This week I am recording a tape to send to L.A for the lead in an American film. The accent required is Missourian (sp??!). Apparently they have been looking to fill this role for months in the U.S and have been unable to find anybody. So they have gone across the pond. Panicked, I call my lovely friend Erin who grew up in Texas and so is my resident expert on all issues American. She is up north in Manchester struggling with her finals at University and does not immediately pick up. I leave several messages on her phone telling her to call me, that whatever she is doing- be it revision or a three hour Russian language exam- my current career crisis is more important. Several hours later she calls me back, bemused;
“Awight, Jess?”
(After years of teasing, Erin’s slight transatlantic lilt has recently morphed into a studied estuary/south London accent- or ‘mockney’ as I sensitively refer to it.)
“Erin!! My favourite person in the country, the world, the universe, even.”
“Wot do ya waahnt?”
“What does a Missouri accent sound like?”
“Aw mate- bloody hell. It’s sort of southern, bu’ not really. Kind of mid-western bu’ not totally….Um yeah. It’s difficul’ to explain really.”
“Could you do it for me?”
“No.”
“Well, is there anyone I’d know of who has it?”
“Nah- most actors lose the accen’ straight away. Doubt you’d find any one in a film wiv a proper one. But, I tells ya wot- you get it sor’ed, call me, talk daaan the phone in the accen’ and I’ll tell you if it’s crap or not.”
“Right. Um….thanks?”
“No probs. Will I ge’ a mention in yu’ Oscar speech?”
“No.”
“Fair ‘nuff. Laters, blood.”
Anyway, after a little help from Google I get it down and record the tape. Who knows what will happen next?
All in day’s work, I suppose but what interested me was how I ever came to be considered for this little dialect- related minefield. The film was not filming in England, not funded in England (as if anything ever is), there was not a single British name on the production team. There was no practical reason for why they would ever consider English actresses for the part. After all, America’s a big place- they can’t have literally exhausted the talent pool out there, could they? I can only conclude that they thought English actors were, quite simply, well…….better.
Although this is a controversial claim to make – and certainly not one to which I would profess to hold to- it does seem to be in keeping with a much bigger trend in showbiz. Dominic West in “The Wire”, Hugh Laurie in “House”, the almost uncomfortably gorgeous Robert Pattinson in “Twilight” were all born and bred in good ol’ Blighty and are now drawling their hearts out in the U S of A. Good on ‘em, I think and obviously, since America is the hub of all things entertainment, it is an encouraging fact for British actors in general. But why is it happening?
Well, it could be because the tax incentives for film production in Britain are so woefully non-existent that there is barely a British Film Industry to speak of (despite Richard Curtis and Danny Boyle doing their level best to “keep the British end up” ,as it were) so our actors are necessarily looking to Hollywood for decent work and, like the Ozzies before us, we have the advantage of a common language to put us ahead of other competing nations.
So that sorts out why the Brits are interested but why are they getting the work? Here’s my theory: it started with Hugh Grant, gained momentum around the time of Kate Winslet and Ewan Macgregor and started skipping merrily with Orlando and Keira; basically, Hollywood is being flooded by exciting, vital old country talent whose American counterparts have too long been allowed to get lazy. This is especially demonstrated in U.S television where predictable plots, stereotypical characters and derivative performances seem accepted norm and these conventional formulas do not nurture innovative acting talent.
For example, although it must be admitted that my Sex and the City, Will and Grace and Friends box sets would probably be saved from a burning building long before I’d get to my family, how many times have these recent smash hit shows covered the same material in episodes? The ‘dating a younger man’ episode, the ‘surprise party gone wrong episode’. This lack of ingenuity also applies to acting. And how many times have you seen Julia Roberts, Ben Stiller even Kevin Spacey play essentially the same part in movie after movie? And none of it seems connected to reality. It has got to the point where if Julia Roberts is crying in a scene, she has ways of doing it- the nervous swallow, the trembling of the lip, the hand to forehead; gestures that say; ‘Julia Roberts is about to cry now’ . Although these little rituals were, no doubt at some point, genuine, they do not now significantly alter from performance to performance nor seem not to stem from any spontaneous, truthful reading of the character. Like a Japanese Noh performer who raises his arms up in an elaborate and specific gesture to mean the sun, or bares his teeth and places his feet in a particular position to demonstrate anger, Julia Robert’s presentation is short hand, it is practiced and it is not at all natural.
That is no to say that it is not engaging, entertaining and a skill in itself but the Hollywood acting machine has been at the top of its game for so long, so unopposed as the leader in its field that it has become complacent. So when an actor comes along who is, entirely through chance of birth and thus experience, uninitiated into these conventions, people sit up and take notice. And I don’t think it can be boiled down to the usual explanation that British actors have access to superior theatrical training; American schools are just as proficient as the older British establishments and even so, it is not a training that Keira, Robert or even Kate have benefited from. It is simply that British actors have no frame of reference for the archetypal characters they are playing and therefore interpret them in a wholly original way. An English actress does not know that when the young woman for which she is reading the part of, vomits in her first scene, she will necessarily be pregnant by her second scene. So she brings to the part a newness and individuality of reading that an equally brilliant American actress, steeped in these short -hands of Hollywood plotting from early childhood, would not be able to.
I know all this sounds a bit savage but I genuinely don’t think anything is to blame except too much money and too little competition. Any athlete will tell you that there is nothing more effective than a younger player nipping at your heels to make you strive for innovation. And Hollywood has been serving uncontested aces since the 1920s. So I believe that this influx of Brits will be a good thing- to make the supremely talented Hollywood elite hone their skills and inject and little spontaneity into their performances. Then all the British actors will go back to performing A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream open air on a questionable summer’s day in Stratford Upon Avon; and breathe a sigh of relief that all those ghastly yanks have left them in peace once again.
Two weeks later, I have heard nothing from the Americans but I get a call from the BBC who are interested in me for the lead in a very funny sit- com. Filming in Manchester all summer. Business as usual for me then. J
Til The Next Big Thing..
