Accent Ranking

No new Doctor Who last Saturday, so no recap this week. But I did find this Radio Times article through TV tattle. In it, Radio Times surveyed British television viewers asking them to rank British actors' American accents. Judging by the resulting lists, the rankings merely reflect the popularity of each actor and actress, as 8 of the top ten Best are also 8 of the top ten Worst:

The Best
1. Hugh Laurie (House)
2. Anna Friel (Pushing Daisies)
3. Michelle Ryan (Bionic Woman)
4. Damian Lewis (Band of Brothers)
5. Minnie Driver (The Riches)
6. Eddie Izzard (The Riches)
7. Joely Richardson (Nip/Tuck)
8. Ian McShane (Deadwood) 9. Louise Lombard (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation)
10. Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Without a Trace)

The Worst
1. Michelle Ryan (Bionic Woman)
2. Eddie Izzard (The Riches)
3. Anna Friel (Pushing Daisies)
4. Hugh Laurie (House)
5. Ian McShane (Deadwood)
6. Sean Maguire (The Class)
7. Minnie Driver (The Riches)
8. Joely Richardson (Nip/Tuck)
9. Louise Lombard (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation)
10. Dominic West (The Wire)

Though, to be fair to the British people, I think if I made a similar list, my "best American accent" rankings would also reflect my favorites because, well, that is who I watch and know. Still, it is something I like to think about, and I think that as an actual American, my opinion on how good or poor an American accent is the more distinct opinion. :-)

So how would I rank among the selected top 8 British favorites? First, I will have to take Ian McShane and Louise Lombard out of the running because I've never seen a full episode of either Deadwood or CSI. That leaves...

1) Hugh Laurie - The man works hard at making his words American and his speech natural, and it pays off beautifully. I first watched him be just as delightfully mean, smug and intelligent on MI-5/Spooks, and before House, MD premiered I wondered if he would be as delightful in an American accent and...he is.
2) Joely Richardson - I don't watch much Nip/Tuck, so I haven't had many opportunities to observe her trip over "r"s and flatten vowels, but I haven't noticed a misplaced accent.
3) Minnie Driver - On The Riches she does a southern accent, so she has it a bit easy there. Southern is easy to do, and I'm not southern enough to notice a difference between Louisiana accents and the rest of the south. Her regional accent may be off, but it sounds credibly southern and I don't notice British accented quirks.
4) Anna Friel - She does a good job, but I think the affected accent throws off her acting occasionally.
5) Eddie Izzard - To my ear, he occasionally drops his southern, "Louisiana" accent.
6) Michelle Ryan - I have only seen half an episode of Bionic Woman. I've seen more of her in Jekyll where she was naturally British and fabulous. Her acting ability in an American accent was decidedly not fabulous, which made the American accent seem poor too.

My favorites who didn't make the Radio Times top 10:

Idris Elba - I have watched him in The Wire. He is my hands-down favorite of the moment, and his character hasn't even been on for a couple seasons. He does an African American Baltimore accent! He is a Brit doing a regional American accent that even most Americans wouldn't recognize as regional. It is outstanding. And it helps that The Wire is an outstanding show.

Damian Lewis - He was my favorite until Idris beat him out, and largely for the same reasons as Idris. He fooled me. I watched him play Major Richard Winters for an entire miniseries, and was convinced he was from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (my hometown). I don't know if he met Major Winters and based his accent off of his, but his acting and accent felt dead-on.

Jamie Bamber - (Another Band of Brother alum, also playing a Pennsylvanian serviceman). His British roots are very occasionally slightly detectable, but the accent never interferes with performance, and the difference between his American speaking voice and British speaking voice is huge.

Speaking of Band of Brothers. I love that miniseries, and one of my favorite things to do while re-watching is play a little game: Spot the Brit. The series filmed in England and many of the actors were British. Liebgott---Scottish and marrying Jennifer Love Hewitt. Sgt. Martin---Englishman named Dexter. Medic Roe---English. Popeye---English. Harry Welsh---English. Also, many of the actors were relative unknowns to Americans at the time. Go back and rewatch it and you will spot in minor roles not only Jamie Bamber, but Marc Warren, James McAvoy and Simon (freaking) Pegg.

Finally, all this accent thinking leads me to the contemplation of Americans doing British Accents and who I think has done an excellent job, i.e., who fooled me:

Jennifer Ehle (BBC's Pride & Prejudice) - This actress had me fooled for a decade. She played Elizabeth Bennet opposite Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy and I never noticed an out of place syllable, nor a hint of North Carolina sweetness.

Gwyneth Paltrow (Emma, Sliding Doors). - Her roles in Sliding Doors and Emma had me fooled. It wasn't until she hosted Saturday Night Live in 1999 that I actually believed she was American. Heck, she won an Oscar for her accent.