History FakeAmerican / Film

* In the film version of ''Film/StreetFighter'', the All American Air Force Colonel Guile was played by Belgian martial artist JeanClaudeVanDamme.
** Van Damme, like Schwarzenegger, is NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent in his movies. 80's action film producers really had a thing for foreign-sounding stars for some reason and ran with it, resulting in some awkward moments later on their careers.
* KateBeckinsale in ''Film/PearlHarbor''.
** Also in ''Film/{{Click}}''.
* Sam Worthington (Australian) uses a pretty tortured American accent in ''Film/{{Avatar}}''.

** One really has to suspend their disbelief in ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps Black Ops]]''. For some reason, casting directors think Sam Worthington's insuppressible Down Under twang is perfect for playing American servicemen.
** The producers of the movie tried to cover up his accent slips by saying that Jake Sully was from Boston. While Bostonians, like people from the Canadian Maritimes, tend to blend together American and British accents (Australian accents for all intents and purposes are close enough to British in this example to be considered the same), no one in the Boston area speaks like Jake Sully did in that film.

* Bob Hoskins' portrayal of Eddie Valiant in ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit''. Hoskins' natural accent is a thick Cockney, not unlike MichaelCaine's. Here, he does a fairly convincing hard-boiled New York accent, which would have been great if the film didn't take place in Los Angeles.
** {{Justified|Trope}} because Golden-Age Hollywood had a ''lot'' of New Yorkers among its ranks, both actors and (especially) executives; it's never stated that Eddie is a [=SoCal=] native. Also, one of the points of the movie was to play up FilmNoir tropes, for which a thick New York accent works perfectly.
** The same accent worked for Mario in ''Film/SuperMarioBros.'' One of the ''few'' things that worked there.

** However, I did believe he was an American in [[Film/ThePentagonWars]].

* Perhaps one of the best known is Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara and Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes in the film ''GoneWithTheWind''. When the film came out, it shocked many Americans to see an English actress play a SouthernBelle, but now it's hard for us to NOT see them play those roles.

** Alfred Molina, who plays Doctor Octopus in ''Spider-Man 2'', is from London. When he says the line, "I should've known Osborn wouldn't have the spine to finish you!," [[OohMeAccentsSlipping he slips up a bit.]]

* Pretty much the entire cast of ''ColdMountain'', excluding Renee Zellweger, hailed from anywhere but the American South. NicoleKidman (Australian), Jude Law, Ray Winstone, Eileen Atkins, and Charlie Hunman (English), Brendan Gleason and Cillian Murphy (Irish), Donald Sutherland (Canadian).
* Parodied in ''TropicThunder'', which casts an American as an Australian cast as an (African) American. (Originally, the character was supposed to be "truly" Irish, but Robert Downey Jr. found it easier to improvise with an Aussie accent.)
* James [=McAvoy=] as the "hero" in ''{{Wanted}}''. The voice James [=McAvoy=] uses normally in his roles (Southish England) is not his real accent anyway ([=McAvoy=] is Scottish).

* MichaelCaine had to play a Texan in ''Secondhand Lions''. And he did a terrible job, too. In promotional interviews Caine said the secret to the Texas drawl is "to let the syllables lean on each other." He also pulled off lousy AmericanAccents in ''Bullseye!'' (in one of his [[ActingForTwo two roles in that film]]) and ''The Cider House Rules''. And he won an [[OscarBait Oscar]] for the latter, yet! Compare to CharlizeTheron's far more convincing tones in the same movie (and, in fact, every other film the South African Miss Theron has made – she has yet to play her own nationality on screen).
* ChristopherLee did a nice flat Californian accent in the movie ''{{Serial}}'' – and floating around out there is a recording of him singing Ghost Riders in the Sky with a Southern drawl.

* Jude Law's ridiculously bad American accent in ''IHeartHuckabees''. It's painful. He repeats his performance in ''All The King's Men''.

* Cary Elwes did such a fine job playing Major Cabot Forbes in ''{{Glory}}'' that he probably should have been cast as the lead given that he resembles the real Colonel Robert Gould Shaw a lot more than Matthew Broderick does. He did a hideous Midwesternish-Southernish accent for ''{{Twister}}'' though, with just a hint of still being British.

** He did a great southern accent in ''KisstheGirls'' as Det. Nick Ruskin but later [[spoiler:when he is revealed to be the bad guy and drops the southern accent for a deeper "standard" American one]] he slips back into his British accent almost immediately.

** Ditto for his Midwest American accent in ''TheMenWhoStareAtGoats''.

* Simon Pegg puts on a fairly convincing American accent in ''BigNothing''.

* Used to varying effect in ''BugsyMalone'': The movie was filmed in England and used local children for bit parts.
* Raoul Bova, an Italian, does this in ''Avenging Angelo'' and ''AlienVsPredator''.
* Rebecca Hall, an English actress, as Vicky in ''VickyCristinaBarcelona.''

