Best American Accents By British Stars

1 month ago 02nd Oct 10:29

Over the Years there have been many that tried and many that failed. To celebrate the release of House Season 5 on DVD which stars the brilliant Hugh Laurie we have come up with a top 10 of the best American accents by British stars;

Hugh Laurie (House)

For five seasons now, Hugh Laurie, an English actor from Oxford, has been playing the misanthropic medical genius Gregory House in the hit Fox drama House. With the utterly convincing American accent he uses on the show, not too many people are aware that he is everything but American.

In any case, audiences love him, and the show's producers obviously do too: Laurie has just been offered a new deal that would pay him $400,000 per episode, or more than $9 million a year, making him one of the biggest earners on TV today.

Anna Friel (Pushing Daisies)

She shot to fame as Brookside’s teenage lesbian, before wowing Broadway as the stripper with a heart in Closer. In real life, she’s been playing happy families with fellow actor David Thewlis. But now Anna Friel is back in the limelight as the star of Pushing Daisies, and Breakfast At Tiffany’s. 

Lena Headey (The Sarah Connor Chronicles)

Who would have imagined that Sarah Connor, a very American character from one of the biggest American film franchises of all time could be played by an Englishwoman?

Lena Headey, whose strong and sexy turn in last year's 300 gave us a respite from all that testosterone and those six-pack abs, has been doing pretty well as the star of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which airs on the Fox Network. And she's doing it with a very good American accent, and without Linda Hamilton's muscles.

Damian Lewis (Band of Brothers & Life)

The fact that Damian Lewis is British could come as a big surprise to many people. After all, he was compelling as American World War II hero Richard Winters in the 2001 HBO mini-series Band of Brothers. Now he's playing Charlie Crews, an LAPD detective who was wrongfully imprisoned for 12 years before being exonerated by DNA evidence in the NBC drama Life.

Minnie Driver (The Riches)

Driver made her return to television starring alongside Eddie Izzard on the FX Network show The Riches, a series about a family of Travellers living in an upscale gated community in the suburbs. She was nominated for the 2007 Emmy Award as Best Actress in a Dramatic Series.

Eddie Izzard (The Riches)

Television critics were generally favourable in their reviews of The Riches. The Baltimore Sun described it as "the kind of TV drama that makes one think while being entertained and The Boston Globe lauded a "layered drama" full of "unexpectedly soulful pleasures" The second season garnered similarly positive reviews.

The Hollywood Reporter review said that "Izzard and Driver remain a joy to watch in this odd but fascinating series that is derivative of nothing on TV", while the San Francisco Chronicle described it as "gloriously inventive, daring and provocative.

Joely Richardson (Nip/Tuck)

In 2003, Richardson took on the role of Julia McNamara in the television drama Nip/Tuck, based on the lives of two dysfunctional plastic surgeons in Miami.