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Comment by zabzonk | Hacker News Reader

strange that so many british performers have put on american accents!

Let's not mention Daniel Craig in Knives Out though.

Are there that many? Off the top of my head, I can think of Hugh Laurie, but no-one else springs to mind (I'm british though so it might well be less visible to me).

Christian Bale, Damian Lewis, Millie Bobbie Brown, Idris Elba, Henry Cavill, Tom Holland, Dominic West are all actors people are surprised to learn are British.

Also Damson Idris, Daniel Kaluuya (though somewhat known), Robert Pattinson, Andrew Garfield, Daniel Day Lewis, Chiwetel Ejiofor… Actually the list is very long if you keep going

I was surprised to find out that Aaron Taylor-Johnson is English - and he did a splendidly radge Scot!

Thanks. I'm surprised about Christian Bale, Millie Bobbie Brown and Henry Cavill. Can't say that I'm familiar with Dominic West (haven't watched The Wire).

The Wire even has a scene where Dominic West's character puts on a British accent. So a British man pretending to be an American pretending to be a Brit.

The Wire is very good.

It also features Idris Elba, so it has two British people playing Americans on either side of the law .

Reminds me of Hugh Laurie in Avenue 5 when his character puts on a U.S. accent to appear more reassuring to the passengers, but falls back into an english accent when he's panicking.

I believe this native-accent is a common gag; Laurie also in one episode of House MD did the American-faking-a-British accent when he telephoned an overpond doctor in GB to learn more about the medical history of a patient.

I also recall an episode of The Mentalist, where agent Rigsby (played by Welsh Owain Yeoman) says he can imitate a british accent and proceeds to do so, only to receive a “nah, not good enough” by the protagonist.

The issue I (as a non-native English speaker) sometimes have with British actors is: how to pronounce their names?! Examples: the aforementioned Owain Yeoman, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Siobhan (pronounced Shivohn IIUC) Finneran…

> The issue I (as a non-native English speaker) sometimes have with British actors is: how to pronounce their names?! Examples: the aforementioned Owain Yeoman, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Siobhan (pronounced Shivohn IIUC) Finneran…

I don't think it's purely a non-native problem with those names, though they're not exactly English names.

I enjoy names such as Sean Bean ("Seen Been" or "Shorn Born"?) or even Mary Berry ("Merry Berry" or "Mary Bary").

Cara Delevingne, to name another. Each of the HP core cast have had unrelated roles where they do - Emma Watson (The Perks Of Being A Wallflower), Rupert Grint (Servant) and Daniel Radcliffe (Horns).

I was surprised hearing Gillian Anderson's amazing English accent, but apparently she's lived both sides of the pond.

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

That's called acting.

i was thinking of pop and rock singers

British actors are generally good at American accents[0], but not the other way round. That new Zelda game what came out yesterday has surprisingly poorly directed voice acting in general, but especially Zelda herself, who in a sea of American accents is a Canadian-American actress doing an ultra-fake British accent where half the time it still has American vowels.

[1] except David Tennant, who thinks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gp9K-rMdxg sounds Californian

"British actors are generally good at American accents[0], but not the other way round."

Probably helped by trying to get voice controlled technology working - particularly lifts.... ;-)

Ha, I still occasionally have to speak American to Siri - especially song titles or artists.

> Probably helped by trying to get voice controlled technology working - particularly lifts.... ;-)

Wait... there are voice controlled elevators?

Sorry - it was a reference to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbDnxzrbxn4

> That new Zelda game what came out yesterday has surprisingly poorly directed voice acting in general

OK, so it's not just my wife; she sometimes directs voice actors, and within the first five minutes of the game as part of the big intro sequence everyone who plays the game has to see it got an "oof, that needed another take" out of her, LOL.

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