Foreign Invasion

I find the new trend in television of hiring foreign actors to be an interesting statement on the talent in the country. Many of my favorite shows have cast foreign actors or actresses to play characters that are clearly American. I don't just mean the stray Canadian imports, but many actors are now being imported from places like England and Australia to play American roles and are covering they're accents very well. Many people (including myself), if they have never heard of Hugh Laurie before watching House would never suspect that he is British. I did not realize that his flawless American accent was an impostor until I heard him except a Golden Globe Award several years ago for his role as Dr. Greg House. Other foreigners impersonating American accents in television include Yvonne Strahovski who plays Sarah Walker of Chuck, and several cast-members of True Blood who have the harder challenge of learning a Southern accent. This trend that has recently hit American television has been going on in the film industry for much longer. Although I believe there are many good actors in America, I think this is a statement on how actors are trained in other parts of the world. In American since we have the mentality that anyone who has a dream can make it come true there are many people who do not have as much talent, but still have a career because they were in the right place or knew the right people. In these other countries these actors had to work hard to train to have refine their craft.