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Entertainment & Arts

American actors, British accents

By Susan King, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer Off with their heads! The British had their knickers in a twist when it was announced that two Americans would be playing the legendary historical characters Mary and Anne Boleyn in “The Other Boleyn Girl.” The pitch-perfect results delivered by Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman helped ease any tensions, however. After all, British accents are de rigueur for today’s American actors. Here’s a look at several American actors attempting the King’s English: Scarl-Jo and Nat-Po Johansson and Portman were corsetted naturals as Mary and Anne Boleyn, thanks to practice: Natalie had success with a British accent as Padme in the last three “Star Wars” movies. And Scarlett had gone British previously in “The Prestige.” Rating: 3½ scones apiece (on a scale of 1 to 4)

By Susan King, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Off with their heads! The British had their knickers in a twist when it was announced that two Americans would be playing the legendary historical characters Mary and Anne Boleyn in “The Other Boleyn Girl.” The pitch-perfect results delivered by Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman helped ease any tensions, however. After all, British accents are de rigueur for today’s American actors. Here’s a look at several American actors attempting the King’s English:

Scarl-Jo and Nat-Po

Johansson and Portman were corsetted naturals as Mary and Anne Boleyn, thanks to practice: Natalie had success with a British accent as Padme in the last three “Star Wars” movies. And Scarlett had gone British previously in “The Prestige.”

Rating: 3½ scones apiece (on a scale of 1 to 4)   (Alex Bailey / Associated Press)

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Frances McDormand, Amy Adams

Frances McDormand

The Oscar-winner puts a stiff upper lip forward in “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day,” a new romantic comedy set in London in 1939. McDormand is no slouch at accents, don’t you know — remember her perfect Minnesota inflection in her award-winning turn as Police Chief Marge Gunderson in “Fargo”? In “Miss Pettigrew,” she scores with her elegant British tones as a nanny who becomes a young American’s social secretary.

Rating: 3 scones  (Kerry Brown / Associated Press)

Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep

The queen of accents demonstrated her versatility with a British accent in 1981’s “The French Lieutenant’s Woman,” for which she received her first best actress Oscar nomination, playing a woman from the 19th century as well as a contemporary actress.

Rating: 4 scones  (Matt Sayles / Associated Press)

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