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[[File:CaineSecondhandLions.jpg|link=Secondhand Lions|frame|[[Michael Caine|Sir Michael Caine]] of... Texas]]
{{quote|''"Don't you hate it when you find out some really cool actor you like is actually Canadian?"''
|'''[[Archer/Extras|Sterling Archer]]''', via [http://twitter.com/codenameduchess/status/7933579112 Twitter]}}
[[Fake
▲{{quote|''"Don't you hate it when you find out some really cool actor you like is actually Canadian?"''|'''[[Archer/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.
According to a documentary, in 2008 one-third of all piloted American TV series had British people in a starring or main supporting role, so this is expanding almost beyond the boundaries of trope. There are honestly so many actors playing fake Americans in games, tv shows, and movies as of late, most people that aren't familiar with many of the actors from across the pond assume they're American.
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{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Patlabor]]'''s Kanuka Clancy is supposed to be a NYC cop of Hawaiian descent, but her voice actor's awkward, heavily accented English says otherwise.
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* Revy in ''[[Black Lagoon]]'' a Chinese-American, born in New York. In the episodes set in Japan, she gets a few lines in thickly-accented and stilted English, laden with profanity.
* The English Dub for "[[Mad Bull 34]]" was done by a British company, thus the VAs speak in really cheesy (and profanity-laden) New Yorker accents.
* ''[[Sketchbook]]'' has Kate, a fake ''[[Canada, Eh?|North]]'' [[Canada, Eh?|American]]. [[Yūko Gotō]]'s [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L7Qt7yMsqk accented Japanese] is accurate and adorable.
== Film ==
* Perhaps one of the best known is Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara and Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes in the film ''[[Gone with 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
** 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.)
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** Rosemary Harris, who plays Aunt May in the films, is also English.
** Daniel Gillies, who play John Jameson in the second film, is Canadian born and grew up in New Zealand.
** Rhys Ifans, who
** The
** The [[Marvel Cinematic Universe]] Spider-Man, Tom Holland, is British.
* Jenn Proske, who plays Becca in ''[[Vampires Suck]]'', is Canadian, [https://web.archive.org/web/20120330174711/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:
** And again in ''[[Cowboys and Aliens (film)|Cowboys and Aliens]]''. He really seems to be channeling [[Steve McQueen]] in that one.
*
** 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.
* The late [[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 (film)|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.
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** Shawn Ashmore (Canadian) as Iceman
** Brian Cox (Scottish) as Stryker in ''[[X2: X-Men United]]''.
** [[
** Canadian/New Zealander [[Anna Paquin]] doing a Southern accent as Rogue.
** In ''[[X-Men:
* 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. (film)|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]]''.
*** Kate admitted being "appalled" by her accent when she watched the movie 15 years later for
** 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.
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** [[Cillian Murphy]] in ''[[Red Eye (film)|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 ''[[Léon: The Professional]]''; he even played Lee Harvey Oswald in ''[[JFK (film)|JFK]]''.
* In ''[[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 the late [[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'').
*** He also played an American in ''[[Bob Roberts]]''.
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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 (film)||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 [[the Wachowskis|Larry Wachowski]] (now Lana 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 (film)|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.
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* 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 (novel)|Twilight]]''. He discusses it [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25p9r5oKBXs=related here].
* Jude Law's ridiculously bad American accent in ''[[I
** 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]]'', Hugh 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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** 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 ''[[21 (2008 film)||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]]''.
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* Rebecca Hall, an English actress, as Vicky in ''[[Vicky Cristina Barcelona]].''
* In ''[[Star Trek (film)|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 (film)|Street Fighter]]'', the All American Air Force Colonel Guile was played by Belgian martial artist [[Jean
** Van Damme, like Schwarzenegger, is [[Not Even Bothering with 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]]''.
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* ''[[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.
*
* [[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.
* Australian Simon Baker in ''[[Margin Call]]'', though it's not always ideal (Given that the film has two British characters and it wouldn't be unrealistic for an Australian to be part of the mix as well in a Wall Street investment bank, it's not clear why it was necessary).
