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{{quote|''"Don't you hate it when you find out some really cool actor you like is actually Canadian?"''|'''[[Archer (Animation)/Extras|Sterling Archer]]''', via [http://twitter.com/codenameduchess/status/7933579112 Twitter]}}
 
Fake Americans are usually Canadians, British or Irish (although Aussies, New Zealanders, and even South Africans have been known to fake American). This is usually done for biographical reasons, to allow for a familial relationship with another character with an [[American Accents|American accent]], or to portray a character as stereotypically American.
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Note that this trope does not apply to non-American actors who are not trying to disguise their accent or origin. America is a nation of immigrants after all, and it isn't all that unusual to meet people who were born or raised overseas, or natural-born Americans who carry an accent from growing up in an ethnic neighborhood. Expect such situations to be Lampshaded, however, especially if the actor in question has a relatively heavy accent, like [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]].
 
A version of [[Fake Nationality]], along with [[Fake Brit]] and [[Fake Irish]]. If the character is called upon to "fake" the accent that's really theirs, it's a case of [[Lampshade Hanging]], of the sub-type [[How's Your British Accent?|How's Your British Accent]]. [[Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping]] is quite common, and a few careless examples end up [[Not Even Bothering Withwith the Accent]].
 
This can also be done within the United States, if someone is expected to speak with a very distinctive accent other than their own, e.g. actors with "neutral" accents doing a [[Fargo|Minnesota]] or [[The Closer|Georgia]] accent.
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== Film ==
* Perhaps one of the best known is Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara and Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes in the film ''[[Gone Withwith the Wind]]''. When the film came out, it shocked many Americans to see an English actress play a [[Southern Belle]], but now it's hard for us to NOT see them play those roles.
** And let's not forget that she kept going with it playing Southern Belle Blanche Dubois in ''[[A Streetcar Named Desire]].''
** Ironically, Thomas Mitchell who played Irish-born Gerald O'Hara was born in Elizabeth, [[New Jersey]], making him a real American giving a [[Fake Irish]] portrayal. (Although his parents were from Ireland.)
* Alfred Molina, who plays Doctor Octopus in ''[[Spider-Man (Filmfilm)|Spider-Man]] 2'', is from London.
** When he says the line, "I should've known Osborn wouldn't have the spine to finish you!," [[Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping|he slips up a bit.]]
** Rosemary Harris, who plays Aunt May in the films, is also English.
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** Rhys Ifans, who will be playing {{spoiler|Dr. Curt Conners/The Lizard}} in the 2012 reboot film, is Welsh.
** The new Spiderman, [[Andrew Garfield]] was born in Los Angeles to a British mother and an American father, but has spent much of his life in the UK.
* Jenn Proske, who plays Becca in ''[[Vampires Suck (Film)|Vampires Suck]]'', is Canadian, [http://independentfilmquarterly.net/online-exclusives/jenn-proske.html although] her mother is American and she grew up in the US.
* Daniel Craig in ''[[Road to Perdition]]''.
** Also in ''[[Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (Film)|Lara Croft Tomb Raider]]'', although it is nowhere near as good as in ''[[Road to Perdition]]''.
** And again in ''[[Cowboys and Aliens (Filmfilm)|Cowboys and Aliens]]''. He really seems to be channeling [[Steve McQueen]] in that one.
* Furthermore, Mr. LaPaglia is in a film called ''Empire Records'', playing a very American small-town record store owner.
** Although he's all but lost his Aussie accent as a price. Just listen to him [http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=smJho5vNVO4 here], and compare him to everyone else.
* [[Heath Ledger]] (Australian by birth) in a fair few of his movies- ''[[Brokeback Mountain]]'', ''[[The Dark Knight Saga]]'', ''Lords Of Dogtown'', ''[[The Patriot]]'', and ''Monster's Ball''.
* Several in the ''[[X-Men (Filmfilm)|X-Men]]'' movies:
** [[Hugh Jackman]] (Australian) as [[Wolverine]] though that's technically a Fake Canadian. And a very good approximation of a rural Alberta accent.
** [[Patrick Stewart]] (English) and James McAvoy (Scottish) as Professor X (though before ''First Class'', where he spends his childhood in NY, it's never stated if he's still American).
** [[Famke Janssen]] (Dutch) as Jean Grey
** Shawn Ashmore (Canadian) as Iceman
** Brian Cox (Scottish) as Stryker in ''[[X2: X-Men 2United]]''.
** [[Ellen Page]] (Canadian) as Kitty Pryde
** Canadian/New Zealander [[Anna Paquin]] doing a Southern accent as Rogue
** In ''[[X -Men: First Class (Film)|X Men First Class]]'', Rose Byrne (Australian) as Moira MacTaggert (where the Scottish scientist of the comics is instead a CIA agent), and Nicolas Hoult (English) as Beast
* Bob Hoskins' portrayal of Eddie in ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]''. He does a fairly convincing hardboiled New York accent, which would have been great if the film didn't take place in Los Angeles.
** The same accent worked for Mario in ''[[Super Mario Bros. (Filmfilm)|Super Mario Bros]].'' One of the ''few'' things that worked there.
* [[Emma Thompson]]'s pastiche of Hillary Clinton in ''[[Primary Colors]]''.
* [[Kate Winslet]]'s portrayal of American debutante Rose Dewitt Bukater in ''[[Titanic]]''.
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** And again as Long Island resident Clementine Kruczynski in ''[[Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind]]''.
** Once more in ''The Life of David Gale'', rather convincingly. She doesn't sound Texan, but then, they never explicitly say that the character is Texan.
** She also plays Americans in ''Little Children'', ''[[Revolutionary Road]]'', ''[[Mildred Pierce]]'', ''[[Contagion]]'' and ''[[Carnage (Film)|Carnage]]''.
