History OohMeAccentsSlipping / LiveActionTV

* ''Series/CriminalMinds'': Jayne Atkinson was originally born in England but moved to the U.S. (first in the Miami area) when she was nine. Her own accent is thus a hybrid of the English and American accents, but on the show, she goes for a more authoritative baritone (to more closely mimic Thomas Gibson's portrayal of [[NamesTheSame Hotch]]), which she doesn't always hold.

* ''Series/TheNightShift'': Eoin Macken's Irish accent tends to pop up whenever TC is angry/ emotional/ yelling.

* ''Series/{{Nashville}}'': Given that most of the main characters are played by people who aren't from anywhere near Tennessee (with the exception of Kentuckian Will Chase[[note]]Creator/ConnieBritton is from Massachusetts, Creator/HaydenPanettiere and Eric Close are from New York (State), Charles Esten from Pennsylvania, Jonathan Jackson from Florida, Chris Carmack from Washington DC, the Stella sisters are Canadian and Clare Bowen's Australian[[/note]]), this trope does come up occasionally. The most grating example is in one season two episode, where Sam Palladio's usually quite good American accent suddenly decides to have a fight with his regular English voice.

* ''Series/{{Jessica Jones|2015}}'' features three Australian actors as American characters: Rachael Taylor as Trish Walker, Eka Darville as Malcolm Ducasse, and in season 1, Wil Traval as Will Simpson. Like with ''Gray's Anatomy'', Rachael Taylor has the most slippage when it comes to masking her Australian accent, and it tends to be most noticeable in her scenes with just Simpson or Malcolm.

* ''Series/BurnNotice'':
** Gives us Fiona Glenanne, the former Irish terrorist who can't hold an Irish accent to save her life. Creator/GabrielleAnwar is otherwise fantastic, so after the pilot, they gave her an American accent along with the explanation "I can't very well be talking like a freakin' leprechaun now, can I?" Ahh, ''much'' better. And Anwar is [[FakeIrish quite English]], so her FakeAmerican is even better than that.

*** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E12TheStolenEarth "The Stolen Earth"]] has a scene where the Doctor speaks Judoon, something Tennant found nearly impossible to do in the Doctor's English accent, and which was specifically put in just to screw with him.

*** In [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor "The Day of the Doctor"]], Creator/MattSmith's Eleventh Doctor insults Tennant's Tenth Doctor by calling him "Creator/DickVanDyke", whose atrocious Cockney accent in ''Film/MaryPoppins'' is a cultural meme in the UK. Eleven goes on to poke fun at Ten's artificial, vain attempts at Britpoppy coolness and how he's going through his "grunge phase", which (since Britpop and UK Grunge were notorious for popularising class-tourist "Mockney" accents amongst the middle class) seems to imply that the Tenth Doctor's accent is an in-character affectation, likely because he thinks it's cool. (The TV chef Jamie Oliver, all the rage in the mid-00s, was one of the figures who inspired the Tenth Doctor; he was a notorious target of mockery at the time for his fake Cockney affectations.)
*** Tennant also slips into a neutral posh English accent quite a lot during the specials, most notably [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E16TheWatersOfMars "The Waters of Mars"]]. This is because Tennant had been playing Hamlet with the Royal Shakespeare Company for months, and Hamlet's posh accent had eclipsed the Doctor's as his default English accent. He claims he had to buy all the [=DVDs=] and watch his performance again to relearn how to do it. Of course, during "The Waters of Mars" the Doctor [[AGodAmI loses his handle on reality and declares himself to be a god]], so his accent going up two social classes seems to suit his {{hubris}}.

* ''Series/GoodOmens2019'': Another David Tennant one. As the demon Crowley, he does the majority of his performance in his ''Doctor Who'' English accent (which he also used for Kilgrave in ''Series/JessicaJones''), but it couldn't quite hold up to yelling at those houseplants. Complicated by the fact that Crowley also ''in-character'' puts on a Scottish accent when he's being Nanny Ashtoreth.

* ''Series/JessicaJones2015'' features three Australian actors as American characters: Rachael Taylor as Trish Walker, Eka Darville as Malcolm Ducasse, and in season 1, Wil Traval as Will Simpson. Like with ''Gray's Anatomy'', Rachael Taylor has the most slippage when it comes to masking her Australian accent.

** While Jessica Hamby begins her tenure on the show with a pretty strong Southern dialect, Creator/DeborahAnnWoll gradually loses the Southern accent as the show progresses. By the last season, the dialect is completely gone, presumably since Woll was adjusting her accent to play Karen Page in ''Series/Daredevil2015''.

