Australian Actors You Probably Thought Were American

Plenty of Australian actors have hit in big in America—and as many of them have noted, that means cultivating an American accent to be more marketable in Hollywood. That's impressive in its own right, given that Australian accents are very different from American ones—which means that, as you'll see, a lot of work goes into the process. Ahead, Australian accents you probably, definitely thought were American.

Sam Worthington

Technically, Sam Worthington still sounds a bit Australian in Avatar. (Fans love to point out where you can hear his natural accent poke through, and Worthington has admitted he struggled with learning the accent.) But his "American" was vastly better in Under the Banner of Heaven!

Abbie Cornish

For 2012's The Girl, Abbie Cornish had to master a Texan accent—and utilized language studies and an accent coach. She even learned Spanish! Since then, we've heard her faux American accent in lots of shows and movies, including Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan.

Isla Fisher

Technically Isla Fisher's parents are Scottish, but she was born in Oman and raised in Australia. While many of us marveled at her flawless accent in Confessions of a Shopaholic, her most well-known American role is Gloria from Wedding Crashers. "I'll find you!!"

Ryan Kwanten

That's right, Jason Stackhouse from True Blood is an Aussie! Ryan Kwanten worked with a voice coach to obtain the Southern drawl and then reportedly tried to maintain the accent the whole time he was on set. It totally worked—I never would have guessed.

Josh Lawson

The House of Lies, Superstore, and Mortal Kombat star told Latin Times, “I got to be honest, ever since I was a little kid...I would just stare at the screen and just look at sitcoms like Golden Girls and Cheers and Family Ties and I would emulate the American accent just growing up...I was just an 'Americaphile' since I was a kid. I just sort of loved the syntax and the cadence of the American accent.”

Alex O'Loughlin

You may have caught Alex O'Loughlin on the role he played for a decade: Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett on the Hawaii Five-0 remake. He actually started working as an actor while still a teenager in Australia, but his American breakout was The Shield in 2007.

Jacki Weaver

Jacki Weaver has a flawless Philadelphian accent in Silver Linings Playbook, and it came from hard work: she worked with a coach, but she also met and interacted with some of Bradley Cooper's relatives from the city. She immersed herself in the culture, too, which really paid off.

Sarah Snook

Shiv Roy from Succession: not actually American! Sarah Snook had to learn British and American accents early on in her career, and she's said that once she got on set the accent felt easy to replicate. (Fun fact: her Succession husband, Matthew Macfadyen, is British!)

Jason Clarke

Jason Clarke has acted "American" in a lot of movies (including in the Terminator and Planet of the Apes franchises, not to mention Zero Dark Thirty!). He made many, many Australian television appearances before crossing over to the States in the 2010s.

Miranda Otto

Technically, you probably know Miranda Otto from her (British) accent work in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. But she's actually Australian! And she's blessed us with a great American accent before, from 24: Legacy to The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

Mia Wasikowska

Mia Wasikowska has admitted that she was a bit of a mimic as a kid, and (thanks to the predominance of American films and TV shows in Australia), it wasn't hard to pick up an American accent. Both her British and American accents are top-notch, to be honest.

Jai Courtney

Of his American accent, Jai Courtney credits good voice training, primarily. He's also said that he stays in it (like a few others on this list)—living in that voice for the day and only "coming out" when he goes home. He's been living in the U.S. for a while, which helps.

Rachel Griffiths

If you were wowed by Rachel Griffiths' performance in Six Feet Under, consider how tough it must have been to conceal her Australian accent! Technically, lots of us knew and loved her in Muriel's Wedding, so we had a sense of her real accent all along.

Joel Edgerton

In an interview with Collider discussing his upcoming movie at the time (The Thing prequel), Edgerton noted that it was less the accent work and more the stunts that were challenging for him: "We don’t get a lot of action movies because there’s not a budget for it, so there’d never be a movie with this much action in it in Australia. So I actually enjoy the days where I just come to work and strap on a flamethrower and dive behind a pool table and do all that stuff."

Hugo Weaving

Hugo Weaving's done an American accent more than once, but his over-enunciated Mr. Smith in The Matrix movies was deliberately meant to be inaccurate. "Smith's a construct. So I thought I had license to be, in a way, slightly otherworldly or, as I said at the time, like a [news anchor]. There's a certain measure and a certain enunciation that comes with reading the news, and I thought that would be right for Smith because his voice would have been constructed to be a human being," he told Men's Health.

