My wife and I have been watching Outlander. Entertaining show, Sassenach.
We had to activate the captions because of the Scottish accents, though we finally turned them off. (I don’t like using captions because your eye always goes to the text.)
In the second-season finale, we meet Brianna, Claire’s now-adult daughter. She was raised in America, so she has an American accent...but my wife and I were like, uh, waitaminute.
The actress, Sophie Skelton, is English, and there were a few “tells.”
Which reminds me of one of my all-time favorite Twitter videos, “British Actors in American Dramas.” (Link to watch.)
Also this classic Family Guy bit of Liam Neeson playing a cowboy:
Here’s Dominic West, whose American accent on The Wire was atrocious, but he has a sense of humor about it: “It’s tough, because everyone knows what an American accent sounds like—except the Americans.”
Rule of thumb: If you’re watching an American drama and there’s a really good actor you’ve never seen before...?
It’s almost a certainty or he or she is British. (Except recently when there’s a chance he or she is Australian or Kiwi.)
Joseph Quinn as Eddie Munson from Stranger Things, with the charm of young Robert Downey, Jr.? English.
However, I was really impressed by Mason Dye as the bully Jason, also from Stranger Things. I had never seen him before and thought, wow, he does a flawless American accent.
He’s from Oklahoma!
I will say about Stranger Things, however, that some of those high school kids are so old, I hope they’ve scheduled their colonoscopies.
Comments