* ''Series/{{Brookside}}'': There was an actress in this now-defunct Scouse soap opera who was meant to be from a geographically distinct part of Northern Ireland. Part of the joy of listening to the Dublin-born actress (Barbara Dreman) who played Niamh Musgrove was the way, like an [[UsefulNotes/IrishTravellers Irish traveler]] on the road, her accent moved and wavered between the six counties of Northern Ireland without once settling on any one, often in the same line of dialogue. (Again, the Jane Leeves thing of mastering a regional accent from your own country which is not your own.)

** Colin O'Donoghue suffers a few accent slippages since he's Irish but putting on an RP voice for Captain Hook.

** The Darling siblings have two non-Brits doing accents. James Immekus slips in a couple of sentences playing Michael. Freya Tingley, however, does a flawless accent to play Wendy.
** Robert Carlyle isn't doing an accent but rather toning his Scottish brogue down a little. There are sometimes - particularly when the character is angry - that he slips into a heavier Scots accent.

* ''Series/SonsOfAnarchy'': Especially in the latter seasons, Charlie Hunnam's Jax Teller will occasionally slip into Hunnam's English accent.

** In the first few episodes of season one, Mohinder has an Indian accent which has been replaced by something resembling a British one. Neither of those are the actor's real accent, which is American. Amusingly, Sendhil Ramamurthy had a guest appearance on ''Series/{{Psych}}'' where, instead of doing the full Mohinder, he tried to go with an accent about halfway between Mohinder's British one and his own natural "California Valley Dude" accent. Instead, it just seems to slip between one and the other throughout the episode from scene to scene.

** One of the Fifth and Sixth Doctor's companions, Peri Brown, was supposed to be from Pasadena, California. However, her actress, Creator/NicolaBryant, a native Briton, apparently couldn't pin down a California accent if she tried and instead took Brits on a linguistic tour of the United States with each serial. It didn't help authenticity that the scripts she was given didn't use American terms like "truck" or "elevator" in favor of British ones like "lorry" and "lift" because the BBC thought it'd confuse the audience.[[note]]Given that during her stint, The BBC ran ''Series/{{Dallas}}'', ''Series/{{Dynasty}}'' ''and'' ''Series/TheDukesOfHazzard'' it is unlikely viewers would've been confused...[[/note]]
** Creator/JohnBarrowman, who plays Captain Jack Harkness, is British but spent some of his childhood in America. He cultivated an "American" accent that while wildly applauded as "Mid-Atlantic" in Britain doesn't work as well with actual Americans. This is made worse by the British English in his scripts and the occasional slip back to his native Scottish accent. Depending on whom you talk to, "mid-Atlantic" might mean anywhere from Delaware (the actual meaning used by linguists) to Rhode Island (where Barrowman lived in America; an accent most often heard from Peter Griffin on ''Family Guy'').
*** Worth mentioning that Captain Jack isn't American; he's from the Boeshane Peninsula in the 51st Century.
*** Barrowman himself is much more modest about his accent than his fans, describing it as a hybrid he developed as a child to avoid bullying.

** Australian actress Cassi Thomson (Nikki) sometimes has trouble keeping her native accent from coming through as Nikki.

* ''Series/{{Cheers}}'': The character Cliff Clavin originally had a [[HahvahdYahdInMyCah very broad Boston accent]]; over time, the actor John Ratzenberger let it fade out, reverting to his normal speaking voice. The only remnant is the accent on his catchphrase, "Here's a little known fact..." It's odd, however, that Cliff is the ''only'' member of ''Cheers'' who speaks with any sort of regional accent!

* ''Series/TheNanny'':
** In one episode, Creator/FranDrescher's character loses her trademark nasal voice after eating a lot of wasabi. Though the effect is only temporary, it allows the audience to hear her real voice.
** It's not quite her real voice - Fran Drescher literally has to talk a lot slower to sound less Fran-ish.
* ''Series/TheRiches'': In one episode, Wayne and Dahlia, played by Creator/EddieIzzard and Minnie Driver, affect British accents for one part of a scam. Both Izzard and Driver are British and use fake UsefulNotes/AmericanAccents (in her case, a rather thick Hillbilly drawl.) Then you remember that they're playing UsefulNotes/IrishTravellers, and you get even more confused.

