Brits playing Americans on film

I guess we almost don't think of Angela Lansbury as a British actress anymore, but she did a similarly good job with a Southern accent in The Long Hot Summer. She played many American characters over the years and seems to have cultivated one of those "mid-Atlantic" accents as her workload in American films increased, to make it easier to take on those kind of roles. It's an easier switch from one to the other if you keep your baseline somewhere in between. Cary Grant is probably the most famous example, of course. When Angela needed to, as in Sweeney Todd, she could jump right back "across the pond" with her accent.

Speaking of Charles Laughton, I recently saw Elsa Lanchester in Pajama Party (1964) (Please don't ask me why.) and she seems to have gone the "dithery" route to mute the Britishness of her speaking voice. It was a pretty effective tactic because dithering probably sounds relatively the same on both continents.

My PBS has been running the old Poirots, which I love, and British actors often pop up as Americans, more often than not in a cringeworthy way, with everything just flattened out and no nuance, which I guess is how they think of us? It's probably easier for a Brit to get away with playing American in a British film or TV show than it would be to do the same in an American film, a whole different context. 

Although Australian, Errol Flynn sounds British enough naturally to most Americans, and not knowing him being Australian many would assume he was a British actor. And so we'd have to assume Gen. George Custer actually did speak like a Bengal Lancer. But I sincerely doubt that he did despite his Mother's British ancestry. But offhand I can't think of any other Brit actors that payed American characters.

And recall in the early days of the "talkies" how some studios hired voice coaches to get many of their actors and actresses to speak with a more "British" diction.

Sepiatone

  Leigh

  Day-Lewis

  Winslet

Great talents and convincing peformances. You believe 'em regardless.

Another Aussie, Cate Blanchett, has really never been mistaken for British but has fared pretty well with British and American accents. Her small town America born, Curtis Institute educated, Lydia Tár, is a convincing example, to say the least. 

I guess Bob Hope doesn't count?  

My aural abilities would say Barry Morse does a fairly good job as a 'suppressor'.
When I hear him in something like Puzzle of a Downfall Child or The Changeling it isn't too distracting.
Peter Sellers even sells it quite well in Strangelove or Being There but of course not as well as on early albums.

My ears aren't the best however. Minnie Driver had me fooled for quite a long time. She's so mauve.

Watching for 'suppressors' is always on my radar, whether it be tv or film.
All nationalities are surveilled. No one is safe.
I take great delight waiting for those little Bowie slip ups. J'accuse!

I think Peppa Pig has a British accent.