The most obvious example to me was Kevin Costner as Robin Hood.
The only hope these movies have of breaking even or making money is if American audiences are willing to pay to see them.
There are plenty of minor, low grossing movies with foreign not American looking actors. Few people ever watch them. Few ever make any money.
My mother always complained that American Indians were played by heavily made-up white Americans...complete with Yankee accents...
Madeline Kahn playing Lili Von Shtupp in “Blazing Saddles”...
The Conqueror. The Duke as Genghis Khan, ugh.
Actors should be a bit better in their portrayal of foreign characters, I can agree with that.
However, the names you mentioned are big draws throughout the world and people regard their participation as a guarantee of a good movie or nothing more than see someone on screen whom you like. Since the majority of the cash flowing to Hollywood comes from overseas it isn’t going to change.
Film scholars have stated that Curtis never said that line, but Curtis was ripped by many film critics for his barely disguised Bronx accent.
Dick Shawn as hitler in the Original “Producers”?
Tom Cruise in Valkyrie
Worse Yet! A foreign character playing the part of an American!!
IMPEACH!
Brits play far better Americans than many American actors do.
Bugs me when the director of a movie made for an English speaking American audience thinks it would be more authentic to have the foreigners in the film speaking their own language and expects me to be able to read the subtitles, which are often too small or go by too fast, and be able to keep up with what’s going on. If I were reading the story in book form, the foreign character’s dialect would be written in English so I could read it, and when I am watching a movie, and they speak English with a foreign accent, I can imagine that maybe they are actually not speaking English, and that my brain is interpreting it as English, rather then reading nonsensical subtitles which take away from my viewing pleasure. Now if I have watched a couple of foreign films and read subtitles, but that’s expected, it was a foreign film. But an American film should have the foreigners, who are often the bad guys, plotting in accented English, rather then expecting the audience to read in subtitles that keep the viewer from enjoying the action. Phew! A little rant here, I can’t remember which movie it was that did this, but I think Bruce Willis was in it. It could have been an enjoyable movie, if I knew what was happening rather then trying to read the tiny fleeting subtitles which left me saying who’s who and who’s doing what, what just happened when I was trying to read the subtitles. So dumb!
Yea, right, like they had a couple hundred illegals from Mongolia trying out for the part..............
The magic comes from engaging the audience in the human condition. If only Hollywood understood the human condition!
Today's movies would be as stunning as those of the past if Hollywood would acknowledge God.
Eh, Tom Hulce was fine as Amadeus; in fact so was F. Murray Abraham as Saliere, Jeffrey Jones as the Emperor and Elizabeth Berridge as Constanze.
Come to think of it, Milos Forman hired a lot of American actors to play roles in historical films that were not set in England, and it worked fine. Annette Bening’s American accent in “Valmont” did not detract from her superb performance which was superior to Glenn Close’s posh Brit speak in “Dangerous Liaisons” (and I adore Glenn Close as an actress.)
Now Kevin Costner I agree with, but he didn’t even try a British accent. Now Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves in “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” that were far, far worse!
IMO, if a historical film is not based on a Shakespearean play nor set in England, I see no need to for the requirement of English accents. Latin Romans in togas were not British.
In “Enemy at The Gates” I heard so many people who thought the Russians were actually English because of this. The best way to go is to either use “accented” English, or go the Mel Gibson Route and speak the the proper language of the time and use subtitles.
Alternatively, I think a lot of English and Aussie actors don’t do American accents justice. Ewan Bremner was in “Pearl Harbor” and “Black Hawk Down” and did a terrible job. Freddie Highmore in the “Bates Motel” tv show sounds more Canadian than American.
Big deal. 3 of the “Georgians” on the walking dead are British. Oh ... but one got killed off, so I guess it’s 2 now.