Rebel Wilson

Rebel Wilson told Jimmy Fallon her secret to getting into an American accent: use a lot more of your face muscles! (When she's speaking in her native accent, she barely uses her face at all.) Granted, you've probably heard Wilson's Australian accent, as she uses it in some film roles.

Eric Bana

Eric Bana started professionally with an Australian sketch-comedy series and worked in his nation's film industry for a decade. His big American breakout was Black Hawk Down (2001) and then subsequently Hulk (2003)—and now he has acted often in an American accent.

Simon Baker

Simon Baker is particularly well-known for perfecting his American accent on screen. Fans of The Mentalist were shocked to hear him in his native accent, but let us not forget his great work in both L.A. Confidential (1997) and The Devil Wears Prada (2006).

Samara Weaving

Huge Weaving's niece is also a talented actor in her own right—and a very convincing on-screen American to boot (her father is British and her mother is Maltese, and she also grew up in Singapore, Fiji, and Indonesia). To learn "American" for Nine Perfect Strangers, Weaving says she immersed herself in American influencer culture!

Guy Pearce

Guy Pearce has said his mimicry helped get him in the door for auditions in the US. "When people in Hollywood first heard me, they said, 'You've got to lose that accent because you'll never work in this town'...So I thought, 'I'll just put on an American accent when I go to meetings with them.' So I used to go in and say, 'Hey, how are you doing?' and make the 'r' sound. At the end of the meeting, they would say, 'You know, for an Aussie, you don't have much of an accent.'"

Naomi Watts

Naomi Watts has a fascinating mix of accents (she was born in Britain but moved to Australia when she was 14). She worked in Australia and then had her breakout in the US with Mulholland Drive after many years of work. She has said that she works very hard on the accents but she doesn't "stay in it" while she's on set all day.

Ben Mendelsohn

While his more villainous roles are often done in a British accent, Ben Mendelsohn has a good range of American accents as well. He has spoken to the value of practice and muscle memory, often tailoring an accent to a particular role (like a Floridian accent in Bloodline).

Russell Crowe

Russell Crowe has said that he sometimes takes months to fully develop an accent. He's told British GQ that he really cares about accent work and that when others in the industry don't care as much as he does (or don't put in as much work), it frustrates him.

Rose Byrne

Rose Byrne's American accent is always top-notch, and she's shared some of her secrets. She told Jimmy Fallon that, while she was on the show Damages, she used a line that became her "baseline phrase" to help her get into it: "Patty hired 24-hour security for Katie."

Jacob Elordi

Jacob Elordi did a little acting work in Australia as a teen, but he set his sights on America (the place and the accent) early. Speaking to GQ, he said, “I think I just wanted to be able to mimic the people that I thought were cool." Like who, you might ask? Vin Diesel!

Hugh Jackman

To become Wolverine, Hugh Jackman worked with a dialect coach; he also borrowed from Johnny Depp, who said in an interview he used a sentence that contains every vowel and consonant change for a new accent. "'How many times have you asked Sam whether or not his daughter has congenital disorders' or something like that," Jackman noted.

Nicole Kidman

Born in Hawaii and growing up in Australia, Nicole Kidman was exposed to different accents from a young age. She has said she works hard on her accent work; in her Nine Perfect Strangers, she maintained her Russian-American accent during the entirety of filming.

Toni Collette

Unless you were familiar with Toni Collette in Muriel's Wedding, you might not know Toni Collette is actually Australian. She's said she doesn't like working with dialect coaches because it makes her nervous, but for specific dialects she utilizes their help.

Heath Ledger

The late Heath Ledger gave us his natural accent in the iconic 10 Things I Hate About You, but he also pulled off incredible American accents in films like Brokeback Mountain and The Dark Knight. A dialect coach notes how, in the former, Ledger keeps his face and jaw stiff to mirror the repression in his character.

Margot Robbie

Barbie is an Aussie! Margot Robbie has worked with dialect coaches but also looks to unusual places: she studied the monologue from Legally Blonde for her role in Bombshell. To play the iconic doll, she's said she chose a generic accent that becomes more "human" throughout the film.

Chris Hemsworth

Chris Hemsworth worked with a dialect coach in Australia to master the American accent. Taking on roles in the US helped him nail the sound; his most well-known character (Thor from the MCU) is British, but you can still catch him as a faux American in a bunch of roles.

Cate Blanchett

Largely considered one of the best actors of her generation, Cate Blanchett says that her training at a young age helped her obtain a flexibility and malleability, both in voice and in personality. She says she views her voice as a tool, and she does a lot of research for the role's specificity.