** More or less every character after the tenth season ''[[Series/PowerRangersWildForce Wild Force]]''; though the characters were always American, usually Californian, the actors were predominantly from New Zealand and Australia, and the accents were invariably transient. Until Haim Saban bought back the franchise, the last season in which the Ranger actors were primarily from North American was ''Series/PowerRangersSPD'', though Monica May (Z) was the only American; the other actors were Canadian.
** AvertedTrope in ''Series/PowerRangersMysticForce'' with Xander, who was from Australia, allowing his actor, Richard Brancatisano, to use his native accent. Also, with ''Series/PowerRangersDinoCharge'', where New Zealand actor James Davies was allowed to stick with his accent to play Chase.

** Reuben Turner who plays James Navarro on Series/PowerRangersDinoCharge would occasionally have to dubbed over by another person due to his Kiwi accent being too thick. Since the character's supposed to be from America like his son, who has no accent, leaving this unchanged would have stuck out like a sore thumb.

** The season four opener features Daphne's former fiancé, who has the most unconvincing British accent put on by an American actor since Dick Van Dyke. Worse, although Daphne mentioned that they got together in Manchester, he's ''attempting'' a London accent.

** Jane Leeves' fake Mancunian accent is pretty unconvincing to British viewers. Jane Leeves is British but was born in Essex and raised in Sussex -- nowhere near Manchester.

* Comedy duo French and Saunders have a running gag where whenever they do a parody of a movie/tv show, they'll lose their accent at some point in the parody (if they bothered with one in the first place). The other one will then say "You're not going to bother with the accent, then?" which prompts the other one to try and get back into the accent by saying "how are you" in a ridiculous way that sounds more like "haaay err yew". Their catch-phrase "how are you?" in these situations is done in a Northern Irish accent. Entertainingly lampshaded in their ''Franchise/{{Star Wars}}'' parody where Saunders played Liam Neeson's character. Since Neeson is Northern Irish, for once the accent was right.

* ''Series/TheTudors'': Jonathan Rhys Meyers does a fairly good British accent through seasons one and two. It began slipping a little more obviously in season three, then in season four, it appeared that he'd all but given up. I never knew that Henry VIII was actually Irish.

* ''Series/SchittsCreek'': The show is Canadian and the series creators have said the town is somewhere in Canada, although it's never confirmed onscreen. So, when actors who play the townies like Jen Robertson, Creator/DustinMilligan and Creator/NoahReid slip on their o's and start to sound Canadian, it works. However, Alexis Rose seems to have grown up in New York and Los Angeles, but when she says "sorry" the fact that Annie Murphy is Candanian becomes adorably clear.

** During the same trial, English actor Creator/JamieBamber, who plays Lee "Apollo" Adama with a pseudo-American accent, slips up and says, "Chamallar extract," adding in an "r" sound after "Chamalla," which is a British-ism. (It's also a Boston-ism, but then his pseudo-American accent is pseudo-"General American," not pseudo-Boston Brahmin.)
*** And while Bamber did an admirable job on the whole in the series, his accent in the mini-series does slip on occasion, though this is partly forgivable since the series isn't set in the real world at all but in a made-up set of planets, and his accent was faked more for the purpose of matching Creator/EdwardJamesOlmos' than in order to sound like an actual American.
*** Perhaps the best example of a slip came in 2008 when the cast appeared on David Letterman's show to do the Top Ten List. Bamber's line consisted of technobabble, which he recited in an American accent in the rapid-fire manner of Adama, before clearly dropping the accent as he suddenly declared "I don't know what the hell I'm talking about". FridgeBrilliance kicks in when you realize that he probably did that ''deliberately'', seeing as how he was breaking character.
*** Bamber has similarly slipped up or struggled to maintain an American accent (despite an overall good job) during some of his appearances on other American TV shows--''Series/ColdCase'' (sure enough, during a "highly emotional scene"), ''Series/CSIMiami'', and 17th Precinct (an unaired pilot). Very tellingly, the latter two came after several years of him using his normal accent while on Series/LawAndOrderUK, so one can assume he was simply out of practice, but in ''Precinct'', he fumbles it so badly that the result is a bizarre hybrid of British, American, and ''Canadian'' (the episode was filmed in Vancouver)
*** Even his natural British accent isn't exempt from this, as he also had some trouble maintaining a working-class accent while playing a firefighter on ''Series/TheSmoke'', as it was a notable difference from his natural upper-class one.

*** His "normal" accent is more complicated: his father, Tony, moved to Canada from Great Britain in 1957 when Tony was 12, and still noticeably has an English (Sussex) inflection when he speaks, which influenced his son.