* [[Christian Bale]] ([[Batman]]), [[Gary Oldman]] (Detective Jim Gordon), Tom Wilkinson (Carmine Falcone) all hid their UK accents to play Gotham City citizens in ''[[The Dark Knight Saga|Batman Begins]]'', as did [[Cillian Murphy]] (Dr. Jonathan Crane) with his Irish one. In fact, most of the crew were British. [[Liam Neeson]] (Henri Ducard) also put on such a convincing American accent in ''[[Darkman]]''.
** [[Cillian Murphy]] in ''[[Red Eye (Filmfilm)|Red Eye]]''. [[Wes Craven]] was initially wary about casting him as Rippner, since Rippner was explicitly written as American. When Murphy walked into the audition, he actually fooled the casting agent with his accent. (The film also has Canadian [[Rachel McAdams]] and Scottish Brian Cox as Americans.)
** Wilkinson also puts on a convincing American accent in ''[[Michael Clayton]]''.
* [[Gary Oldman]] has practically made a career out of playing fake Americans: he puts on a Southern accent for ''[[The Fifth Element]]'', a Texan accent for ''[[The Book of Eli]]'', a New York accent in ''[[The Professional]]''; he even played Lee Harvey Oswald in ''JFK''.
* In ''[[Die Hard (Film)|Die Hard]]'', the director decided to extend the scene where Hans Gruber pretends to be a hostage in order to show it off.
** That is the official line, yes. Given that [[Alan Rickman]]'s American accent is a bizarre, cartoonish yodel, the real reason is unknown.
** [[Justified Trope|To be fair, that's a Brit playing a German (and the less said about his "German" accent the better) trying to be American for a few minutes]]. In more recent films, he's pulled off some very good American accents (New England in ''Dark Harbor'' and New Orleans in ''Judas Kiss'').
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** And he's almost as bad at it as Rachel Weisz in ''Confidence''. They both swallow their rhotic vowels trying to pronounce the letter 'R,' betraying their original accents.
*** Though his imitation of [[Carl Sagan]]'s distinctive vocal patterns and pauses was dead on.
** His accent sounds strikingly like Canadian actor Henry Czerny, best known for roles in ''[[Mission Impossible (Filmfilm)|Mission Impossible]]'' and ''Clear and Present Danger''.
** The way Weaving's Rs came out stumbling and drawn-out makes Smith all the more bizarre and creepy. "Good evening, Misterrrr Anderrrrson..."
*** [[Word of God]] is that he was trying to imitate director Larry Wachowski.
** More convincingly, from ''Enter [[The Matrix]]'' and a brief bit in ''[[The Matrix]] Revolutions'', is Sparks, the operator of the hovership ''Logos''.
** On the other hand, Weaving's voice for Megatron in the [[Transformers (Filmfilm)|new Transformers movies]] does a good job of disguising his accent under a growling tone of voice that well fits this particular incarnation of the character.
* [[Mel Gibson (Creator)|Mel Gibson]]. While he was born in the US, early in his career you can tell he had to make an effort to cover up the Aussie in his speech. You can definitely hear his American accent slip a couple of times in the first two ''[[Lethal Weapon]]'' films. These days, when he gives interviews, you would be convinced he never left the US since his birth.
* ''[[No Country for Old Men]]'' is chock full of convincing Texan accent and dialect from non-Texan actors (although several actors, like Woody Harrelson and [[Tommy Lee Jones]], were Texan)... but perhaps the most surprising is that of [[Kelly Macdonald]], who's ''Scottish''.
** The other big one is Javier Bardem, who is Spanish. In fact the voice he used for Anton Chigurh came about by accident when he tried to tone down the accent during a run-through of the script.
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* [[Christopher Lee]] did a nice flat Californian accent in the movie ''[[Serial]]''-- and floating around out there is a recording of him singing Ghost Riders in the Sky with a Southern drawl.
* Averted in ''[[Shortbus]]'', where the director tried to get Sook-Yin Lee to not sound so Canadian, and finally gave up and wrote into the script an explanation that her character was Chinese-Canadian.
* Robert Pattinson does an American accent in ''[[Twilight (Literaturenovel)|Twilight]]''. He discusses it [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25p9r5oKBXs=related here].
* Jude Law's ridiculously bad American accent in ''[[I Heart Huckabees]]''. It's painful. He repeats his performance in ''All The King's Men''.
** So we're forgiving him for that monstrosity of a southern accent in ''Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil''? I think not.
*** His American accent in an ''[[SNL]]'' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggLceVFc76A sketch] spoofing the classic ''[[Twilight Zone]]'' episode "Nightmare at 20,000 ft." was also atrocious.
* By that same token, the villain "Red" from ''[[Hancock]]'' puts on a truly terrible fake <s>Midwestern</s> <s>Texan</s> <s>American</s> ''something'' accent; he seems to have a hard time settling on which one he wants to use.
* Before ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'', Laurie played the father in the film ''[[Stuart Little]]'', American accent included. Not to mention his role as Internal Affairs Captain James Biggs in ''[[Street Kings]]'' (in which his character is remarkably similar to House, ''sans'' beard or bad leg).
* Minnie Driver as Debi Newberry in ''[[Grosse Pointe Blank]]''.
* Dominic West does a pretty good American accent in ''[[Chicago]]'' (though it isn't a Chicago accent). In ''Punisher: War Zone'' however, he attempts a New York Italian accent and the results are not pretty. But it's a [[Large Ham]] role anyway.
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** In ''[[Days Of Thunder]]'', Cary Elwes puts on a decent Southern accent for his role as Russ Wheeler.
* Ewan McGregor was technically using a Southern accent in ''[[Big Fish]]'', but the result was not authentic-sounding at all.
** Ditto for his midwest American accent in ''[[The Men Who Stare Atat Goats]]''.
*** More to the fact, his accent for that film sounded identical to his accent in [[Big Fish]]. The least he could've done is tried to make the two sound different, even if they didn't sound authentic.
** He also played American rocker Curt Wild in ''[[Velvet Goldmine]]''.
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** He uses both a fake American accent and his natural Scottish accent in ''[[The Island]]''.
