Whenever I turn on my TV these days, I get the strange urge to pull a Paul Revere in my living room and start screaming, “The British are coming! The British are coming!” Until I realize, oh wait, they’re already here. This season a brigade of British actresses are breaking out their best American accents to star in new prime-time shows. Among them are a bionic woman, an undead girl, a Terminator fighter and a vampire helper. Here’s a look at the U.K. actresses making time on American TV screens. I think you’ve already met
Bionic Woman Michelle Ryan and her abs. In the last episode, they put her real accent to good use undercover as a British exchange student. An Englishwoman playing an American girl pretending to be a British student? It was like Victor/Victoria with accents instead of gender.
Another actress who needs no introduction here is Lena Headey. For Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, she drops her English accent and picks up some big guns. Accent, no accent. Gun, no guns. I’m not picky: I’ll take my Lena any way I can get her. On the other hand, I had no idea the adorable Anna Friel from Pushing Daisies was British. This is probably because I had no idea who Anna Friel was, period. I do now, which is officially reason 3,000,001 I am happy I own a television. I did recognize Sophia Myles from Moonlight. But her role in the new vampire drama gave me pause. Seems she has a thing for the blood suckers. She played one in Underworld and Underworld: Evolution. She has played one of their victims in the U.K. TV adaptation of Dracula. And now she is playing a reporter working with (and falling for) a vampire. Someone check to see if she has an aversion to garlic and crosses – I’m starting to worry. And two more actresses from across the pond: Anastasia Griffith, Katie from Damages, and Zuleikha Robinson, from the mid-season replacement New Amsterdam. So, why all the outsourced talent this season? And why hire a Brit only to make her talk like a Yank? And, more important, would any of these lovely ladies read to me in their original accents? The newspaper, a phonebook, anything – like I said, I’m not picky.
