What is up with all the British/New Zealandish/Walesish/Scottish/Irish actors sucking up great paying gigs in Hollywood? First, let me assure you that I have no axe to grind against the fair folk of the British Isles, former penal colonies of the Queen, and outlying island nations under her flag. My people came over huddled in the steerage of ships with the plague fleas from Liverpool, after all. I’m all for fair and open markets, too. Of course, I’m not a working actor in Hollywood, either, and I therefore don’t feel any competition from this. Having said all this, I am curious as to how this came about and what it signifies, if anything.
I was first aware of this, I think, when watching Daniel Day Lewis playing the role of Natty Bumpo in “Last of the Mohicans”. Ok, the guy’s probably the greatest actor of my generation, and I don’t see anything unusual about him playing roles outside of his Irish nationality. I would think it rather unusual were he to limit himself in this way, actually. I sort of filed this away until one fateful evening while watching “Batman Begins”. I was, by now, aware of the fact that Christian Bale was Welsh. I’d seen him in a couple of movies of no real significance in which he plays a person with a UK accent of some sort. Here I have to own up to my own addiction to the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com). My oldest son is a film maker and turned me on to it. It’s a classic example of the inherent genius of the basic internet model; a site that relies on the hyperlink to illustrate the incredible inter-relatability of people, places and things, and the entertainment industry is rife with this. So, IMDB in hand, I start surfing the character’s bios. It should be stated that this movie is, as you might imagine, all about deep, dark “Gotham”, (translate “every hick’s nightmarish notion of what New York must be like without ever having been there”.) Here’s a short list (thanks to IMDB):
| Actor | Character Portrayed | Nationality |
| Christian Bale | Bruce Wayne, titan of industry in very Amercian “Gotham” | Wales |
| Liam Neeson | Henri Ducard, some kind of mystical Euro-guy martial arts person | Ireland |
| Gary Oldman | Jim Gordon, American speaking nerdy kind of guy | England |
| Michael Cain | Alfred the butler. At least this Brit speaking actor is playing a Brit speaking role | England |
| Cillian Murphy | Spooky psycho bad guy, American English speaking | Ireland |
| Tom Wilkinson | I love this one. He plays Carmine Falcone, a very Cicilian type mafia boss. Just at the edge of a New York Italian accent. | England |
| Rutger Hauer | Earle. American accent | The Netherlands (OK, so it’s not UK, but my underlying point remains) |
| Linus Roache | Thomas Wayne, father of Bruce, also, obviously, an American character | England |
| Sara Stewart | Martha Wayne, Bruce’s mom. American | Scotland |
| Gerald Murphy | Judge Faden | Scotland |
| Colin McFarlane | I love this one,too. This guy plays an American black character named Loeb. You guessed it good – he’s from… | England |
| Richard Brake | I love this one too. You’d recognize this guy. He not only plays American characters, but specializes in sleazy sort of Southern truck stop hillbilly guys with some kind of twitchy hair trigger emotional problem. He plays a character named Joe Chill. | Wales, of course |
| Lucy Russell | “Female restaurant guest” | England |
I could go on. Ok, so when I tell my son about all this, he says “But Dad, the movie was made in England by an English director.” Which, I guess, is something of an explanation, but my rejoinder is then “Isn’t this like making “Tess of the D’Urbevilles” in the ‘States using all American actors doing English accents?” to which he responds with “Yes, Dad.”. OK, so the point is we’ve been doing this for years. I guess turn around is fair play.
A couple of weeks went by and I sort of put this on the back burner. Now, I’m a big fan of the TV series “Charmed”. Alright, I admit it. I’m a big fan of Alyssa Milano. I even watch the makeup infomercial she does just to see the 25 seconds she’s actually onscreen. She’s beautiful. Sue me. (Please don’t. I can’t afford a lawyer). There’s a recurring character on the show named Cole, an uber-demon of sorts who gets killed and resurrected about 15 times, each time with a distinctly American English accent. You would probably know him today as Dr. Christian Troy from “Nip/Tuck”. Another Amercian English speaking role. His name is Julian McMahon and he’s from Australia. His father was Sir William McMahon, former Prime Minister of the counry! Can’t get much more Australian than that! Ok, so he plays two roles with Yank accents. Then, one day I saw an interview with him on one of the entertainment shows. He did the entire interview not in character as one of his roles, but in what must be his overarching character of “Australian actor passing as an American”. Since then I’ve seen him a few times on TV, always as an American English speaker. OK, this is something different here. I guess that to an Australian actor, or an actor from virtually any country, Hollywood is Heaven in terms of roles and salaries. But to cop a completely new American identity? What must Australians think when they hear him doing this? I mean, we’re all over Britney Spears for speaking in a British accent for 20 seconds while buying snacks at a convenience store, but here’s a guy who’s living an entirely fabricated identity, and no one says anything at all.
I was listening to an interview not long ago on NPR with Christian Bale. He did the interview in his native Welsh accent but the interviewer asked him if it was true that he had done interviews during the promo period of “Batman Begins” in his Gotham character accent. He said Yes, a little defensively, stating that he did so so as to avoid “any confusion”. I’m sorry, but that is confusing.
More examples? Did you see “3:10 to Yuma”? No “made in England” dodge here. A very Western remake of a very Western movie done in the States by a very U.S. director for a very U.S audience. Lead roles: Christian Bale, Wales and Russell Crowe, New Zealand.
One of the things that surprised me about this phenomena other than the fact that no one seems much bothered or even interested in it is the observation that we, as Yank speaking Americans, seem to be completely either fooled or content with these accents. In fact, the real puzzle to me is this: I can spot an American actor from a northern state doing a Southern accent in a heartbeat. (They all think that Southerners drop their “r’s” like Scawhlett O’Haawaah). And I’m a native U.S English speaker. But these actors, on the other hand, seem capable of producing nearly flawless U.S. accents. I think the greatest example of this is Hugh Laurie who plays the title character in “House, M. D.” I was aghast when my son told me that he was from England. Not only does he do a dead solid perfect U.S accent, but he’s even got the flat, even, short vowel sound Mid-western accent so dead on it fooled this native Illinoisan. I’ve never heard a slip to bely anything but a native US speaker. Bale, Crowe, and McMahon, on the other hand, do occasionally slip, but so as not to tip there hand, or, if so, not to the point that it’s objectionable, apparently.
What I don’t get is this: I can watch Leonardo DiCaprio in “Blood Diamond” and balk at his horrible South African accent wondering what an actual South African must think of it, and here we are completely fooled by UK actors doing our own accent. I mean, Kevin Costner didn’t even try to hide his Midwest accent when doing “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves”, a role that probably couldn’t get any more British. Is this because – as with international air transportation – the whole world is going to U.S English as the standard language and interpretation of it? Perhaps some day there won’t be an Australian accent. Hard to imagine.
We’ve always been in love with the British accent. Perhaps it has to do with our still working out our whole independence thing, but whenever we need to substantiate some character from some solar system light years away and thousands of years in the future, we give him a Brit accent to give him “gravitas”. (I’ve been waiting for years now to use this word in context). And here we see this sort of phenomena in reverse. In order to substantiate American roles we need native UK’ers to do the Yank accents.
I’m OK with this. Just puzzled at the Why of it. And the How.
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