* Dame [[Maggie Smith]] as the incredibly [[Deep South]] Caro Eliza Bennett in ''[[Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood]]''.
== Literature ==
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** Canadian Michael Shanks is similarly feeble as distinctly Texan Crichton on ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'''s 200th episode. He says 4 words, but is plenty horrible anyhow. May have been intentional, given the scene's intent was to parody ''Farscape''.
** The inversion from the same series, where Ben Browder tries to sound vaguely British when Crichton is masquerading as a Peacekeeper officer, is really no better, either.
** Of course, considering [[Australia (
* ''[[The Sandbaggers]]'' avoided the problem of Fake American by having American characters Jeff Ross and Karen Milner played by American actors.
* ''[[Fringe]]'', set mainly in Massachusetts, stars two Australians and a Canadian in the lead roles.
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* [[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.
* Lampshaded in an SCTV sketch lampooning [[Midnight Cowboy]], in which John Candy affected a "Southern" accent so tortured that "y'all" came out "yole" and the entire effect was weirdly similar to yodeling.
* Robert Lee, the narrator of ''[[
* British [[Burn Notice|Gabrielle Anwar]] normally does a pretty darn good job of pretending to be an Irishwoman pretending to be American. Her accent works very well. Only rarely does it slip, usually when overpronouncing arrs she'd normally leave out.
* Two of the main characters in ''[[Moonlight]]'' are played by Fake Americans Alex O'Loughlin (Australian) and Sophia Myles (British). In a subversion, Shannyn Sossamon, who is American plays a Fake American character (Coraline was born in pre-revolutionary France). In fact, most of the older vampires can be considered to be Fake American characters, especially the 700-year old Lola (played by O'Loughlin's then-girlfriend Holly Valance, also an Aussie).
** 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 ''[[
* ''[[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.) The production team joked that as soon as the cameras ran, the two swapped accents.
* Paul Blackthorne also plays an American vampire in several episodes of ''[[The Gates]]''.
* Paul Blackthorne also also plays a very middle American cop in ''[[Arrow]]''.
* 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]]tastic lines he has to deliver.
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** 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]]'' episode "Reset".
* Actress Tammin Sursok (of Australia soap opera ''[[Home and Away]]'') was cast as Colleen Carlton on American soap opera ''[[The Young and The Restless]]'' which launched her North American career. She has been in various movies and tv shows since then using an American accent. Most recently, as the blind Jenna on ''[[Pretty Little Liars]]''. Although having an Australian accent, the actress was actually born in South Africa (as was her co-star Sasha Pieterse, although unlike Tammin she was brought up in the US).
** 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.
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* [[Jerry Springer]] was born in England.
* [[Cary Grant]], who was born in the UK and later took American citizenship. His British accent slowly dwindled over the course of his career, but he never quite sounded American. He almost always played one, however.
** As with Canadian [[William Shatner]], Brit [[Cary Grant]] had his own accent.
* Malin Åkerman, who has portrayed many American roles, was born in Stockholm, [[Sweden]], and raised in Ontario, [[Canada]].
* Troper with a terrible ear for accents has read Cary Elwes usually does a Midwestern-ish accent when playing American characters, though he did a vaguely Southern sounding one in [[Twister]]. [[Helena Bonham Carter]], Nicholas Hoult, and [[Tim Roth]] have all done ambiguously American accents.
* Pro Skater Bob Burnquist is from Brazil He seems to have lost his native accent.
* [[Mary Pickford]], "America's Sweetheart" of the silent-film age and second only to Charlie Chaplin in popularity at the time. Born and raised in [[Toronto]].
* The "Cool Dad of America", [[Eugene Levy]] of ''[[SCTV]]'', ''[[American Pie]]'', and ''[[Schitt's Creek]]'' fame, is from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Trivia Trope]]
[[Category:Characters and Casting]]
[[Category:Accent Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Fake American]]
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