* Virtually everyone except the main cast in the [[Film of the Book]] ''[[Bridge to Terabithia]]'' was a New Zealander playing an American.
* Jim Sturgess adopts a hilariously bad American accent in ''[[Twenty One (Film)21|Twenty One]]'', and completely forgoes holding his Rs throughout the second half of the movie.
* Simon Pegg puts on a fairly convincing American accent in ''[[Big Nothing]]''.
** The one he adopts for ''[[Band of Brothers (TV series)|Band of Brothers]]'', by contrast, is ''[[Narm|hilarious]]''.
* Used to varying effect in ''[[Bugsy Malone]]'': The movie was filmed in England and used local children for bit parts.
* Raoul Bova, an Italian, does this in ''Avenging Angelo'' and ''[[Alien vs. Predator]]''.
* Rebecca Hall, an English actress, as Vicky in ''[[Vicky Cristina Barcelona]].''
* In ''[[Star Trek (Filmfilm)|Star Trek]]'', [[Karl Urban]] (New Zealander) does a flawless (as in ''so close that [[Leonard Nimoy]] cried when he first heard it'') "[[DeForest Kelley]] Southern Country Doctor" accent.
* In the film version of ''[[Street Fighter (Filmfilm)|Street Fighter]]'', the All American Air Force Colonel Guile was played by Belgian martial artist [[Jean Claude Van Damme]].
** Van Damme, like Schwarzenegger, is [[Not Even Bothering Withwith the Accent]] in his movies. 80's action film producers really had a thing for foreign-sounding stars for some reason and ran with it, resulting in some awkward moments later on their careers.
* [[Jason Isaacs]] did the worst American accent in ''[[Black Hawk Down]]''.
* [[Kate Beckinsale]] in ''[[Pearl Harbor]]''.
** Also in ''[[Click]]''.
* Sam Worthington (Australian) uses a pretty tortured American accent in ''[[Avatar (Filmfilm)|Avatar]]''.
** It is somewhat justified. This is the future and the only proof we have that he's from the US is that he's said to be an 'ex-marine' which could mean anything. It would've been more realistic for him to keep his Australian accent considering the fact that the US wouldn't be the main controller of Pandora, far from it, assuming they're still a main power until then (unlikely).
** Not as bad as it was in ''[[Terminator|Terminator Salvation]]'', particularly when he was surrounded by other Fake Americans who did a much better job, including Christian Bale.
** One really has to suspend their disbelief in ''[[Call of Duty: Black Ops (Video Game)|Black Ops]]''. For some reason, casting directors think Sam Worthington's insuppressible Down Under twang is perfect for playing American servicemen.
** The producers of the movie tried to cover up his accent slips by saying that Jake Sully was from Boston. While Bostonians, like people from the Canadian Maritimes, tend to blend together American and British accents (Australian accents for all intents and purposes are close enough to British in this example to be considered the same), no one in the Boston area speaks like Jake Sully did in that film.
* Brian Cox in ''[[Super Troopers]]'' portrays the Irish-American Captain John O'Hagen, whose accent wobbles between the generic American and Irish depending on his mood, but never sounds Scottish.
* While the lead character is played by an American playing a Brit, all the American characters in the newest ''[[Sherlock Holmes]]'' are played by Canadians. You can really tell with their accents, especially against the British ones.
* [[Aaron Johnson]] as Dave Lizewski in ''[[Kick-Ass (Filmfilm)|Kick-Ass]]''.
** [[Mark Strong]] as Frank D'Amico
* Emilie de Ravin (best known for playing Claire on ''[[Lost]]'') did an excellent job at concealing her accent in ''[[Brick]]''; ironically, early on during ''Lost'''s run some thought that her natural Australian accent [[Reality Is Unrealistic|sounded fake.]]
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** Tarrantino thought it was too much of a hassle, and had him use his regular accent in ''[[Pulp Fiction]]''
* Canadian actress [[Laura Harris]] puts on a downright painful Southern drawl in ''[[The Faculty]]''. {{spoiler|[[Fridge Brilliance]] comes in when it's revealed that her character is an alien, meaning that she's a [[Fake American]] ''in-universe'' as well. In fact, in the original script her character drops her accent shortly before [[The Reveal]].}}
* Sharlto Copley and [[Liam Neeson]] are both [[Fake American|Fake Americans]] in the film version of ''[[The a A-Team (Filmfilm)|The a Team]]''. Copley's wanders through several different Southern accents, but given that it's [[Cloudcuckoolander|Murdock]] it fits quite well, and he deliberately fakes a lot of other throughout the movie. Neeson's more or less works as well, though his brogue tends to slip a bit whenever he says anything with an "oo" sound (such as when he tells Face, "You are ''really'' tan.")
** Copley gets to use his [[How's Your British Accent?|natural South African accent]] in one scene, which many know from his star-making role as Wikus in [[District 9 (Film)|District 9]].
* [[Isla Fisher]], born in Oman and raised in Australia, only ever seems to play Americans. This is somewhat justified, however, as if she ever did use her real accent, the result would be so cute, [[Divide Byby Zero|the universe would collapse in on itself]].
** Australians seem to be the most successful at mimicking American accents. [[Naomi Watts]], Guy Pearce, Judy Davis, and [[Melissa George]] have all made careers out of playing Americans.
** Fisher offered a good explanation of this during a ''[[Chelsea Lately]]'' appearance: "Nobody wants our real accents".
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* The 1948 film ''No Orchids for Miss Blandish'' was made in the UK but is full of fake Americanisms--left-hand drive cars, a vaguely [[Big Applesauce|New York]] setting, and American accents of varying quality. The original novel was written by an Englishman (James Hadley Chase, who wrote a number of novels set in America - although he never lived there) but so thoroughly riddled with Americanisms that English readers mistook it for an American import.
