20 international actors who have nailed American accents (2024)

Miramax

Day-Lewis is known for his dedication to his craft, which won his multiple Oscars and may have led to retirement due to burnout. It’s a little tricky because Day-Lewis’ best work is doing bygone American accents. Whether Bill the Butcher, Daniel Plainview, or straight-up Abe Lincoln, Day-Lewis always sounds like a true American.

Focus Features

If Day-Lewis stays retired, Blanchett could be the holder of the best active actor in the world. The Australian actress first rose to fame playing Queen Elizabeth I but would eventually win an Oscar for playing Katharine Hepburn. Also, check out her accent in “Hanna." It’s wild, but it’s awesome. Most recently, Blanchett was nominated for her leading role in Tár.

HBO

Winslet loves to do accents, and we have heard from Philadelphians her work on Mare of Easttown was quite accurate. If you want something a little less specific, check her out in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, for example.

Columbia

To many, Holland was introduced playing Peter Parker. There is something a little odd about his accent at times, but he definitely doesn’t sound like a British actor putting on an American accent. However, that is very much the case.

Columbia

Another Spider-Man! Honestly, Garfield has played so many different Americans, we can’t even really hear his natural voice in our heads. We just hear his impeccable work in movies like The Social Network or the little-seen cult film Under the Silver Lake.

Columbia

Robbie, like Garfield, is so studied in her American accent that it’s hard to hear her Australian accent. From The Wolf of Wall Street to Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, Robbie has done stellar work in her non-native accent. Now, can she sound like Barbie?

Sony

The Wire was teeming with British actors. Some (*cough* Dominic West *cough*) were occasionally dicey. On the other hand, Elba never played an off-note as Stringer Bell. His natural British accent is quite thick, so it is quite impressive.

FOX

To many Americans, Laurie is solely Dr. Gregory House, a decidedly American man. Now, to British folks, he’s a legendary comedy performer. Laurie’s natural accent is, frankly, quite posh. It’s nothing like his voice as Dr. House.

Universal

Bale is English and was born in Wales. And yet, he’s winning Oscars for playing Boston guys and starring as Bruce Wayne, a profoundly American character. Bale is excellent at sounding American and being an “American Psycho.”

Lionsgate

The Aussie Collette played several characters in The United States of Tara, but that’s not all. She’s done other stellar American accents, including in the popular mystery movie Knives Out.

Warner Bros.

Kaluuya became a star in Get Out and won an Oscar for playing an American, Fred Hampton, in Judas and the Black Messiah. The actor was born in England and has Ugandan parents, and he used his natural accent early in his career, including in Skins as a young man.

Fox Searchlight

Ejiofor is one of those guys who goes back and forth between American roles and his British accent. Also, he played Scar in the weird version of The Lion King. Most notably, he played the real person Solomon Northrup in the Best Picture winner 12 Years a Slave.

FX

In The Americans, Rhys played a Russian operative posing as an American. The actor is neither of those nationalities. Instead, like Bale, Rhys is a Welsh actor who just really lands with his American accent work.

20th Century Fox

Pike was able to use her natural British accent as a Bond girl, but she’s more famous as another girl, which is to say, Gone Girl. This is her most famous role, and she does an excellent American accent in that role.

MGM

We wanted to get one old-school name in there. Grant was one of the purveyors of the “Mid-Atlantic accent,” a type of somewhat unnatural accent that a lot of actors of the time learned, including Americans like Katharine Hepburn. Grant was not American; he was British. So British, his real name was Archibald Leach.

Focus Features

Ledger played a cowboy in Brokeback Mountain and did…whatever accent he did for Joker, which was decidedly American if implacable. He won an Oscar for Joker, sadly posthumously, and his career was all the more impressive given that he was Australian.

Sony

Ronan was born in America to Irish parents who moved back to Ireland when she was three. If you have heard her natural accent, you know Ronan is very Irish. And yet, despite not being 30 yet, she has already done fantastic American accents in movies likeLady Bird and Little Women.

FOX

Anderson may have an asterisk on her inclusion. She’s got British parents and spent some time in Britain but also spent a lot of time in America as a kid. Basically, Anderson went back and forth, and so did her accent. As such, Anderson effectively has a natural facility with both dialects. That being said, she rose to fame on The X-Files speaking with an American accent, and her British accent surprised many. Anderson has been living in London since 2002, so these days, when she adopts an American accent, she is really adopting it.

Disney

Oscar Isaac, Boyega’s Star Wars castmate, is Guatemalan by birth but largely grew up in the United States. Boyega is British through and through. He first made his name in the decidedly British movie Attack the Black. As Finn, though, Boyega adapted an American accent.

Warner Bros.

We end with Cavill, as he famously played a superhero dedicated to truth, justice, and the American way. That’s Superman, of course. Cavill is British, with the accent to prove it. And yet, he adopted a solid American accent to play the Man of Steel. What he couldn’t do, though, was shave his mustache that one time.