MovieChat Forums > General Discussion > Are foreign actors, on average, better t...

Are foreign actors, on average, better than American?


The amount of British, Irish and Australian actors who get hired to play Americans has me wondering, does growing up in those cultures lead to better actors?

Being an actor is about being real, emoting.

Are Americans so fake these days that we can't channel realness?

reply

[deleted]

[deleted]

Why were these posts deleted?

reply

I’ve now had 3 deleted - it seems I’m on a roll.

reply

What was your third one about? I wonder if Ticketsplease / SilenceByWolf has mod powers? Lol

reply

Words to the effect, ‘First deletion in 4 years; I’ll wear it as a badge of honour. I’ve seen far worse despicable and disgusting threads in the past unchecked 🤔’

reply

“mod powers?”

It would be a amateurish way of showing their hand. Besides, on a scale of 1-10, our comments wouldn’t even have registered.

The least controversial threads ever deleted, lol.

reply

I agree wholeheartedly. Our comments were not inflammatory at all compared to the OP’s.

reply

I was only joking about the mod powers. If a troll did have them, it would have to be a hack.

reply

I hope this isn’t the start of a slippery slope.

reply

It's Jim.

reply

I’m too scared to comment.

reply

And Mod4 is actually Mod5.

reply

Ticketsplease is not my sock. I resent your assumption.

reply

Ticketsplease was listed first.

reply

I think the lady doth protest too much, lol.

reply

I've heard it said that Britain produces better actors, America produces better movie stars. Obviously, there are exceptions on both sides of that, but broadly speaking I think it's probably true.

reply

I think that used to be true because British actors had a wider theatre background that allowed more talent to emerge. Whereas American actors all seem to be trained for the limited range, with cookie cutter looks, required for TV shows.
These days, with so many channels and so much product to fill them I think Americans have a wider range. I'm not sure the Brits have produced big stars who last for decades since the 60s, which coincides with the collapse of the British film industry.

reply

British actors are better at American accents than Americans at British accents, but they are not necessarily better actors than American ones. More talented actors from around the world want to make the big money doing Hollywood movies.

reply

Would you look at Margot Robbie or Chris Hemsworth and conclude that Australians were on average more physically attractive than Americans? That'd be the same rationale.

It's only a tiny percentage of British, Irish and Australian actors who are working in American media. Most of them are at home working in their own industries. You're looking at a small subset of actors who were, a) inclined to go to America in the first place, and b) had the necessary skills to succeed in the market against American actors competing for the same roles. There's nothing 'average' about them, so they can't tell you anything about the average.

As someone comments above, the British actors who succeed in Hollywood have traditionally had more extensive theatrical backgrounds than their American counterparts. And British actors in the past may have looked up to people like Gielgud and Olivier at least as much as they looked up to Clift or Brando. British theatre produces a slightly different style of acting. But it isn't 'better'.

Happily for America, it does seem to lend itself very nicely to playing villains, providing a bit of gravitas in dopey sci-fi stuff and being just the right side of camp in 'Shakespearean' high fantasy though. So it might be 'better' for some things.

reply