* ''City Island'' has Emily Mortimer taking part in {{spoiler|the exact same twist she did in ''30 Rock'' (that she's "really" an American pretending to be British). [[Actor Allusion]]?}}.
* Julian Glover as Walter Donovan in ''[[Indiana Jones and Thethe Last Crusade]]''.
* British actor Eric Idle as Paul "Dibbs" Plutzker in: [[Casper (Filmfilm)|Casper]].
* [[Thandie Newton]](British) as President Danny Glover's daughter in ''[[Two Thousand Twelve2012]]''.
* Ralph Fiennes (English) playing the American Charles Van Doren in [[Quiz Show]].
** That's more of a Mid-Atlantic/preppy New England accent, though, with notable English influences.
** Mark Van Doren father of Charles Van Doren was played by Paul Scofield also English.
* Andrew Garfield (English) as Eduardo Saverin in ''[[The Social Network]]'', and the upcoming [[Spider -Man]] reboot as Peter Parker.
** Subverted somewhat. Garfield was born in Los Angeles, but mostly grew up in Britain.
* [[Jim Carrey]], who is Canadian, in far too many roles to list.
* The Irish Colin Farrell played not only an American, but an American Country Singer in ''[[Crazy Heart]]''.
* [[Kenneth Branagh]] affects a [[So Bad It's Good|hilarious]] southern accent for his role in ''[[Wild Wild West (Filmfilm)|Wild Wild West]].''
* [[Dan Aykroyd]] (Canadian) does a convincing Chicago accent in [[The Blues Brothers]] and [[Tommy Boy]].
* For the handful lines Anthony Head actually speaks in ''[[Repo! theThe Genetic Opera]]'' he puts on a fairly convincing American accent. He slips a bit when he sings, though.
* The exploitation film ''American Kickboxer 1'' is false advertising on three counts; it wasn't the first of a series, it was filmed in South Africa with the entire cast trying and failing to sound American, and as for the kickboxing...
* ''[[Aquamarine]]'' was set in Florida but filmed in Australia (a change from the novel, where the plot involves one of the main characters moving ''to'' Florida - in the movie she's going to Australia), and with the exceptions of [[Emma Roberts]], Sara Paxton, Joanna Levesque, Arielle Kebbel and Jake [[Mc Dorman]], the entire cast affected US accents.
* ''[[Dark City]]'' had Brit Rufus Sewell putting on a pretty good accent as well as Australian Melissa George and British-born Canadian Kiefer Sutherland.
* In perhaps one of the biggest examples of this trope, British Henry Cavill will play [[Superman]] (who, while an alien, is an embodiment of the "Truth, Justice and the American Way") in the upcoming ''[[Man of Steel (Film)|Man of Steel]]''.
* [[Lucy Punch]] does such an effective Chicago accent in ''[[Bad Teacher]]''.
* Scotsman Alan Cumming had a bit part as an American hotel clerk in ''[[Eyes Wide Shut]]''. He tells an awesome [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMdVy-nF6cs story] of how director Stanley Kubrick was first annoyed upon discovering on the day they were to shoot his scenes that Cumming was Scottish and not American. Kubrick grumbled: "You were American on the tape!" Cumming cooly responded: "I know. That's because I'm an '''actor''' Stanley." Cumming's chutzpah earned the notoriously intimidating director's respect.
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== Live Action TV ==
* In the second episode of ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' (the marriage counsellor sketch), [[John Cleese (Creator)|John Cleese]] attempts (unsuccessfully) a cowboy drawl. (Significantly, the version of this sketch included in ''And Now For Something Completely Different'', a [[Compilation Movie]] targeted at American audiences, replaced the cowboy character with the voice of God.) In the third episode, the "Bicycle Repair Man" sketch features deliberately exaggerated American accents.
** Apparently all you have to do is add [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tXtPygIL5E r's] there and there.
*** Nope, that's just the Pythons. Even Terry Gilliam, who ''is'' an American, can't do a convincing American accent.
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*** Michael Palin is possibly the worst here, though he has pretty stiff competition from both Terry Jones and the guy at the end (name escapes me), Mike doesn't even bother for most of his lines.
**** ''[[As Time Goes By]]'' had and arc where Lionel and Jean work on an American miniseries. The producer the associate with has and American accent that's just as bad.
* [[Hugh Laurie]] as Dr. Gregory [[House (TV series)|House]]. When he auditioned for the part, his accent was disguised so well one of the producers of the series thought he ''was'' an American ''from the same region as the character''. Maybe it had to do something with the fact that his American voice sounds ''really, really creepy and ominous.''
** People who'd seen him in the live action film of 101 Dalmatians (he plays one of Cruella's henchmen) have heard his native accent.
** Bryan Singer actually held him up to the other producers as a shining example of what a 'real American actor' was. It's quite jarring to hear Laurie au naturel these days. It takes quite a while to realize that the ''[[Black AdderBlackadder]]'' Laurie and the ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' Laurie were the Same Laurie<ref> For those who don't follow British comedy, he also appears with full English accent in the ''Friends'' episode "The One with Ross's Wedding" (season 4, episode 23). Laurie's character spends most of his lines berating Rachel during her last-minute flight to London</ref>.
** Laurie does however do his 'George (Blackadder) voice' in an episode where he tries to convince someone over the phone that he is English.
** Lampshaded in an episode of ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' called "Poison", in which Chase uses a horrible fake American accent (Southern, of course) to trick a patient's mother. When he demonstrates the accent, House replies, "You fooled her with ''that''?"
*** He also does a reasonably good American accent in season six when House told him women were only interested in him for his looks, and challenged him to try speed-dating without the accent or mentioning his profession.
** A recurring skit on ''[[A Bit of Fry and Laurie]]'' had Laurie and his co-star Stephen Fry both playing overbearing American tycoons; which typically consisted of horribly, and obviously, fake American accents, and cursing at high volume.
** Laurie has released a blues album called ''Let Them Talk'', on which he ''sings'' with an very twangy American accent.
