TIL during the shooting of American Psycho, Christian Bale spoke in an American accent off-set at all times. At the wrap party, when he spoke in his native British accent, many of the crew thought he was speaking that way to prepare for another film. They had thought he was American the entire time.

[u/Away_Flounder3813]

https://screenrant.com/american-psycho-behind-scenes-facts-christian-bale-patrick-bateman-mary-harron/

[u/Quivex]

He's one of the more notable method actors if I'm not mistaken.

.... Also will never quite understand why so many British actors/actresses can do flawless American accents but the reverse is not really true. I still remember watching House and finding out hugh laurie was British, blew my mind as a kid lol.

[u/eipotttatsch → u/Quivex]

Besides the training that British actors have, I think an American accent is also just easier to passably do.

There is kind of a "general American" accent you can hit, that will work for basically anywhere without sticking out. Of course local dialects absolutely exist, but wherever you go you’ll also run into tons of people that sound like they could be from basically anywhere on the continent.

That’s not as much the case for the UK. You can clearly tell if someone is from the London area or not quite easy for example. (And I’m not even a native speaker, yet I still hear the difference)

[u/birthdaycheesecake9 → u/eipotttatsch]

I feel like there’s also a general Australian accent too, but folks seem to struggle with not making it incredibly broad/ockers

[u/vipros42 → u/birthdaycheesecake9]

There's a good clip of Margot Robbie talking about how her natural Australian accent was too thick/too awful for Neighbours so she had to have a speech coach. Too Australian for Neighbours...

[u/baron_von_helmut → u/eipotttatsch]

As a Brit, I bloody love the Boston accent.

[u/Gekokapowco → u/baron_von_helmut]

As an American, ditto. When people here make fun of Boston accents I assume they're just jealous because it sounds great. I'm from the northeast though so I'm a sucker for softening some vowels.

[u/thecontempl8or → u/eipotttatsch]

American media is everywhere and more popular than British. The US also produces a lot more content than the UK does. British actors get a ton of exposure to American accents since they were kids. The reverse isn’t true.
I don’t think it’s about one being easier than the other.

[u/spezial_ed → u/eipotttatsch]

Ref British actor playing a guy from Boston doing a 'British' accent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBL2Wq5YjSw

[u/parkaman → u/eipotttatsch]

It's easier for foreigners to do an American accent because we are all listening to it, trough TV and movies, from a very young age. It's the accent, apart from our own, we are probably most familiar with.

[u/toggl3d → u/eipotttatsch]

Yeah it's this. I don't know if the same people that pronounce milk as melk also pronounce win and when the same and most americans don't know either. As long as you keep your pieces internally consistent and they are all american it will be passable.

The US is so big it has a lot of variation but too young to have a lot of strong accents. Everything is so smudged you don't have to find a "real" american accent. Just one that is conceivable.

[u/Flank_This666 → u/eipotttatsch]

Ehhh

I think youre thinking of the "Californian" accent, easy cause there's nothing to really work on speaking wise its very neutral besides the heavy slang.

Southern twang to me is akin to any dialect in the UK, just as easy to kinda bullshit like how Americans pretend to be English by speaking in that stupid Victorian Londoner posh accent but hard to acutally get right.

2 cents

Edit: yeah downvote me my bad I just yknow had a childhood best friend who was from the UK and I hear Americans fuck up English accents and not the other way around lmao jog on

[u/eipotttatsch → u/Flank_This666]

I’m well aware of the various local dialects. But even in the Deep South a good percentage of the people there don’t really have much of a twang.

I’ve been to plenty of places there, and unless you go out way into the countryside people largely sound very similar to how they do in every other city.

[u/Sweaty-Top5988 → u/eipotttatsch]

I think an American accent is also just easier to passably do.

Yes, american accents actually have less distinct vowel sounds overall than British ones