History Main / FakeAmerican

* Music/RickSpringfield. First-time listeners of "Jessie's Girl" would be surprised to know he's actually Aussie.

* [[Music/DaveMatthewsBand Dave Matthews]] was born in Johannesburg, South Africa.

* Wrestling/{{Edge}} is also Canadian (and Sean Morley's ex-brother-in-law, for that matter), but always tried to do an American accent when playing a heel. As a face, he generally spoke in his native accent.

Fake Americans are usually Canadians (the two countries' generic accents are very hard to distinguish), Brits, Australians or Irish, although New Zealanders and even South Africans have been known to fake American. This is usually done for biographical reasons, to allow for a familial relationship with another character with an [[UsefulNotes/AmericanAccents American accent]], or to portray a character as stereotypically American. Interestingly enough, the Fake American is not usually Mexican, even though the United States of America and The United Mexican States (official name of Mexico) share two-thirds of their name with each other and the southwestern third of the former was the northern half of the latter before 1848, or Jamaican (has its own distinct accent, known as Jamaican Patois) or Belizean, even though the two are Anglophone countries like the USA.

* Creator/BruceGreenwood as Batman in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanUnderTheRedHood''.

* In the music video for Music/{{Genesis}}' "Jesus He Knows Me", Music/PhilCollins portrays an unscrupulous televangelist, complete with the American dialect. It is also a nod to his guest role as a televangelist in ''Series/MiamiVice''.

* [=Bis=], the band who performs the ending theme to ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'', is Scottish.

Fake Americans are usually Canadians (the two countries' generic accents are virtually identical), Brits, Australians or Irish, although New Zealanders and even South Africans have been known to fake American. This is usually done for biographical reasons, to allow for a familial relationship with another character with an [[UsefulNotes/AmericanAccents American accent]], or to portray a character as stereotypically American. Interestingly enough, the Fake American is not usually Mexican, even though the United States of America and The United Mexican States (official name of Mexico) share two-thirds of their name with each other and the southwestern third of the former was the northern half of the latter before 1848, or Jamaican (has its own distinct accent, known as Jamaican Patois) or Belizean, even though the two are Anglophone countries like the USA.

* The very English Cary Elwes plays against type by providing a Texas accent to Donald Curtis in the Disney dub of ''Anime/PorcoRosso''. YMMV on the results.

* Tim Curry in ''WesternAnimation/ThePebbleAndThePenguin'' as Drake, doing [[OohMeAccentsSlipping what is supposed to be]] a Californian surfer accent.
** He did the same thing, albeit more successfully, in Disney's dub of ''Anime/TheCatReturns'' as the Cat King. In an interview included with the film, Curry says he played the Cat King as "an unreconstructed hippie".

!!Example subpages

The United States has the largest native English-speaking population in the world -- about 300 million -- and due to the tremendous global influence of American-produced media, most non-Americans are familiar with the country's dialects and accents and assume them easy to imitate. Thus it's not uncommon for ''any'' non-American actor to be asked to sound American for a part.

* Music/DaveMatthews was born in Johannesburg, South Africa.

* Music/{{Rednex}}, a particularly odd Eurodance act heavily influenced by country music, claim to be from Bunkeflo, Idaho, with the stereotypical Southern drawl to go with it. They're Swedish (Bunkeflostrand is a district of Malmö).

* Jessica Lee Rose of ''WebVideo/{{Lonelygirl 15}}'' adopted an American accent for the character Bree. Occasional lapses into her New Zealand accent prompted early speculation on whether or not the blog was a hoax. Jessica was born in the USA (Salisbury, Maryland) but moved to New Zealand at age 8.

* Prof. Knight from ''WesternAnimation/MonstersUniveristy'' is voiced by British actor Creator/AlfredMolina.

Note that this trope does not apply to non-American actors who are not trying to disguise their accent or origin. Nor should it apply to foreign-born actors raised in America such as Creator/NataliePortman (Israeli), Creator/MilaKunis (Ukrainian Jewish) and Creator/ElizabethTaylor (British), as long as they don't have to fake an accent. America is a nation of immigrants after all, and it isn't all that unusual to meet people who were born or raised overseas, or natural-born Americans who carry an accent from growing up in an ethnic neighborhood. Expect such situations to be Lampshaded, however, especially if the actor in question has a relatively heavy accent, like Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger (who, for the record, does not qualify for this trope because while he was born in Austria, he is now a naturalized American). Note also that the majority of Canada is within the USA's dialect continuum, thus most Canadian actors have absolutely no difficulty faking being a generic American (it's when the accent required ''isn't'' a generic one that this comes into play).

* Music/ManfredMann sings on several songs, most notably his CoveredUp version of the early Music/BruceSpringsteen song "Blinded By The Light", with a convincing southern American accent. Mann is from South Africa and moved to the U.K. (where most of his bands were based) to escape UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra.

* Lars Ulrich of Music/{{Metallica}}, is Danish. To some, he seems to have lost his native accent.

* The Bomfunk MC's, best known for their OneHitWonder "Freestyler", are Finnish (their lead singer, Raymond Ebanks, was born in the U.K. but grew up in Finland).

Fake Americans are usually Canadians (the two countries' generic accents are virtually identical), Brits, Australians, or Irish, although New Zealanders and even South Africans have been known to fake American. This is usually done for biographical reasons, to allow for a familial relationship with another character with an [[UsefulNotes/AmericanAccents American accent]], or to portray a character as stereotypically American. Interestingly enough, the Fake American is not usually Mexican, even though the United States of America and The United Mexican States (official name of Mexico) share two-thirds of their name with each other and the southwestern third of the former was the northern half of the latter before 1848, or Jamaican (has its own distinct accent, known as Jamaican Patois) or Belizean, even though the two are Anglophone countries like the USA.