* Jaime Murray in the ''[[Poirot]]'' mystery "Mystery of the Blue Train"
* Anthony LaPaglia (Jack Malone), Poppy Montgomery (Sam Spade), and Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Vivian Johnson) from ''[[Without a Trace (TV)|Without a Trace]]''. The first two are Aussies, the latter British.
** Although LaPaglia and Montgomery have been putting on the American accent for so long that they scarcely sound Australian any more. In fact, Montgomery once said that her Australian accent has atrophied so much that when she attempts it with her family, they tell her to just give up.
* The late Irish actor Glenn Quinn portrayed for several seasons the American Mark Healy, the reviled son-in-law of the title character on ''[[Roseanne]]''.
* American [[Kyra Sedgwick]] (a New York [[Blue Blood]] if there ever was one) fakes the <s>Southern</s> ''specifically Georgia'' (it's good enough!) accent of her character Brenda Johnson in ''[[The Closer]]''.
* Claudia Black on ''[[Farscape (TV)|Farscape]]'' has a pretty feeble accent when she plays Crichton inhabiting Aeryn's body. Her body language, though? Pure Ben Browder.
** In another episode where John and Chiana are trapped inside a video game Claudia Black plays a princess and affects a ridiculous Southern accent (with a lisp for some reason). Since it's a fairly silly episode anyways, it's a bit more forgivable
** Gigi Edgley (who played Chiana) drifted between an American accent and her native Australian accent, depending on the episode. Anthony Simcoe (who played D'Argo) did a better job, though
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* ''[[The Wire]]'' has several non-US actors including Dominic West (who plays Jimmy McNulty; is from Sheffield, England), Idris Elba (Stringer Bell; London, England) and Aiden Gillen (Tommy Carcetti; Dublin, Ireland) who attempt American accents with varying degrees of success.
* Speaking of Idris Elba, he played the dry but quite American Dunder-Mifflin executive Charles Miner on the American version of ''[[The Office]]''.
* Every season of ''[[Power Rangers]]'' from ''[[Power Rangers Ninja Storm|Ninja Storm]]'' through ''[[Power Rangers RPM|RPM]]'', due to a move to New Zealand, has had a number of New Zealanders with Fake Californian accents, including with it [[Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping|a certain amount of slippage]] (in such a way that, famously, Xander had to be handwaved as a native Aussie in ''[[Power Rangers Mystic Force|Mystic Force]]'' [[Real Life Writes the Plot|because Richard Brancatisano ]][[Not Even Bothering Withwith the Accent|couldn't hide his accent]]). The most obviously [[Fake American]] is probably Bede Skinner (who plays Jarrod in ''[[Power Rangers Jungle Fury|Jungle Fury]]''). Beginning with ''[[Power Rangers Samurai|Samurai]]'', Americans were cast as the Rangers themselves, but all of the extras are still Kiwi.
** It's a little bit more complex than that. Most seasons there's a mix of Aussie and Kiwi amongst the cast, and there have been occasional Canadians (Kevin Duhaney as Ethan in ''[[Power Rangers Dino Thunder|Dino Thunder]]'', a big percentage of the ''[[Power Rangers SPD|SPD]]'' cast), British (Samuell Benta as Will and Rhoda Montemayor as Rose in ''[[Power Rangers Operation Overdrive|Operation Overdrive]]'') and even a few Americans (Monica May as Z in ''SPD'').
** James Napier's horrible and incessant accent slipping inspired a drinking game circa ''Dino Thunder.'' This is especially noticeable when he has to say anything fast or lengthy (or both). The "Conner was attacked by giant lizard-things" speech in ''Wave Goodbye'' sounds downright COCKNEY as the Kiwi and American accents jockey for control.
* British TV detective series, such as ''[[Mystery]]'', ''[[Sherlock Holmes]],'' etc., have American characters turn up every so often. You can usually tell when a British actor is doing a Fake American, because he is SPEAKING FIVE DECIBELS LOUDER THAN ANYONE ELSE IN THE SCENE. Also, the minor American characters in these shows tend to be [[Eagle Land|pushy and obnoxious]], sometimes ludicrously so.
** In ''[[Monty PythonsPython's theThe Meaning of Life]]'', [[John Cleese (Creator)|John Cleese]], as the Grim Reaper, collects four people from a dinner party. When the American, played by real American Terry Gilliam, objects, Death tells him off: "Shut up, you American! You Americans, all you do is talk, and talk, and say 'let me tell you something' and 'I just wanna say'. Well, you're dead now, so shut up!"
* Parodied, in ''[[Frasier]]'' by Daphne only being able to say one word like an American. ("Sure.")
** Jane Leeves, who plays Daphne, was born in Essex and brought up in Sussex, but puts on a Mancunian (i.e. from Manchester) accent throughout the series. See [[Fake Brit]] for more details.
** A later episode shows that Daphne has gotten "better" at her fake American accent when she holds an entire phone conversation with it. Frasier compares her deep-voiced attempt to the voice of a drag queen.
* Double Parody: Non-Brit James Marsters playing (British vampire) Spike attempting a bad American accent, on ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' ("No, sirr, eye'm a frrend o' Xanderrrs.")
* An unusual version of this was seen on ''[[30 Rock (TV)|Thirty Rock]]'' where British actress Emily Mortimer played a character who was ultimately revealed to be an American posing as a Brit. Naturally, her character's "fake" British accent was completely flawless and she only did one line with an American accent.
* Kevin McKidd's perpetually slipping American accent on ''[[Journeyman]]'' can be grating on the ears.
** Though he wasn't as bad ''[[GreysGrey's Anatomy]]''.
* Jewel Staite (Canadian) as Dr. Jennifer Keller in ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]''.
*** To Be Fair, Keller is supposed to be from Chippewa Falls, WI -- and a lot of us from the region really do have pretty much the same accent.
