Accents are a useful skill for any actor: The more you can master, the more roles you could unlock. For Brits, nailing the intonations of our neighbours across the pond is a particularly useful door opener. Just think of how many plays are set in the US or TV shows contain American characters. From Idris Elba in The Wire (2002–2008) to Millie Bobby Brown in Stranger Things (2016–2025), the ability to sound American has boosted the careers of a number of prominent British actors.
The US is home to a wide variety of regional dialects: Matthew McConaughey’s Texas drawl is very different from Rosie Perez’s Brooklyn intonation or Matt Damon’s Bostonian tones. If you’re new to American accents and haven’t been asked to prepare a regional one, you’ll probably want to prepare an accent known as General American (GA). Spoken across the States, the nonspecific accent is recognisable to most audiences as American.
Here are some tips:
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According to dialect coach Rebecca Gausnell, who has worked with Johnny Flynn, Kit Harington, and Zawe Ashton, vowel sounds are key to perfecting American accents. American vowels tend to be wider, more relaxed, and longer than those in British English.
Think about the words “lost” and “stop.” How different do they sound depending on whether they’re spoken in a British or American accent? Can you hear that the vowels in the American accent are longer and less taut? Try speaking them and you might find your mouth moves less and the words are pronounced with less rounded lips in a GA accent.
The GA accent should have a relaxed feel. Slacken your jaw and try to speak in a more laid-back way. (Dialect coach Rebecca Linquist shares a tutorial on how to do it.) The corners of your mouth should be doing more work than your jaw. Try not to open your mouth too wide, or it may throw off your pronunciation. This YouTube playlist offers an idea of what you’re aiming for, and this video tutorial offers practical advice for honing your vowels.
A key part of the GA accent is the “schwa” sound: a quick, relaxed, neutral vowel pronunciation you can create by keeping the tongue central in the mouth and not making any significant movement. It appears in unstressed syllables, such as the second syllable of “sofa” or “celebrate.” Learn your way around the schwa sound here.
The hard R: Unlike British accents, American accents are rhotic, which means you pronounce the R sound whenever it is written. The R is produced by squishing up the tongue in the back of the mouth without touching the roof. The sides of the tongue should gently touch the upper back teeth, creating the signature R resonance. Take a look at your script and consider marking every R so you can really think about the pronunciation.
The dark L and the dead T: British accents use a mix of light and dark L sounds (compare the L sounds in “light” and “dull”), but Americans use the dark L in all positions. The back of the tongue should be bunched and raised, and the tip should rest on the gum ridge when you create L sounds. Your tongue root, rather than your lips, should be doing the work. Learn more about the dark L here.
Forget your Ts, embrace your Ds: American accents are much less percussive than many British accents, so be sure your consonant Ts aren’t overegged. When Ts are in the middle of a word, American intonations change it to a tapped sound, which sounds like a quick D. So “butter” sounds like “budder” and “metal” sounds like “medal.” This is also known as a flap T. Listen to it here.
Listen to as much dialogue as you can in the accent you want to emulate, and then practise it out loud. Wondering how you sound? Try recording yourself and listening back.
Watch American actors talking in social media videos or TV shows. Listen to podcasts and other audio material to get your brain into gear and your ears tuned in. If you’re aiming for a particular variety of American accent, make sure that’s what you’re listening to. The more you listen and practise, the more confident and convincing your accent will become.
In her book Mastering an American Accent, Gausnell argues that one of the biggest mistakes an actor can make is practising the accent in silence. She says you have to “take it on the road” and speak it out loud, however embarrassing that may seem.
Some actors find that one key phrase helps them unlock an accent quickly and efficiently. It could be a sentence that uses all the areas you find tricky, whether it’s loose vowels or deadened Ts. Idris Elba perfected his American accent for The Wire by repeating the phrase, “C’mon, man,” which he heard while watching football in a US barbershop. Robert Pattinson relies on American vocabulary such as “candy” and “sidewalk” to get into the accent.
If you already have a script, write out the trickiest words as they sound phonetically in the accent you’ll be using. You might transcribe water as “wah-der,” for example, or better as “bedder.”
Mastering the accent is one thing, but the script will likely expect you to adopt and understand American vocabulary too. Well-known substitutes include using “trash” instead of “rubbish,” “movie” instead of “film,” and “pants” rather than “trousers,” but there are many more. Check out this handy list of obvious US substitutes for British words.
There are also words Brits and Americans pronounce totally differently.
- Dynasty: Americans say “DY-nuh-stee,” Brits say “DIN-uh-stee”
- Brochure: Americans say “bro-CHURE,” Brits say “BRO-chure”
- Missile: Americans say “MIS-uhl,” Brits say “MIS-ayl”
- Advertisement: Americans say “AD-ver-tahyz-muhnt,” Brits say “ad-VUR-tis-muhnt”
- Zebra: Americans say “ZEE-bruh,” Brits say “ZEB-ruh”
- Lieutenant: Americans say “loo-TEN-uhnt,” Brits say “lef-TEN-uhnt”
The UK and the US may share a language, but there are instances in which the pronunciation is so wildly different it’s almost as if we’re speaking different languages. (Don’t even get us started on “aluminium.”)
Gausnell says adopting a smile can help you nail the American accent. “Smiling actually helps oral posture, or where the mouth tends to hang out when speaking the accent,” she says. “Not only are the lips in GenAm more spread than in most UK accents, but the sounds tend to resonate – you’ll feel a buzz – around the soft palate and in the nose. Funny enough, smiling helps place the voice right in that nasal resonator.”