Irish Celebrities Who Have Perfected American Accents

Surprise: some of our most well-known "American" characters are actually played by Irish actors (or British actors, or Australian actors). Irish actors often mention being "immersed" in American television in their early lives, potentially making it easier for them to pick up the accent.

Some of the people on this list may surprise you—unless you've heard them in interviews, you might've assumed they sounded like the characters they play. Ahead, Irish celebrities who have perfected American accents.

Sarah Bolger

Sarah Bolger caught the acting bug when she was 10, and told the Irish Independent that she developed an American accent in The Lazarus Effect. "You know what's funny, is growing up in Ireland with such a neutral accent you're able to pick up other accents quite easily, which has been very handy," she said.

Jack Reynor

Technically, Jack Reynor was born in Colorado and moved to Ireland at a young age (which is his primary accent if you listen to him speak). It's quite a shock to watch Midsomar and realize that the main character's crummy American boyfriend is played by this mild-mannered Irishman.

Robert Sheehan

Fans of The Umbrella Academy are often shocked when they see Robert Sheehan in on-screen interviews. The sweet, goofy Irish actor was born in Portlaoise and became interested in acting all the back in primary school (he played Oliver in Oliver Twist!).

Stuart Townsend

Townsend had been doing accents for years—for promotion for Apache Junction, Townsend noted that he wanted to work with a dialect coach for more challenging accents but "with the Western, I winged it—I watched so many Westerns...it's an amalgamation of 20 different characters."

Kerry Condon

Kerry Condon is a celebrated actor, including becoming the youngest person to play Olivia in Royal Shakespeare Company's Hamlet in 2001. She apparently loves the challenge of accent work; in an interview for the Depression-era film Dreamland, she said, "I wanted to do something with that accent and that time period, because I hadn't done that before and I had always wanted to do that accent."

Colm Meaney

Colm Meaney has used his Irish accent in some films and American for others (see also: Hell on Wheels and The Damned United). When he began playing O'Brien in Star Trek, he said he began to make the character less Irish. "I, as an actor working in Los Angeles, didn't want to be playing Irish parts all the time...It's very limiting for an actor if you're known as just an Irish actor or a Scottish actor or a Cockney actor or whatever...When O'Brien started talking—which took a few episodes you know—I started to take his accent more towards American."

Jamie Dornan

Jamie Dornan is from Belfast, but he sounded successfully American in the Fifty Shades of Grey films. He also told Conan O'Brien that he'll switch to an American accent when ordering food (like In-N-Out!) because he doesn't want them to get his order wrong.

Stephen Rea

Famed Irish actor Stephen Rea has most often acted in his native accent, but you'll occasionally hear him break out an American accent (see also: Sink or Swim). He has said he prefers it when actors speak in their native tongue—including Americans doing Shakespeare.

Evanna Lynch

You may be most familiar with Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter films (wherein she plays a British character). But she's said in interviews that she's acted "American" in roles for so long that people act her to sound more Irish at times.

Dominique McElligott

Dominique McElligott, also known as Maeve in The Boys, has some fluency with accent work. In Hell on Wheels, she later noted she hadn't acted as an English character before. "I went in and asked if they wanted American, English or Irish. They said English and I went with an English accent."

Jack Gleeson

Jack Gleeson and his sisters are all actors, including in Irish theater. The erstwhile Joffrey Baratheon on Game of Thrones (Gleeson used a sneering British accent there) has been doing accent work since he was a kid: he played an American child in Batman Begins.

Jason O'Mara

If you're familiar with Jason O'Mara (see also: The Agency, Life on Mars, Terra Nova, and Vegas, among others), you'll know his American accent is top notch. His work dates all the way back to playing George Washington in the miniseries Sons of Liberty.

Chris O'Dowd

Chris O'Dowd is known to act in his native accent (he has said he prefers it that way so he can focus more on the character), but he's occasionally gone American—if you caught his cameo in Girls, for example, he does "New York jerk" exceptionally well.

Aidan Gillen

Aiden Gillen is a skilled Irish actor who has done all manner of British and Irish accents (including the fan favorite Game of Thrones). But if you watched the award-winning The Wire, Gillen is giving a flawless Baltimore accent as politician Tommy Carcetti.

