone with an accent.

[rdharma]

10. What do mean "accent"?

Maybe it's YOU who has the accent!

[Tikki]

11. Just watched a documentary about the lead singer,now, of the band Journey.He is from the Philippines

He was the best singer for the job…sometimes it works that way.

Sports, music, acting, lots of jobs are pretty much international these days and that is fine by me.


Tikki

[Freddie]

59. The new singer sounds *exactly* like Steve Perry

Saw Journey in concert last year, great show. Unfortunately (at least for me) classic-rock radio kind of ruined their music.

[blueamy66]

64. No way.

IMHO, it is just wrong for any true Journey fan to go see that dude sing with them.

And he doesn't sound exactly like Steve.

[geek tragedy]

13. Next thing you know, American actors will be playing

foreigners.

[Cleita]

16. Many Americans play Brits as well.

For instance check out Gwyneth Paltrow in "Shakespeare In Love", or Angelina Jolie in the Lara Croft movies. Many an American actor has also donned a British accent for a fantasy movie like Viggo Mortenson as Lord Aragon, or Elijah Wood as Frodo in "Lord of the Rings".

[flamingdem]

19. Worst ever of this genre was Keano Reeves playing Shakespeare w/ Brit accent

Oh that did NOT work out at all!

[mwrguy]

25. Keanu playing a Brit in 'Dracula'

Was terrible.

[Cleita]

37. I pretty much think Americans shouldn't really do

Shakespeare except in acting classes. They don't seem to get it. However, how about British actress Vivian Leigh's Scarlett O'Hara? She seemed to get that Georgia accent down.

[Bluenorthwest]

60. You better wire the folks at the Old Vic, who employ Kevin Spacey as Artistic Director

Americans do Shakespeare very well, thank you, as often as the Brits do, and both botch it with about the same regularity. I have sat through horrors at Stratford and wonders in NY and Oregon and the other way around. Both cultures contribute greatly to the ongoing evolution of Shakespeare's works on stage and on film.
http://www.oldvictheatre.com/about-the-old-vic/

[Cleita]

85. I knew actors who did the Old Vic in Oregon.

They did do some local Shakespeare and they were good, but the Brits were always better.

[sweetloukillbot]

79. Kevin Costner as Robin Hood?

And Keanu was perfect for that role in Much Ado - a faceless villian with no motive played by an actor with no talent!

[seveneyes]

17. To capture a bigger global market

The USA represents a much smaller market than the rest of the world combined.

[flvegan]

20. Couldn't imagine a better Dr. Gregory House than Hugh Laurie.

[VanillaRhapsody]

26. The Jax Teller character on Sons of Anarchy is a British Actor playing an American

biker...I found that quite interesting. He does one of the best "American" accents I have ever heard.

[LeftyMom]

34. Nobody on that show sounds like they're from Northern California. It drives me nuts.

[tavernier]

27. I love that Alan Rickman played Reagan

In The Butler. Not only is he a Brit, but he his a staunch labor party guy and abhorred Thatcher and her pal Ronnie. And of course the best part is that Jane Fonda's played Nancy.

[CJCRANE]

66. I think Peter Weller (of Robocop fame) should play Reagan

in the next movie that requires the part, maybe even a biopic.

He's about the right age now and he could do the folksy charm thing (but probably with a bit more an edge).

[LittleBlue]

28. Because our actors are terrible.

For whatever reason.

Australians have been dominating for a while. Mel Gibson, Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman and now the Hemsworth brothers. Plenty of high profile actresses too, like Nicole Kidman, Naomi Watts and Cate Blanchett.

They have a ridiculously disproportionate number of good looking people for their population, that probably helps.

[Nye Bevan]

29. Good actors can do any accent.

They just hire the best person they can find for the role, assuming that they can do the correct accent.

[Tikki]

30. Ooh,ooh…Joel Kinnaman from The Killing is from Sweden...

BTW…it is being renewed for Season 4, from what I hear. YAY

He is,also, the next RoboCop.

Tikki

[Cleita]

84. The original Robocop, Peter Weller, used to drop by the saloon I

bartended in for an occasional beer. I didn't even know he was somebody until I saw him on screen. He was very nice and sweet. That was more than thirty years ago.

