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Why do foreign actors talk in American accents?
—Michelle, Washington, D.C.
The B!tch Replies: Let's turn to the head of a legendary acting school for help with this question. In fact, let's pester David Lee Strasberg, CEO of the Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute, which has educated everybody from Scarlett Johansson to Adam Sandler to La Jolie.
"Every actor has two great fears," Strasberg says.
Only two? Very well. I'll go with gaining weight and insulting Oprah.
"Personal rejection and the fear of not working."
Right. That, too. Strasberg explains that these fears regularly drive actors to suppress any personal characteristic that might make them professionally undesirable. And every actor has a different flaw—some foible that could jeopardize a job. For example, Gwyneth Paltrow has an ice-encrusted chunk of Arctic rock salt where her heart should be.
For foreign actors, that weakness is often a janky accent. Many filmmakers don't like those. They can be irksome for a U.S. audience. (Unless you've grown to enjoy playing Spot the Aussie on basic cable—which I have.)
Even being from Canada—home of Jim Carrey, Evangeline Lilly and William Shatner—holds its perils for an ambitious thespian.
"I even know of Canadian actors who will claim to be American, and they really don't look or sound any different," Strasberg says. "They will claim to be from the U.S. for fear of some judgment about [the fact] that they are foreign.
"There's this sense that a young American actor is what everyone is looking for."
So once foreign actors manage to quash their accents, they may decide to hide them all the time, just in case they run across some jingoistic producer.
Also, keep in mind some actors may use their spare moments as practice, to keep their speech American-neutral. So, Charlize Theron may not be hiding her accent as much as she is honing her ability to enunciate in an Oscar-friendly way.
"Some actors feel like if they go back, they break their habit," Strasberg tells this B!tch. "They don't want to slip, because it is hard to get an American dialect to begin with."
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