I don't know about anybody else, but ADR is overtly obvious in any film I watch, and with that, very distracting. So, I'm watching Hostage tonite....in the scene where we're first introduced to Willis' wife, I notice her voice is dubbed, figured they must have had bad sound, or whatever. I finish the movie and watch the featurette and the actress is a Brit!!!

Christian Bale in Ameican Psycho, he pulled of an Ameican drawl quite well....Star Wars I could understand, It was filmed in England, but this chick was cast to play a woman from Southern California!!! So, it begs the question, Why the casting choice?? "She's hot, but has an accent....we'll just dub her voice!!" or was she cast, presumably doing a decent American accent during casting, and just couldn't hang when I came time to film?

Sidenote....saw Christian Bale and Chris Nolan on Charlie Rose the other night, and it would appear that Bale tries extremely hard to hide his English accent...for whatever reason. That's right, I forgot, Batman's from "New York".

I think Bale was told by the studio to "swallow" his accent while on his press tour.

I thought Bale had a good accent in Newsies. Or lack thereof I suppose.

ACTING!

The better question is why not. If they can play the role well, who gives a crap what their background is. If their accent is unconvincing, that is an issue, but as for their ethnicity...I dont' see how it matters.

Actors pretend to be other people, so why not? And Christian Bale is a better Batman than Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer or George Clooney, regardless of nationality.

Why indeed?

ha! The funny things is pretty much all Brit actors can nail American accents but very few if any American actors can do the same for UK accents.

If one didn't know any better you would think the entire cast of Batman Begins was American. Obviously with Caine being the exception since he was playing an English Butler.

That's why they call it acting.

and that's why they call you "Mr. Cinema".

I've seen worse. For example, in LA Confidential not one, but two of the leading LAPD cops are played by actors who are actually Australian!! The nerve!!

I disagree. Maybe a lot of the "top" actors (whatever that means) can pull of American accents, but having watched a good bit of British TV, I'm consistently appalled by the horrendous attempts at imitating American accents by your run of the mill British TV actors. Often it's so distracting I can pay attention to little else.

"Top actors" means they can and do quite often pull it off. I guess I'm talking about movies more than "Britcoms". Either way I stand by my statement.

In that case I agree. I imagine it depends a great deal on the intended audience. If it's a TV show broadcast on BBC2, who cares if the actors "nail" an American accent? But if it's a motion picture I guess it matters a lot more.

Ted Koppel is British. He broke out the accent one time on the Letterman show...it was pretty funny to hear.

I've never, ever heard Charlize Theron speak in her South African accent.

Where in the Star Wars movies did you get the idea that the characters were American? Maybe I have an f-ed up map, but I don't remember seeing Tatooine or Hoth among the 50 states.

Yeah, Brits playing Americans - some people still haven't forgiven that wench who landed the role of Scarlett O'Hara!

If you have to dub their voice because they can't get the accent right,which is what the OP says is the case,then i would say that is a pretty good reason of why not to.

Bob Hope....British
Elizabeth Taylor...British
Donald Moffat...British
Zoë Wanamaker(Broomstick teacher in 1st Harry Potter movie)...born in the US to American parents but moved to England when Father was Black listed and now has a posh British accent.

He had an american accent.

Catherine Zeta Jones does a really good American accent.

Actually, he's been quoted as saying he's doing it on his own, that he feels Americans would feel weird hearing him speaking in an English accent while he's the star of an American superhero icon.

Quite a few of the cast of band of brothers were English as well i believe

Colin Farrell would obviously disagree.