* Creator/StephenColbert:
** He deliberately changed his accent when quite young, and ''never'' slips back into his original Southern accent - except [[http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/167610/may-08-2008/garrett-reisman once]] (fandom consensus was that this was adorable).
** He does always pronounce "egg" as "ayg."

** Al Swearengen's accent waxes and wanes like the moon. Subverted, because, in contrast to the real historical figure, Creator/IanMcShane plays him as an immigrant and even mentions Manchester (nearby to [=McShane's=] native Lancashire) within the dialogue. This would explain slippage.

** One episode required Daphne to fake an American accent, complicated by the fact that the only word she could say in said accent was "Sure!". This is especially notable considering that Daphne's own English accent is faked by actress Jane Leeves.
** Her fake Mancunian accent is pretty unconvincing to British viewers. Jane Leeves is British but was born in Essex and raised in Sussex -- nowhere near Manchester.
** It is, however, completely subverted by John Mahoney, who was also born and lived in Lancashire into his teens. Unsurprisingly, he once pulled off a pretty good Manchester accent when doing a deliberately mocking impression of Daphne.
** Jane Leeves's weird and allegedly Mancunian accent was developed by the actress as a generic approximation of a [[OopNorth North-Of-England]] accent - i.e. a British accent that would sound more palatable to American ears - despite it not being at all realistic or representative of any one geographical part of England at all.
** Alternatively, her accent can be thought of as slipping and sliding along the North Cheshire Plain from Runcorn and Ellesmere Port right across to Stockport and back again... only at the Stockport end of the Grand Tour does it even touch on Manchester, and then on a South Manchester accent. Americans would not have liked North Manchester ''at all'', as this touches on broad Lancashire.... tha' knows, sithee, yon Yanks'd've bin reyt up in't urr.

* ''Series/{{Friends}}'': Happens InUniverse in the episode "The One with Ross's Tan". When Monica and Phoebe's old friend returns from England, she fakes a British accent. At one point, she says "I feel like a perfect arse", pronouncing "arse" with a rhotic R.

* Portia de Rossi:
** Her accent isn't too bad but there are times when her accent slips up.
** In ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment'' her accent gets sketchy from time to time, especially when she says, "stupid" or "anything".
** She also occasionally strays into her Australian accent in ''Series/BetterOffTed''.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':
** At the start, Deanna Troi spoke with a pronounced Eastern European accent that softened over time to a mid-Atlantic accent somewhat closer to her natural English accent. Her mother, Lwaxana Troi, has no such accent. After Creator/MarinaSirtis called the producers on this, they decided she must have been using her father's accent. Then, in a later episode, an illusion of her father shows up sounding nothing like her either.
** Or else actress Marina Sirtis, a Londoner born to Greek Cypriot parents, was recoursing to a very specific Eastern European accent - as Greece and Cyprus are both at the eastern end of the continent and all she would have needed do is speak English as her wider Greek family spoke it.
** Explained (or lampshaded) in a later episode where Lwaxana laments letting Deanna spend so much time with her nanny as a child because the nanny's accent rubbed off on Deanna.[[note]]This is TruthInTelevision to an extent; although less common than picking up an accent from a parent, it can happen that children pick up the accents of other adults who are a particularly strong influence in their lives, sometimes in a matter of months.[[/note]]

** The show also has in InUniverse example with Russell Edgington, who is played by Midwestern native Creator/DenisOHare. Russell puts on a heavy Southern accent, and when he gets angry, slips into a German accent. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] since while he is [[Really700YearsOld 3,000 years old]], older than both Germany and the New World. He has been a Southerner for a relatively short time and was a Nazi before that, and by [[WordOfGod Denis O'Hare's word]], Russell was a Druid priest in his human life.

** Then there is Spike. Creator/JamesMarsters does a passable British accent most of the time, but as his presence increases, there are more than a few slips (too round r's, most noticeably, or the use of inherently British words such as 'bollocks' a little too much like how an American would say them.) However, during season 4, twice, he has to fake a Southern accent ("I am a friend of Xander's") and the results are (perhaps intentionally) hilarious.
*** This gets brain-bending when you realize that this is an American man (James Marsters) pretending to be an upper-class Englishman (Spike's actual origin) pretending to be a lower-class Englishman (Spike trying to sound tougher) pretending to be an American (to fool Riley).
*** To an actual Brit, on Spike's earliest appearances in season 2 his accent comes across as exaggerated, with frequent slips, becoming more natural in season 3 - making the jarring moments beyond that quite awkward. His British accent also comes across as more Australian at points.
*** The problem doesn't go away when he plays Capt. John Hart on ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' with an equally slipping British accent.