[trublu992]

31. I've noticed to same thing and its bigger than film.

Why do we have so many British journalist working on American stations when we have homegrown people to do the

same. Like Piers Morgan,really this is the best CNN could do. There are a lot of American film projects that can't get funding but I'm

sending my America money to PBS to see British productions WTH! The curious thing about it is you can have a more prolific career as

white foreign actor than as an American minority one.

[Upward]

32. Better Training, Less Stigma

UK actors have more experience going from movies -> commercials -> tv shows -> live theatre and back.

In the US, it's gotten MUCH easier for a TV actor to make the leap to the big screen, but there's a stigma about hopping down.

Meanwhile, TV networks are less willing to take chances on unknown and untried actors who don't have the Broadway resumés of previous generations.

[Xyzse]

63. This is what I read.

Foreign actors are better trained, have less inhibition on camera, and so forth.

[LeftyMom]

33. I heard none of the people on Game of Thrones are actually from Westeros.

[XemaSab]

35. They're all a bunch of Braavosi who had the eyelid surgery

[LeftyMom]

36. Half of them are secretly inbred Valyrians.

[XemaSab]

38. Or half-Valyrian/half-first men hunks

[Cleita]

41. Mmmmm....so true.

[Warren DeMontague]

56. LIES

[solarhydrocan]

39. Most UK actors make most US actors look like the phonies they are

Example: Romola Garai, who played Bel Rowley in "The Hour"- a period drama about early BBC. An outstanding show btw.

[HeiressofBickworth]

40. Man from Beijing

A foreign film I saw recently. It was about a judge from Stockholm researching a family mystery and current murder. Everyone in the Stockholm scenes spoke German. The judge had occasion to call a sheriff in some county in Nevada -- who also spoke German. The Swedish relative of the judge was an overseer of Chinese railroad workers in the 1850's Nevada. Overseer and railroad workers all spoke German. Then the judge went to China where, wouldn't you just know it, everyone spoke German except in one scene where it called for people to not understand the judge. Oh, and there was no man from Beijing and no scenes shot in Beijing.

The plot was actually interesting, but the production was way out of whack.

[The Midway Rebel]

42. Because it always has.

http://www.imdb.com/list/lQ-HyF9_Rzg/

[Kaleva]

43. So true. Hollywood has always employed a large number of foreign actors.

[Iggo]

44. They're not pretending. They're acting.

It's a thing.

[truebluegreen]

45. Where are the shows filmed?

Maybe they are hiring local talent. I remember when many of the actors and all the bad guys in Star Wars IV had British accents....

[Wounded Bear]

46. Not really something new...

Mel Gibson's been around a while. Sean Connery, Russell Crowe, quite a few Canadians. Goes all the way back, too.

[CBHagman]

47. For decades Americans have been cast as other nationalities...

...and the reverse is certainly true.

[zonkers]

48. Britain/Australia have National Acting Academies and

and turn out top notch actors.

[JI7]

49. don't Americans often play non americans ? it is acting, as for the issue of needing work, i'm

guessing the americans who are likely to get the parts are not those who are exactly struggling financially.

[rustydog]

50. Because they are ACTORS playing roles???

[cynatnite]

51. Daniel Day Lewis stole his acadamy award winning role of Lincoln from an American...

who couldn't have done the job he did.

It's not odd at all. It's the norm in Hollywood.

[cemaphonic]

53. "The Wire" was full of British Islanders playing Americans

Idris Elba, Dominic West, and Aiden Gillen being probably the most prominent ones.

I bet that part of the reason that it's become more common is that the film industry has become more globalized just like lots of other industries. LA is still a big player in film, but it's not the only game in town anymore, with Vancouver, Toronto, London, Mumbai, etc. developing large film industries.

[MADem]

54. REVENGE.

They're still mad about Bridget Jones being played by Renee Zellwegger.

[Iggo]

72. And they should be.

[Spirochete]

57. A New Zealander named Cliff Curtis

has played just about every nationality I can think of. He's very versatile that way.

[dipsydoodle]

58. Same happens in reverse

Meryl Streep was excellent as Maggie Thatcher.

Surely the measure is the ability to act the part well.

[Bluenorthwest]

61. Why did the dingo eat Meyrl Streep's baby instead of Nicole Kidman's?

nt

[dawg]

62. Non-Southern U.S. actors typically do *horrible* Southern accents.

I'm looking at YOU Nicholas Cage!

U.K. actors typically do a better job.