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** The same one he did while playing Fred Flintstone, basically. Of course, in that case, he was supposed to sound like a cartoon...
* The entire cast of [[Sy Fy Channel Original Movie]] ''Volcano in New York'' had [badly] put on "Noo Yawk" accents.
* The Cat in ''[[Red Dwarf (TV)|Red Dwarf]]'' was supposed to be portrayed as a flashy American type. Danny John-Jules had a decent accent, marked by occasional cat-like yowls, but once in a while, British usage would slip in. e.g., "What I don't understand is why he went through the trouble of having to use his kidney as a full-stop." (A full-stop is a period.)
** Then again, the Cat's race presumably learned English from documents on board the Dwarf - which seemed to be staffed almost entirely by Brits.
*** One major exception being the Captain, who was an American played by real American Mac MacDonald. (Who has made a career of playing Americans on British TV.)
** Craig Ferguson, in one of his earliest TV acting roles, played Confidence in "Confidence & Paranoia" who Lister described as sounding like "Bing Baxter, the American quiz show host".
** In the same series, Robert Llewellyn who plays Kryten. Like the Cat, he is technically not an American (or human) but he speaks with an "American" sounding accent. IIRC, he said he was trying to do a "bad Canadian accent."
* Alan Dale, a New Zealander, has played several American characters, including a Vice-President of the United States in ''[[Twenty Four24]]'', and the patriarch of the Meade family in ''[[Ugly Betty]]''. He seems to be the guy you break out for evil American roles.
** Not to mention his role as devious patriarch Caleb Nichol in ''[[The OC]]''.
* ''[[Nip Tuck]]'' stars Julian McMahon (who is from Australia) and Joely Richardson (from England) as Americans. In general, Richardson's American accent is much more accurate than McMahon's (except when she says the word "family").
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* In the [[Something Completely Different]] episode of ''[[The Prisoner]]'', Patrick McGoohan affects an American accent that even an online transcript points out as unconvincing.
** Oddly, McGoohan actually was born in America. His character on the 1959-60 ''Danger Man'' series, John Drake, was in theory supposed to be an American working for NATO, but he basically sounded like McGoohan.
* Jane Seymour has played many American characters<ref>and became an American citizen in 2005</ref>, most notably ''[[Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman (TV)|Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman]]''.
** In fact, as Dr. Quinn, she spoke with an old-world Boston accent -- which is similar to a British accent, at least as far as American accents go.
* Australian Portia DeRossi as American Veronica in ''[[Better Off Ted]]''.
** And Lindsay Bluth on ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]'', and Nell Porter on ''[[Ally McBeal]]''.
*** Her accent is completely convincing until she says the word "anything".
* The creators of ''[[Deadwood]]'' were unsure whether Ian McShane could completely pull off an American accent for his role as Al Swearengen. They added English ancestry to his past, something untrue of the real Swearengen, to explain any slips.
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* Simon Baker (Australian) and Owain Yeoman (Welsh) in ''[[The Mentalist]]''.
* An old episode of ''[[SCTV]]'' featured John Candy in a parody of ''[[Midnight Cowboy]]'' with a bizarre, hooting accent that was evidently supposed to be Southern US. It was intentional though, as the character's brain-meltingly awful accent (where "y'all" came out as a bizarre, howling "yole") was mocked at least once in the sketch.
* Linus Roache's sort-of New York accent in ''[[Law and& Order (TV)|Law and Order]]''. It has improved since he started...
* Rufus Sewell seems to be doing an American Standard accent in ''[[Eleventh Hour]].''
* Yvonne Strahovski (Australian) plays a CIA agent in ''[[Chuck]]''. She uses her native accent in one of the episodes when she's posing as an Australian scientist.
* In an episode of ''[[Are You Being Served?]]'', Mrs. Slocombe's American uncle is played by a Brit with a very unconvincing accent.
** A very unconvincing New York accent. And he is shown wearing a Stetson hat!
* On ''[[Thunderbirds]]'', Gerry Anderson made a conscious effort to make most of the characters American, in order to improve his chances of selling the show internationally. The voice actors who provided the performances were almost all British (the number of ''actual'' Americans who provide voices for the Anderson shows can literally be counted on one hand - David Holliday, David Healy, Robert Easton (''Stingray'') and Ed Bishop), and while the accents themselves are convincing, the dialogue is marked by word usages and slang exclusive to the UK.
** Have you ever heard a [[Fake American]] pull off a [[Fake Brit]]?
{{quote| '''Jeff Tracy:''' [badly pulling off a british accent] "Oh, bang on. Jolly good show."}}
* Montreal's [[William Shatner]] in ''[[Star Trek (Franchise)|Star Trek]]'' and ''[[Boston Legal]]''.
** To be fair, speaking like Shatner is an accent unto itself.
* ''[[Spooks]]'' has various CIA agents who generally sound half New York City, half Midwestern, and thoroughly [[Jerkass]], as well as an anti-abortion terrorist in the pilot who was apparently supposed to be from the [[Deep South]]. The recurring American Christine Dale was portrayed by an authentic American, but even she seems to be exaggerating her accent.
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** Likewise, in [[True Blood]], Skarsgard sports an American accent to play Eric Northman, a vampire who had lived in America for many years. British actor Stephen Moyer and Canadian-New Zealand actress [[Anna Paquin]] also both sport southern American accents to play Bill and Sookie, respectively. Though Moyer's had a few instances where his real accent slipped through.
*** Also, Australian actor Ryan Kwanten, who plays Sookie's brother Jason. However, Sam Trammell (who plays -- naturally -- [[The Danza|Sam]]) presumably uses his native accent, being a Louisiana native.
* In ''[[Jonathan Creek (TV)|Jonathan Creek]]'', British Anthony Head portrayed Adam Klaus with an American accent. His replacement, Stuart Milligan, actually is American.
** Oddly, Adam Klaus is himself a [[Fake American]] and is really Scottish, and Milligan's American accent convincingly "slips" every once in a while.