* ''Series/TopOfTheLake'': While Elisabeth Moss made out generally (and, to some, surprisingly) well with a character whose background called for a hybrid Australian/New Zealand accent, there are nevertheless scenes in which she can just barely conceal her native American accent.

* ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'': Watch the outtakes where Jack's in hysterics for one thing or another and he usually just [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYGUeNUz_5Q&feature=related gives up on holding *any* particular accent altogether.]]

* ''Series/AreYouBeingServed'': Mrs. Slocombe tends to affect an awkward Received Pronunciation accent when talking to customers or otherwise trying to appear sophisticated, but lapses into her (and actress Mollie Sugden's) native Yorkshire accent when angry, embarrassed, drunk, or speaking more casually.
** This is part of the character's pretensions rather than the actress not being able to hold her accent though.

!!General Note:

* Just a general notice that blonde Australian actresses (with the exceptions of Yvonne Strahovski[[note]] What makes Strahovski's ability so impressive is that ''English isn't even her first language.'' She grew up speaking Polish, then learned to speak English perfectly (with an Australian accent), and then learned to speak English with a nearly flawless American accent. In a few episodes of ''Series/{{Chuck}}'', she has also convincingly spoken in a Southern accent and a British accent.[[/note]] and Toni Collette) seem to be incapable of accurate American accents. Sarah Wynter is the most egregious offender, followed closely by Poppy Montgomery and then Anna Torv. Portia de Rossi isn't too bad, but she slips up every so often. Strahovski does a perfect accent, but it's obvious by the way her mouth moves when she talks that she is speaking in a different manner than normal.
----

** Reuben Turner who plays James Navarro on Series/PowerRangersDinoCharge would occasionally have to dubbed over by another person due to his Kiwi accent being too thick. This is because with a character who is supposed to be from New Zealand and his son not having an accent, Reuben's slips would've stuck out like a sore thumb.

** One of the Fifth and Sixth Doctor's companions, Peri Brown, was supposed to be from Pasadena, California. However, her actress, Creator/NicolaBryant, a native Briton, apparently couldn't pin down a California accent if she tried and instead took Brits on a linguistic tour of the United States with each serial. It didn't help authenticity that the scripts she was given didn't use American terms like "truck" or "elevator" in favor of British ones like "lorry" and "lift" because the BBC thought it'd confuse the audience.

** Explained (or lampshaded) in a later episode where Lwaxana laments letting Deanna spend so much time with her nanny as a child because the nanny's accent rubbed off on Deanna.

* ''Series/TheFall'': While Gillian Anderson is probably better positioned to play an English detective than most American actresses, given that she lives in the UK, there are scenes where she hides her native accent about as minimally as Elisabeth Moss does in ''Series/TopOfTheLake'', sometimes even going full rhotic.

*** It is, however, completely subverted by John Mahoney, who was also born and lived in Lancashire into his teens. Unsurprisingly, he once pulled off a pretty good Manchester accent when doing a deliberately mocking impression of Daphne.
*** Jane Leeves's weird and allegedly Mancunian accent was developed by the actress as a generic approximation of a [[OopNorth North-Of-England]] accent - i.e. a British accent that would sound more palatable to American ears - despite it not being at all realistic or representative of any one geographical part of England at all.
*** Alternatively, her accent can be thought of as slipping and sliding along the North Cheshire Plain from Runcorn and Ellesmere Port right across to Stockport and back again... only at the Stockport end of the Grand Tour does it even touch on Manchester, and then on a South Manchester accent. Americans would not have liked North Manchester ''at all'', as this touches on broad Lancashire.... tha' knows, sithee, yon Yanks'd've bin reyt up in't urr.
*** None of the actors playing Daphne's brothers - played by a Scot, an Australian and an Englishman born in Swaziland - attempted even an approximation of a Manchester accent. Anthony [=LaPaglia=]'s accent might charitably be called South London while Robbie Coltrane when he did speak, sounded like a stereotypical unintelligible Scotsman.

* ''Series/TheFall'': While Gillian Anderson is probably better positioned to play an English detective than most American actresses, given that she lives in the UK, there are scenes where she hides her native accent about as minimally as Elisabeth Moss does in ''Series/TopOfYheLake'', sometimes even going full rhotic.