11 TV Stars' Foreign & Regional Accents, Ranked by Authenticity
Michael Rapaport
Complex devoted an entire think piece to this New Yorker’s “unintentionally comical” Southern accent in Justified, even saying that he might as well be the “proud owner of Rosetta Stone: James Van Der Beek in Varsity Blues Edition.” That’s a burn.
Yael Stone
As a Bostoner in Orange Is the New Black, this actress’s “dialect work is inconsistent, and a bit of the actress’s Australian dialect infiltrates,” dialect coach Patricia Fletcher tells the New York Post.
Michael C. Hall
The British drama Safe features this American Dexter alum playing a suburban Brit searching for answers about the disappearance of his daughter, but viewers are searching for answers about the actor’s accent. The Guardian called it “odd” and “synthetic.”
Priyanka Chopra
This Indian-born Quantico star lived in the States as a teen, but dialect coaches Bob and Claire Corff think her American accent on the recently-canceled drama blows her cover. “It’s too articulated with some English pronunciations leaking out,” they tell Vulture.
Andrew Lincoln
As a Southern-bred sheriff battling The Walking Dead, this Londoner “doesn’t always maintain his regional drawl, and the lilt that should come at the end of sentences, defaulting to a more standard elocution,” the Corffs say.
Peter Dinklage
According to one Redditor, Peter Dinklage’s British accent as Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones “sticks out like a sore thumb” not because it’s bad — in fact, the Redditor says this American actor does it very well — but because it’s an example of Received Pronunciation, which seems more common on screen than in real life.
Rachael Taylor
The Corffs say this Aussie’s American accent on Jessica Jones is “good, but sometimes certain vowels, like the ‘o’ in hope, are too far forward on her lips. She also has what coaches call the ‘educated u’ in words like assume, which sounds like ‘asyume.’”
Dominic West
Seems like this Yorkshire bloke got a passing grade for his Baltimore accent in The Wire. “I may have had my minor quibbles with Dominic West‘s accent in the first season of the series, but as a whole, The Wire is perhaps the most impressive body of dialect work I’ve seen in film or television,” blogged dialect coach Ben T. Smith.
Idris Elba
Speaking of actors in The Wire, Elba’s accent in the critically-acclaimed drama is “amazing,” as dialect coach Erik Singer told Wired — though the Englishman is missing a “really interesting, Baltimore-specific African American pronunciation” of words like ‘to’ and ‘you’.
Marianne Jean-Baptiste
As an FBI assistant director on Blindspot, this English actress’ accent was “fabulous, right down to the cadence and attitude,” the Corffs rave. That’s high praise!
Alfred Enoch
The Corffs call this London-bred actor’s American accent on How to Get Away With Murder “perfect.” For his part, Enoch told Teen Vogue he keeps up the charade by staying in accent off-camera, too, even in conversations with his girlfriend. “She finds it pretty strange,” he said.
Americans are notoriously worse at adopting foreign accents than, well, everyone else.
Some Yanks can’t even get other American accents down pat. But they’re not alone: Unfamiliar accents can be tricky, even for Brits. We’ve surveyed the Internet to find hot takes on TV accents and dialects from shows past and present, including The Walking Dead, Quantico, The Wire, Blindspot, and more.
Click through the gallery above for our ranking of small-screen actors' accents from least to most passable.
See Also