Andrew Sullivan…

Mastering American Accents

Harder than some might think. I, for one, will never forgive Dominic West for McNulty.

That’s okay…I can’t bear to listen to Dick Van Dyke’s Bert.  I never watched The Wire (I actually live in Baltimore…I don’t need to watch it on TV too…), but West couldn’t have been that bad. 

It gets worse for actors with the global media these days.  You watch British television on cable.  You watch British movies.  You watch ordinary English folk doing this and that on YouTube.  And then you listen to American actors trying to get it right and maybe the best of them, or the ones who’ve lived in England most of their lives are convincing, but mostly it’s an embarrassment. Let it be said a lot of actors don’t do different American accents very well either (southern…deep southern…New England…Western…).  That’s something you really notice the more you travel within the U.S.

Bawlmer, hon?  Yeah…everyone here in my neighborhood knows I didn’t grow up here.  J.K. Rowling was absolutely right to insist on a British cast.