It’s one thing to recognise a famous actor’s face, but identifying their nationality? That’s a whole different ballpark.
Classic movie stars are renowned for their chameleonic ability to change their accents at will, often to the extent that one forgets where they originally hailed from. Here’s a selection of Golden Age stars and modern day faces whose British origins may well surprise you.
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Hollywood actors that are actually British
Boris Karloff
The man who would be Frankenstein’s monster originally hailed from Britain, Peckham in London, to be exact. Born William Henry Pratt, Karloff turned his back on a privileged education, emigrated to Canada and became a truck driver. Upon his move to California, Karloff made history with his role as the bolt-necked Universal Studios monster, arguably still the most iconic take on Mary Shelley’s character.
Charlie Chaplin
The definitive silent-era movie star was born into poverty in London. Chaplin worked his way up through music hall revue before going it alone in America and singlehandedly shaping the course of Hollywood history. Tutored under the legendary Mack Sennett, Chaplin would become one of the founders of the studio United Artists and sculpted the iconic comic alter-ego the Little Tramp, as seen in masterpieces like City Lights.
Cary Grant
The Christmas rom-com The Holiday would have you think that Cary Grant was born in Surrey. In fact, he was born in Horfield, Bristol, where the local community continues to celebrate his legacy. Grant began his career in vaudeville and acrobatics, which helped inform his memorable physical presence when he eventually broke into Hollywood.
He became one of the Golden Age’s biggest stars, famed for the likes of Bringing Up Baby and multiple Alfred Hitchcock collaborations, including Suspicion, Notorious and, most famously of all, North by Northwest.
Vivien Leigh
Later styled as Lady Olivier after her marriage to Sir Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh was a highly renowned Golden Age star. Born in British India to British parents, Leigh became a sensation with her Oscar-winning turn in the seminal epic Gone with the Wind.
Despite her much-publicised personal travails and health issues, Leigh turned out several other noteworthy portrayals including her Oscar-winning turn as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire.
Ray Milland
An actor who’s keenly associated with the Golden Age of Hollywood, but Milland actually hailed from Neath in Wales. Initially committed to a career in the British Army, Milland jumped ship to Hollywood where he eventually won an Oscar for his role as a desperate alcoholic in Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend. His other memorable roles included Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder and Arthur Hiller’s 1970 smash Love Story.
Christian Bale
We’re used to actors changing their accents for movie roles, but Christian Bale even commits to keeping said accent during subsequent press interviews. Little wonder that people forget where the Dark Knight star is actually from: he was born in Glamorgan, Wales, but was raised in, and identifies with, England. Bale’s facility with American accents has graced everything from Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy to American Psycho and twisted thriller The Machinist.
Daniel Kaluuya
London-born Daniel started out small in the very British likes of Skins, Black Mirror, Harry Enfield and The Fades. He then became an overnight sensation with his Oscar-nominated role in Jordan Peele’s horror Get Out, in which he demonstrated a flawless American accent. Said skills have also been on display in Kaluuya’s Oscar-winning turn in Judas and the Black Messiah and Peele’s UFO epic, Nope.
Jean Simmons
The Rank Organisation founder J. Arthur Rank listed the versatile Jean Simmons as one of his, “Well-spoken young starlets”. That description doesn’t quite do justice to the London-born Simmons’ range: she appeared in a host of classic films from David Lean’s Great Expectations to Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus. She was Oscar nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Hamlet and Best Actress for The Happy Ending.
Greer Garson
Garson was synonymous with pragmatic, forward-thinking depictions of women in 1930s and 1940s Hollywood, but she was actually born in Essex. Originating on the stage, Garson signed a contract with the legendary movie mogul Louis B. Mayer, which set her on a course to make classic films such as Goodbye Mr. Chips and Mrs. Miniver. Over the course of her career, Garson earned seven Oscar nominations for her acting.
Andrew Garfield
Like his contemporaries Daniel Kaluuya and Christian Bale, Garfield has the mercurial ability to change his accent at will. Further confounding expectations as to his nationality, Garfield was born in Los Angeles to an English mother and an American father before later being raised in Surrey.
His memorable roles include multiple Spider-Man films and David Fincher’s The Social Network, as well as Martin Scorsese’s Silence in which he attempted Portuguese and Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge in which Garfield went Australian.
