Dey're tekkin our jerbs!

I can't believe this is even a topic of discussion. The fact someone gets paid to ask why Tim Roth, a British actor, chooses to use his own accent on his new show, Lie To Me, is simply mind-boggling. But since I am a student of the mundane arts, let's debate it, shall we?

Apparently, the dispute that Maclean's writer Jamie Weinman has is that Americans (notice how he doesn't include his own Canadians in the fold?) love "everymen" (and women) on their television shows, while the foreign accents belong with the darker, foreign characters...your Charles Widmores, your Simon Cowells, and just about any bad-guy on 24. Americans just cannot embrace their heroes, whether it be Dr. House (Hugh Laurie, a Brit), Dr. Troy (Julian McMahon, an Aussie), or any other mix in between, if they are not seemingly as American as imported apple pie.

But Weinman feels the time has changed for Americans to now beginning to embrace, and I quote, "furriners" in the lead on television, no longer hiding their accents. While he feels that the case of Roth, an excellent classically trained actor, in Lie To Me makes him seem like a "nerdy James Bond," the accent brings a sense of mystery and intrigue to the character that brings perhaps the only interest to the show (yes, I am trying to keep up...with intense struggle sometimes). The fact Maclean's actually chose to devote space to the show is itself a mystery.

But even if America is ready for this "massive change" (did anybody bother to ask the Brits? The Aussies? Even us Canadians?), does this mark the overhaul of the TV and film industries, to "reform" proper accent acting? Quentin Tarantino turned down Leo DiCaprio to play a Nazi in his latest, Inglorious Basterds, in favour of an Austrian actor, Christoph Waltz...could this be because of DiCaprio's inability to hit his German stride? Or because QT wants to avoid a laughingstock like Valkryie, where Tom Cruise and Kenneth Branagh exchanged supposedly German speak in upstate New York and Irish accents interchangeably?

While I would personally like to see films at least attempt to try and pull off the best accent while still speaking English, as opposed to just settling on British English (Schindler's List good, Gladiator bad), to get this literal will just cause more headaches. The beauty of acting is being able to embrace different characters: their traits, their behaviour...even their accents. That's how "furriners" playing Americans (Anthony Hopkins, Daniel Day-Lewis), or vice versa (Marlon Brando, Meryl Streep) got their Oscar gold.

A person's accent, or acting at covering it up, should not even be considered "taboo" (as Weinman does) as it is just a part of the job. When done well, it can work beautifully. In the case of Roth, where they spin their accent into the part of the character, it can work just as well. But when you try and jump the gun by putting a top actor with a wild accent, you get the likes of Cruise in Valkryie. You get Gerard Butler in, well, basically everything he's done.

And perhaps worst of all...you get Dennis Hopper on 24.