Anybody else noticed what appears to be this recent flood of immigrants on American TV? It's like the second bloody British Invasion, except now they're on TV, and pretending to be Americans.
The first one that caught my eye was Damian Lewis, Lt/Cpt/Maj Winters in Spielberg's "Band of Brothers," who is English. And now he also stars as a "American" Marine in "Homeland." Several other of the other recurring characters in B-o-B were also were British (about half the cast of "Blackhawk Down" was either English or Scottish).
Then came "House," starring Hugh Laurie: English.
Altogether I count six different TV series currently in production that feature an Englishman pretending to be an American, and a seventh with an Englishman pretending to be a Soviet spy pretending to be an American.
House and Homeland I've already mentioned. Andrew Lincoln (Deputy Rick) and David Morrissey (the Governor) on "The Walking Dead" both are English. Lauren Cohan (Maggie Green) is American-born but English-raised.
No wonder they didn't know Atlanta is busting at the seams with gun stores!!
Charlie Hunnam, who plays Jax Teller on "Sons of Anarchy," is English. On the antagonistic-buddy-cop series, Low Winter Sun, Mark Strong (Frank Agnew) and Lennie James (Joe Geddes) both are English. Lennie James also happens to be black, which makes him unique on this list.
As an aside, reviews of Newcastle-born Charlie Hunnam's performance in "Green Street," a movie about soccer hooligans (co-starring Elijah Wood [Frodo Baggins]), credit Hunnam with the WORST Cockney accent in the history of film. Guess they never saw Dick van Dyke in "Mary Poppins."
Fargo's Lester Nygaard is really Aldershot's Martin Freeman (Aldershot, if you don't know, is England's NTC).
And on "The Americans," Matthew Rhys, who is English, plays a KGB spy posing as an American.
I know there are others, but they're mostly on network TV, and The Black List is the first network TV show I've taken the habit of tuning in for in many, many years.
I'm not carping. G-d knows by and large they do a better job with American accents than some of the Americans who've posed as Brits did with their English accents (Kevin Costner, Keanu Reeves, and, yes, DvD). I just don't believe in coincidences. Certainly not this many of them. Just curious why the sudden glut of English in starring roles on American TV?
The first one that caught my eye was Damian Lewis, Lt/Cpt/Maj Winters in Spielberg's "Band of Brothers," who is English. And now he also stars as a "American" Marine in "Homeland." Several other of the other recurring characters in B-o-B were also were British (about half the cast of "Blackhawk Down" was either English or Scottish).
Then came "House," starring Hugh Laurie: English.
Altogether I count six different TV series currently in production that feature an Englishman pretending to be an American, and a seventh with an Englishman pretending to be a Soviet spy pretending to be an American.
House and Homeland I've already mentioned. Andrew Lincoln (Deputy Rick) and David Morrissey (the Governor) on "The Walking Dead" both are English. Lauren Cohan (Maggie Green) is American-born but English-raised.
No wonder they didn't know Atlanta is busting at the seams with gun stores!!
Charlie Hunnam, who plays Jax Teller on "Sons of Anarchy," is English. On the antagonistic-buddy-cop series, Low Winter Sun, Mark Strong (Frank Agnew) and Lennie James (Joe Geddes) both are English. Lennie James also happens to be black, which makes him unique on this list.
As an aside, reviews of Newcastle-born Charlie Hunnam's performance in "Green Street," a movie about soccer hooligans (co-starring Elijah Wood [Frodo Baggins]), credit Hunnam with the WORST Cockney accent in the history of film. Guess they never saw Dick van Dyke in "Mary Poppins."
Fargo's Lester Nygaard is really Aldershot's Martin Freeman (Aldershot, if you don't know, is England's NTC).
And on "The Americans," Matthew Rhys, who is English, plays a KGB spy posing as an American.
I know there are others, but they're mostly on network TV, and The Black List is the first network TV show I've taken the habit of tuning in for in many, many years.
I'm not carping. G-d knows by and large they do a better job with American accents than some of the Americans who've posed as Brits did with their English accents (Kevin Costner, Keanu Reeves, and, yes, DvD). I just don't believe in coincidences. Certainly not this many of them. Just curious why the sudden glut of English in starring roles on American TV?