[HipChick]

65. Because Americans are lousy actors?

[countryjake]

67. Anthony Lapaglia said he lost his Australian accent to find work...

here in the US, but that was some thirty yrs ago. He also implied that now, seeing all of the Hollywood newcomers being versatile with their brogues (while keeping their native accents), he regrets dropping his own.

While I thought he flawlessly played the somber NYC FBI detective in "Without a Trace", his short stints as the bawdy brother of Daphne Moon on "Frasier" (who was supposed to be from Manchester, England) were hilarious and showed us that he can be just as flexible as those new Hollywood hunks.

It does seem to me that when an actor can "become" a character to the point of changing the way they normally speak, it displays a better talent.

[trumad]

68. Kevin Costner playing Robin Hood...

His English accent is one for the history books.

[muriel_volestrangler]

80. Russell Crowe wasn't impressed when his Robin Hood accent was criticised

Lawson: "The accent you've given him, there are hints to me of Irish but what were you thinking of in those terms?"

Crowe: "You've got dead ears mate. You've seriously got dead ears if you think that's an Irish accent."

Lawson: "Hints of ..."

Crowe: "Bollocks ... I'm a little dumbfounded you could possibly find any Irish in that character. That's kind of ridiculous. It's your show. Whatever."

Lawson: "You're going for northern English?"

Crowe: "No, I was going for an Italian, yeah. Missed it?"

Lawson: "The, erm ..."

Crowe: "<bleep>"

Lawson: "Anyway, the outlaw aspect of him must appeal to you ..."

Crowe: "I don't get the Irish thing brother, I don't get it at all ..."

http://www.theguardian.com/media/organgrinder/2010/may/14/russell-crowe-accent-acrimony

[HappyMe]

69. There probably aren't enough top notch American actors.

[Xithras]

71. NOBODY in Hollywood gets a part because they're "foreign"...

...unless the part specifically calls for someone of a particular nationality.

People get parts because they answered a casting call and fit the role and part better than everyone else. If there are more "foreigners" in Hollywood than in years past, it's simply because more of them are trying for those roles.

Of course, one other aspect of this that hasn't been mentioned much is the internationalization of the Hollywood studios themselves. Disney-ABC has studios in dozens of countries around the world to provide region specific programming. When local talent is discovered by one of those regional studios, their information may be shared with their partner studios in other countries. A simple example of this is Maia Mitchell, a young Australian actress who played several parts in various Australian shows before being noticed by Disney Channel Australia. From there, she was picked up by Disney Channel U.S., where she appeared on a couple of shows, and was then given a regular part on an ABC TV show. It wasn't that the network gave any sort of preference to a foreign actor, but that studios tend to prefer proven talent, and once she was given an "in" by the overseas studio, she was in a better position to market herself to all of the ABC-Disney studios worldwide.

[Rambis]

76. "mericans" have trouble speaking English

Get a German or a Dutch speaker in-

[Retrograde]

77. A few possible reasons

1) Hollywood and its relations tend to produce movie stars rather than actors. Once the looks change, the people with real acting talent tend to get character parts if they're lucky

2) Britain has a tradition of top-notch acting schools where people are trained in many aspects of the craft, including speech and accents. I think the fact that regional accents in Britain are still more pronounced than in the US means there's more emphasis on getting the "right" accent for the role

3) Hollywood is where the big money is, and the best of the best from other countries tend to gravitate there. If we could look at the actual average actor in Britain or Canada he or she would probably be on a par with the average trained US actor, but the more mediocre ones stay home.

4) Some countries like imported films and TV to have a certain "Country Content", like our neighbors to the north. Putting actors from that country in that film helps overseas sales.

5) "The grass is always greener on the other side", snob appeal, whatever you want to call it - the lure of the exotic

Why this extends to NPR I don't know, but I agree with the other poster who pointed out that the US is not hurting for journalists.

[Dash87]

78. Because they passed the auditions and were chosen

Usually actors and actresses are chosen based on how it is perceived they can/will relate to the part, professionalism, and how much they are willing to get paid vs. the film's budget and perceived benefit of casting that person. if an Australian can pull off an American accent and seems the best fit for the role, then they are most likely to get chosen.

[Agnosticsherbet]

81. Well, they are actors. n/t

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

83. Everyone knows Nathan Fillion can play any role!

And he's Canadian!!!