Brits imitating a American Accent for entertainment

I know right! 

He is on Law and Order UK, the young cop, if anyone watches that. 

Also, he's hot. 

That can go a long way toward compensating for a bad accent. 

(Not that he has a bad accent, I just meant in general.)

I've heard that David Tennant once did a pilot for a US show and his "American" was so bad they cancelled!

Well, a Brit played Scarlett O'Hara and that was quite the issue then. 

Jamie Bamber from BSG is British and I thought his accent was quite good.  Also, he's hot.  That is all.   

Jamie Bamber is so gorgeous he makes me actually swoon.  He's from Hammersmith originally, I think his accent in BSG is great but I mostly just watched his abs zomg.

I agree that I think Renee in BJD sounds quite fake, like she's using someone else's voice.

Bob Hoskins is another Brit who can do a decent American Accent.  An American friend of mine was very surprised when I told her he was British.

Oh, I just remembered a bad one.  Marianne Jean-Baptiste on Without a Trace. She's a great actor, and honestly her accent could be worse, it sounds nothing like a New York accent is meant to sound.  Granted, it sounds like an American doing a New York accent, but it always makes me cringe how forced it sounds.

Hands down, the worst fake British accent from a film star was Gwyneth Paltrow in Sliding Doors.  She just makes me cringe.  Ewan MacGregor's American is pretty bad too.  But on the whole, I don't think Americans are as critical of accents as the British are, which is why everyone thinks Hugh Laurie's is so good.  It's certainly not bad, and has gotten a lot better, but I found it a bit forced in the early seasons of House. 

However, there's a big difference between professional actors with dialect coaches doing an accent, and regular people "doing" one.  Americans faking British accents tend to sound either like a pantomime cockney or the Queen in the fifties.  And my colleagues' idea of what "American" sounds like is just painful.  They sound like pantomime New Yorkers.  Even my colleague who is good at accents and can do West Country, cockney, RP, Scottish, Irish, Geordie, you name it, can't produce a decent American.  Too drawly and nasally.  But I'm with Legs Akimbo, many American accents, particularly the ones with really hard Rs, hurt my ears these days. 

I've heard that David Tennant once did a pilot for a US show and his "American" was so bad they cancelled!

I had wondered if that was the reason his pilot wasn't picked up!  Where did you hear this?

I actually think Hugh Laurie's accent is pretty good.  It was weird at first to hear him speak with that accent as I remember watching him on Black Adder.   

Okay, so I know the following aren't British, but their American accents are pretty good in my opinion...Anna Paquin's is good, I think, especially being from NZ.  And Guy Pierce does one of the best (I think)...not bad for an Austrailian.   

I had wondered if that was the reason his pilot wasn't picked up!  Where did you hear this?

Ah. It was something DS learned but I don't know where he got it from.

ETA: He does know people in the "business" but may have been something he saw online.

I think the worst mistake made going both ways is a misunderstanding of the role of region in accent.

I don't know that I think one group of actors is more adept than another because I've heard gorgeous imitation accents and horrificly butchered accents from both North Americans and Brits.

That said, I don't think American accent are viewed as romantic and novel by most Brits, whereas MANY Americans think British accents are magical. Just see all the people who turn up in this community because they just loooove Englishmen.

And that's why I think it's much rarer to hear British people putting on North American accents for fun than to hear Americans put on British accents for fun.

I think the real difference is the intended audience - Brits doing American accents for American audiences have a much higher bar than Brits doing American accents for British audiences and the reverse is certainly true! And with regards to things like Bridget Jones' Diary - everything done by mainstream Hollywood is going to be aimed at Americans, not Brits.

In the Brits-doing-bad-American-Accents, I saw a local production of the musical Titanic (not based on the movie) and the American accents were absolutely awful! There's also an episode of Black Books where the characters pretend to be Annoying American Tourists and come up with what I could only describe as Jewish fishwives from New Jersey.

That said, I used to work the Great Dickens' Christmas Fair (think renaissance faire but built around Charles Dickens, not William Shakespeare) and the Brits who wandered through were always just aghast at the accents    I know my "British accent" wanders around the country mid-sylable, which is why I refuse to share it with anyone but my closest friends. 

I think I've mentioned it before...

Whenever I try to do an American accent..  i almost immediatley start to sound like Joe Pesci outta 'Casino' !

He is a Brit, and Ryan Kwanten, who plays Jason, is from Australia, and I think he does the best Southern accent I've ever heard, it's priceless.  My husband loves to imitate the voice overs for American movie trailers, if that counts... "In a world where one man..." I nearly die laughing every time, he does it really well, yet he can only seem to do an American accent if it's in that voice. 

just to make True Blood even weirder on the accent front: Anna Paquin is a Canadian born New Zealander

My fiance is the king of accents- He can do every regional accent for all of the UK.. However- When he tries to do an American one, it just turns out to be a George W Bush impression, or maybe a Texas hillbilly... It makes me laugh that he can't nail my accent.  My own 7 year old is talking like an Englishman- though for some reason he talks like a posh Londoner vs all the scouse he hears everyday... I wonder why that is? Maybe Americans aren't built to imitate anything more difficult than Mary Poppins...

My British hubby does a funny old Jewish man accent.  He also does a perfect Herbert (from Family Guy--the pervert old man character) imitation.