Fiona Shaw

The Irish actor, born in County Cork, is most well-known for playing British characters (Killing Eve and the Harry Potter series, anyone?). But if you watched the HBO series True Blood, she played palm reader Marnie Stonebrook—one of a few American roles.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers

Jonathan Rhys Meyers has played a number of iconic British characters, including King Henry VIII in The Tudors. But if you look back at his filmography, he's played legendary Americans as well, like Elvis Presley in Elvis and a pop star in Velvet Goldmine.

Pierce Brosnan

Pierce Brosnan may have played the most famous British person of all of cinema (hello, James Bond), but one of his most famous pre-Bond roles was Remington Steele, in which he played the titular detective, and The Son, where he played a Texas rancher.

Kenneth Branagh

Kenneth Branagh (he of...a lot of Shakespeare movies and other British characters) has played American characters successfully before. In fact, he played Franklin D. Roosevelt in Warm Springs, whic even landed him an Emmy nom! He also played an American character in Dead Again.

Barry Keoghan

If you watched Barry Keoghan in The Killing of a Sacred Deer, his Ohio accent is delightful and terrifying. The Dublin-born actor has played American characters elsewhere, including in American Animals and as The Joker in a deleted scene of The Batman.

Caitriona Balfe

Technically, Dublin-born actor Caitriona Balfe has said her character in Outlander has American influences given her time as a nurse during World War II. She's also played outright American characters in other movies like Money Monster and Ford v Ferrari.

Andrew Scott

Andrew Scott has played some iconic British characters, but beyond his most well-known roles (Fleabag, Sherlock) he has played old-fashioned American roles: a small role as an American soldier in Band of Brothers and husband to John Adams' daughter in John Adams.

Paul Mescal

Paul Mescal perfected an Edinburgh accent in Aftersun, although he was born in County Kildare. He's played American characters in a few films, from Aiden, a US veteran in Carmen to Stanley Kowalski on stage in an adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire.

Ruth Negga

Ruth Negga was born in Ethiopia to an Irish mother and lived in Ireland after her Ethiopian father died in a car accident when she was a child. You might not even know she's Irish—a lot of the film and television roles she plays are American, including on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Michael Fassbender

Technically Fassbender is German-Irish (born in West Germany to a mother from Northern Ireland and father from Germany and moved to Ireland when Fassbender was 2 years old), but his American accent is flawless: most notably in 12 Years a Slave and as the titular Steve Jobs.

Nicola Coughlan

There's video evidence of Nicola Coughlan being awesome at accents. Her particular love of the vocal fry of the "Kardashian accent," as she puts it, is incredibly endearing. She also played Diplomat Barbie in Barbie—but deserves as many American roles as she wants.

Domhnall Gleeson

Son of Brendan Gleeson, Domhnall Gleeson picked up a love of acting and a talent for accents. His British roles are well-known (see also: Harry Potter), but he played an American soldier in Unbroken. He's also an American programmer in the movie Ex Machina!

Brendan Gleeson

Mad-Eye Moody from Harry Potter is Irish! Irish reviewers apparently prefer the full Irish (or faux British) Brendan Gleeson. But the actor—who was born in Dublin—has graced us with American characters with projects including State of the Union, The Company You Keep, and Mr. Mercedes.

Gabriel Byrne

Apparently, a fellow Irish actor once told Gabriel Byrne to speak quickly and through his nose to obtain the perfect American accent (lol). Regardless of whether he uses that tactic, his American roles are broad and varied, including in A Moon for the Misbegotten.

Colin Farrell

Colin Farrell has a good sense of humor about his accent (once joking about his anachronistic Irish accent in Alexander). His portrayal of Jesse James in American Outlaws and Danny in Minority Report allows him to showcase the American accent well, though.

Saoirse Ronan

Like many Irish actors, Saoirse Ronan cites the ubiquity of American television shows in Ireland, including Seinfeld, for giving her an early education of the American accent. And the proof is in her perfect work in films like Lady Bird and Little Women.

Cillian Murphy

Cillian Murphy works hard to get the perfect accent for his roles. The most notable (and one he's talked the most about) was for the titular Oppenheimer. He had a dialect coach, and said they weren't trying to do an exact impression. "It's like going to the gym for your mouth."

Daniel Day-Lewis

Arguably one of the best actors of the generation, Daniel Day-Lewis is a legendary method actor who likes to stay in character on set. Whatever his methodology, it's given us American characters as varied as the titular Lincoln and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood.