Thank you for that post, as a partial antidote to this abusive perversion.
I am writing both Down’s and Autistic characters into my science-fiction novel, and not as mere tokens. I have had some dealing with both, in past ministry, and as a nutritionist, but I need to do much more research to do them justice.
As for the other point:
Many of the best actors and actresses in Hollywood have always been Brits - and they often are playing Americans. Some never really pretend to speak like an authentic American - Errol Flynn, Cary Grant - but many do so very convincingly.
As my friend, who taught Fine Arts long ago, once said to me: The British really study the art of acting, going back to Shakespeare, while too many Americans either just play themselves or opt for the so-called Method Acting. (See Laurence Olivier to Marlon Brando on that score. NB: Olivier was not my favorite screen actor, but he was certainly a gifted stage actor.)
Because they study it as a craft, because they live in a small and rich linguistic environment, and because they are exposed to so many American films and shows, they usually are better with accents than Yanks. Some betray no vestige of a British accent to my ear, while many Yanks who play a Brit fall short (sometimes embarrassingly so: Kevin Costner).
I watched a movie a couple of weeks ago. All the characters were American; all the actors were English or Australian. But Irish, Welsh, Scot, New Zealander, Canadian - it doesn’t matter. Most of them can out-act the average American film actor, even while using an American accent. Hollywood - setting aside the major moral and political issues - is really a multi-national industry united by one thing: the English language.
My favorite actor, Patrick McGoohan, although technically an American (born in New York), lived in various parts of the British Isles in his formative years, and could assume virtually any quasi-British accent. (Orson Welles was in awe of the man’s acting ability and stage presence, before he became famous on television as Danger Man.)