** He plays a New Yorker in ''ManOnALedge'' NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent.

* Emilie de Ravin (best known for playing Claire on ''Series/{{Lost}}'') did an excellent job at concealing her accent in ''{{Brick}}''; ironically, early on during ''Lost'''s run some thought that her natural Australian accent [[RealityIsUnrealistic sounded fake.]]

* MichaelJFox has been able to pull off an amazingly convincing American accent for a while now, to the point that it's difficult to believe that the [[Film/BackToTheFuture 17-year-old time-traveling Californian teenager]] you just saw was actually a twenty-three-year-old from Canada.

** She also plays an American excellently in ''Film/{{Crash}}''.

** He also does a somewhat inexplicable nasal Brooklyn accent when playing Woody Allen's alter ego in ''Film/Celebrity''.

** Canadian/New Zealander AnnaPaquin doing a Southern accent as Rogue

** The new Spider-Man, AndrewGarfield, was born in Los Angeles to a British mother and an American father, but has spent much of his life in the UK.

* Confederate Army soldier Pencroft is played by the very British Percy Herbert in the film adaptation of ''[[TheMysterious Island Mysterious Island]]''.

* Many members of the cast of ''BlackHawkDown'': Ewan Bremner and EwanMcGregor (Scottish), EricBana (Australian), IoanGruffudd (Welsh), NikolajCosterWaldau (Danish), and Creator/OrlandoBloom, Hugh Dancy, TomHardy, JasonIsaacs and Matthew Marsden (all English). Out of those actors, several have portrayed Americans in other movies, with Ewan [=McGregor=] and Matthew Marsden having the most Fake American roles under their belts so far.

* ''Film/ManOfSteel'' has British Henry Cavill was the first non-American actor to play Superman (Who, while technically Alien, is considered an American icon). Fans were initially unhappy but most agree he did a very good job with the accent. Lampshaded in the film when he claims "I grew up in Kansas. I'm as American as They come".

* Cary Elwes did such a fine job playing Major Cabot Forbes in ''{{Glory}}'' that he probably should have been cast as the lead given that he resembles the real Colonel Robert Gould Shaw a lot more than Mathew Broderick does. He did a hideous Midwesternish-Southernish accent for ''{{Twister}}'' though, with just a hint of still being British.

* Dev Patel in ''TheLastAirbender''. Zuko himself isn't American, but Patel ''was'' imitating DanteBasco's normal accent.
* Freddie Highmore's adorably awful American accent in ''AugustRush''. Although to be fair, he was only about eleven or twelve at the time.
* Tim Roth did a convincing American, though ambiguous, accent in ''ReservoirDogs''.
** Tarrantino thought it was too much of a hassle, and had him use his regular accent in ''PulpFiction''
* Canadian actress LauraHarris puts on a downright painful Southern drawl in ''TheFaculty''. [[spoiler:FridgeBrilliance comes in when it's revealed that her character is an alien, meaning that she's a FakeAmerican ''in-universe'' as well. In fact, in the original script her character drops her accent shortly before TheReveal.]]

** ''TheDarkKnightRises'' also has Burn Gorman (American-born but British raised) and Ben Mendelsohn (Australian) as Stryver and Daggett respectively.

* In perhaps one of the biggest examples of this trope, British Henry Cavill will play {{Superman}} (who, while an alien, is an embodiment of the "Truth, Justice and the American Way") in the upcoming ''Film/ManOfSteel''. If the early footage is any indication, he does the accent quite well.

* Many members of the cast of ''BlackHawkDown'': Ewan Bremner and EwanMcGregor (Scottish), EricBana (Australian), IoanGruffudd (Welsh), NikolajCosterWaldau (Danish), and OrlandoBloom, Hugh Dancy, TomHardy, JasonIsaacs and Matthew Marsden (all English). Out of those actors, several have portrayed Americans in other movies, with Ewan [=McGregor=] and Matthew Marsden having the most Fake American roles under their belts so far.

* IslaFisher, born in Oman and raised in Australia, only ever seems to play Americans. This is somewhat justified, however, as if she ever did use her real accent, the result would be so cute, [[DivideByZero the universe would collapse in on itself]].

* ''Captain America: The First Avenger'' has Brit Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark, doing a terrific accent.

** It is somewhat justified. This is the future and the only proof we have that he's from the US is that he's said to be an 'ex-marine' which could mean anything. It would've been more realistic for him to keep his Australian accent considering the fact that the US wouldn't be the main controller of Pandora, far from it, assuming they're still a main power until then (unlikely).

** While with the Grubers, in ''Die Hard with a Vengeance'', when Simon shows up at the blast scene and poses as a city engineer, JeremyIrons puts on a very fake Texas drawl - which works!

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