* In the ''[[Fawlty Towers]]'' episode "Waldorf Salad", the ugly American, Mr. Hamilton, is played by the Canadian actor Bruce Boa, with an audible Canadian accent.
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* In the last episode of Season 5 of ''[[Numb3rs]]'', James Callis, a Brit, plays cult leader Mason Duryea with a believable Southern drawl.
* [[Melanie Lynskey]] from ''[[Two and A Half Men]]'' and ''[[Drive]]''. On [[Psych]] she used her native New Zealand accent.
* In-show, [[Angel (TV)|Angel]] is a [[Fake American]] (using David Boreanaz's own accent) from Ireland.
* ''[[Roswell]]'' had the Australian Emilie de Ravin playing Tess. Emilie's accent slipped a couple of times during her first appearance on the show, but was otherwise convincing.
* In ''[[Damages]],'' Rose Byrne (an Aussie) plays Ellen Parsons, a young American lawyer, with a great American accent.
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** Some of other regulars, such as Karl Urban (Caesar) and the late Kevin Smith (Ares) also can pull this off well. But there are plenty of other minor villains who...don't.
** The characters in [[Hercules: The Legendary Journeys]] and Xena all use American accents; a particularly jarring example is Claudia Black as a minor character in both. For people used to her normal accent (which is already a strange conglomeration of Australian and English anyway), her attempts at speaking with an American accent are even more distressing.
* ''So'' many people from ''[[Jeeves and Wooster (TV series)|Jeeves and Wooster]]''. Some of them are just talking British with an American accent.
* In the English TV movie ''The Last Days Of Lehman Brothers'', James Bolam puts on an ''atrocious'' "Southern" accent.
* [[Benny Hill]] tried to affect a New York accent in a few sketches playing an Archie Bunker-like character. He didn't even come close.
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** Josef Kostan, played by the Jason Dohring (American), was originally supposed to be played by Rade Šerbedžija (Croatian) and would've had a thick East-European accent.
* David Ogden Stiers, from central Illinois, played Bostonian Major Winchester on ''[[MASH]]'' with a strong Brahmin accent. [[Roger Ebert]], who went to high school with Stiers in Urbana, IL, once commented that he sounded "like that" even back then.
* ''[[The Dresden Files (TV series)|The Dresden Files]]'' TV series featured [[Fake American]] Paul Blackthorne (who was born in Shropshire, England and who grew up on British military bases in Germany and in England) as the very American wizard-private investigator Harry Dresden. The show also starred [[Fake Brit]] Terrence Mann (who was born in Ashland, Kentucky and who grew up in Largo, Florida) as ghost-with-a-Teutonic-name-and-a-British-accent Hrothbert of Bainbridge. Bainbridge, by the way, is a real town in North Yorkshire.
* Paul Blackthorne also plays an American vampire in several episodes of ''[[The Gates]]''.
* Michelle Ryan who played Jaime Sommers in the 2007 TV series ''[[The Bionic Woman|Bionic Woman]]'' fakes it. But this is also subverted in one episode where Jaime goes undercover at a college as a British student, with Michelle using her own accent. The episode also stretches the subversion to include a sequence where she continues to use the fake/real British accent while communicating with a fellow agent, who wonders why she's continuing to use the accent but admits he finds it sexy.
* James Callis as Dr. Grant in ''[[Eureka]]''. Since Grant is also a time-traveler, he has to affect an American accent from the 1940s. The accent is really terrible, although some of that is attributable to the occasionally [[Narm|narmtastic]] lines he has to deliver.
* ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'': [[Jamie Bamber]] (a native Londoner) played Lee "Apollo" Adama with an American accent, though his character isn't identified as such since the series {{spoiler|is set several hundred thousand years before "Britain," "America," or indeed "the English language" were things}}. The idea was to make the relationship with Edward James Olmos more believable, in combination with Olmos wearing blue contacts and Bamber [[Dyeing for Your Art|dying his blond hair dark]].
** He has used an American accent for his other American TV appearances--[[Cold Case (TV)|Cold Case]], [[CSI: Miami]], [[House (TV series)|House]], [[Ghost Whisperer]], etc.
** One commercial on BBC America for ''Law & Order: UK'' calls him "secretly British".
** During an interview, his [[Law and Order UK]] costar [[Freema Agyeman]] quipped that people were genuinely shocked to learn that he's British, as he'd nailed an American accent so well for four years on [[Battlestar Galactica]].
* [[Natascha McElhone]], born in London and raised in Brighton, plays Hank Moody's sassy, East Coast American for-all-intents-and-purposes-wife/ex-wife/lost love on [[Californication]].
* British actors Stephen Dillane, Tom Wilkinson, and Rufus Sewell played Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton in the HBO miniseries ''[[John Adams (TV series)|John Adams]].''
* British actors Andrew Lincoln and Lennie James as, respectively, the southerners Rick and Morgan in ''[[The Walking Dead (TV series)|The Walking Dead]]''.
** A borderline example is Laurie Holden as Andrea -- while she was born in the US, she was raised in Canada.
* Brit Cary Elwes donned an American accent to play Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins (thought ironically, the real Collins was born in Rome, and raised as an army brat in various US towns), while Canadian Dave Foley faked a southern accent to play Apollo 12 moon-walker Al Bean in ''From the Earth to the Moon''
** Cary Elwes also used a passable southern American accent in [[Kiss the Girls]]. Sadly, when {{spoiler|his accent changed to a more "standard" American when he was revealed as the villain, he couldn't keep his real British accent from slipping through.}}
* ''[[The Riches]]'' starred the very British [[Eddie Izzard]] and Minnie Driver as the patriarch and matriarch of a Southern family of con artists. Of the two, Driver does a much better job of it.
