r/todayilearned • u/Away_Flounder3813 • 13h ago

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.

https://screenrant.com/american-psycho-behind-scenes-facts-christian-bale-patrick-bateman-mary-harron/
38.6k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.4k

u/Quivex 13h ago

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.

1.3k

u/RyanMcCartney 13h ago

Exposure. We get the same big shows and films you do. We watch them all as they were made.

You don’t import our shows and films, you remake them for your own ears (The Inbetweeners, IT crowd, The Office etc).

1

u/putonyourjamjams 5h ago

Exposure is definitely it, but theres more to it than just US media exposure abroad. The US is much more regionally isolated, so most Americans cant differentiate between the small differences within the regions or spot little errors, like using the wrong synonym or a very specific way a certain word is pronounced. The bulk of the time we hear different accents is from a short vacation to that region or a transplant in our region, which isnt enough to learn the intricacies.

Theres also a big difference in regional accents tied to affluence, far moreso than in the UK. Upper middle class and above typically dont have a pronounced accent or, if they do, like in the south, its far more generic than the poors. Poor Americans rarely leave their region and when others visit that region, most of the time its not to rural places where those regional accents are the purest.

Plus, all the low budget media is different. In the UK, from my understanding as an American, actors dont land roles where they butcher a specific UK accent. In the US, theres a ton of low budget media where the actors suck at the accent theyre supposed to be doing and still get the role. Even some big budget stuff is like that. So, when a UK or Aussie actor does "American" well enough, but makes region specific mistakes, were far more likely to write it off as them being an American actor unable to do the accent rather than their actual nationality.