* ''[[Band of Brothers (TV series)|Band of Brothers]]'' is absolutely stuffed with British and other non-American actors, including but not limited to:
** Damian Lewis (Winters)
** Shane Taylor (Doc Roe)
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** In "The Sontaran Stratagem"/"The Poison Sky", British actor Ryan Sampson plays Luke Rattigan.
** In ''The Tomb of the Cybermen'', Vienna-born George Roubicek and Welshman Clive Merrison play Captain Hopper and Jim Callum.
* Kiwi Alan Dale's character Aaron Copley in the ''[[Torchwood (TV)|Torchwood]]'' episode "Reset".
<!-- %%% -->
<!-- %% Jack Harkness technically isn't American, and Scottish-born and Illinois-raised John Barrowman uses his natural day-to-day accent that way. -->
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** She also played an American super model in the final season of [[Hannah Montana]]. For the most part, she managed to sound pretty convincing, but she seemed to have trouble with certain words and sounds and you could tell she wasn't really from the states.
* British actor Ryan Cartwright adopts an American accent on ''[[Alphas]]''.
* Sullivan Stapleton, an Australian, plays the allegedly American Damien Scott in the [[Cinemax]] action show ''[[Strike Back (TV)|Strike Back]]''.
* On [[Dollhouse]], Dichen Lachman puts on an American accent when she is Sierra (and for various imprinted identities) and uses her natural Australian accent for Sierra's true identity, Priya Tsestang.
* Strangely, both [[Castle]] and Beckett's actors, Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic, respectively, are Canadians.
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** Though it's [[Wild Mass Guessing|hypothetically possible]] that Shepard ''is'' Canadian...
*** At the beginning of Mass Effect 3, he has been staying at a military base in Vancouver for the past few months, so one can assume he is Canadian. Although Anderson is there too, even though he is British by birth.
* [[Star Fox (Video Gameseries)|Fox McCloud]] is this in ''[[Star Fox Adventures (Video Game)|Star Fox Adventures]],'' but only that game. (Probably due to the game being both made and recorded in the UK.) He sounds fairly neutral most of the time, but makes a couple slip-ups with regards to [[Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping|British vs. American pronounciations.]] (American "been" rhymes with "when" or "pin," and not "clean", Fox!)
* In ''[[Call of Duty: Black Ops (Video Game)|Call of Duty Black Ops]]'', American black ops operative Alex Mason is played by Australian Sam Worthington... [[Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping|whose strong Aussie accent slips through frequently]]. Though in his defence, when it ''doesn't'' slip, it's actually quite convincing.
* As aggressively American as they otherwise, fully half the members of the ''[[Battlefield: Bad Company (Video Game)|Bad Company]]'' are played by non-Americans; Haggard's voice actor is Canadian, while Marlowe's is actually ''Norwegian''.
 
 
== Web Original ==
* Almost all of [[Little Kuriboh]]'s voices (except for Bakura) in ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series (Web Video)|Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series]].'' [[Justified Trope|Justified]] by LittleKuriboh trying to sound something like the characters he's parodying.
** Similarly, MasakoX in ''[[Naruto the Abridged Series]].'' Masako also plays a fake ''Canadian'' (Rock Lee, eh?).
** Bandit Keith, in... Canada.
* ''Park Bench''
* In [[Philthon Jones]], this was attempted a couple of times, in "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wothBgBbZlo The Murder of Lord Avocado]" and "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLK7pI2JNH4 The Meeting]".
* Jessica Lee Rose of ''[[Lonely Girl 15Lonelygirl15]]'' adopted an American accent for the character Bree. Occasional lapses into her New Zealand accent prompted early speculation on whether or not the blog was a hoax.
 
 
== Western Animation ==
* Anthony LaPaglia also did the voice of a Noo Yawk/Noo Joisey mafia-type skua in ''[[Happy Feet]]''; [[Hugh Jackman]] and [[Nicole Kidman]] put on Southern accents as <s>Elvis</s> Memphis and <s>Marilyn Monroe</s> Norma Jean.
* Rattrap in ''[[Transformers]]: [[Beast Wars (Animation)|Beast Wars]]'' has an American accent, but an Australian voice actor (Scott McNeil) who lives in Canada.
** [[Scott McNeil]] is freakin' everywhere in [[Western Animation]], most of the time with fake accent (he's from Australia) - he's had '''several''' roles in Beast Wars, Wolverine in ''[[X-Men: Evolution]]'', Stork in ''[[Storm Hawks (Animation)|Storm Hawks]]'', Hack #2 in ''Reboot'' - and that's just the start.
* English actor Phil Hayes [[Vocal Evolution|originally]] voiced ''[[Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog]]'''s Scratch with a New York-style accent. In fact, every major character in the series (except for Sonic) has a Canadian or British actor.
* Alan Rickman guest stars on an episode of ''[[King of the Hill]]'', playing the part of the "king" of the local Renaissance Faire, of course using his own British accent. At the end of the episode he drops that to reveal his "real" voice, which is a terrible attempt at a Texas accent.
* In the 1990s animated series ''[[X-Men (Animationanimation)|X-Men]]'', most American characters, such as Cyclops, Jean Grey, or Jubilee are voiced by Canadian actors. Professor X is voiced by an Englishman, and Rogue is voiced by Lenore Zann, an Australian raised in Canada.
* [[Jennifer Hale]], Canadian by birth, in many of her roles, namely ''[[Spider-Man: theThe Animated Series]]'' as Black Cat and ''[[Justice League]]'' as Zatanna.
** However, while she was born in Canada, she grew up in the US (Her parents are from Alabama).
* [[Tara Strong]], who is Canadian by birth, as Batgirl in ''[[Batman: theThe Animated Series|Gotham Knights]]''.
* As opposed to his awful accent in ''[[Black Hawk Down]]'', [[Jason Isaacs]] does a pretty convincing American accent as [[Avatar: The Last Airbender|Admiral Zhao]]
** Iroh's Japanese accent was never modified or explained in-series, however. But then again, as much as we love Mako, would we really have wanted to hear him attempt an American accent?
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