Rupert Everett: Americans are driving the demand for posh English actors

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About once a year, Rupert Everett will pop up and give an interview that ends up offending many people. He’s complained about the treatment of openly gay actors, he’s complained about the Hollywood system, he’s complained about Jennifer Aniston’s career, he’s complained about gay people raising children and so much more. This year’s Rupert Everett rant is about posh actors versus not-posh actors. It’s part of a larger discussion happening in the UK, as posh, privately educated actors like Benedict Cumberbatch, Eddie Redmayne and Tom Hiddleston tend to “break” into Hollywood and get more roles. In the UK, there’s concern about this, like people are asking if they need to celebrate more “working class” actors, and whether it’s right that an Eton or Harrow education is somehow required to make it as an actor. Surprisingly, I didn’t hate what Ol’ Rupes had to say about this subject.

America loves posh English actors: “Everyone’s whining about that but the fact of the matter is, acting is like hooking. What people want to see is what people want to see. What the Americans want to see of the English – they don’t want to see snaggle-toothed working class people, obviously. They want to see upper class people – that’s what they want. That’s why they love Downton Abbey. The upper class people are making the films that the Americans like but that’s how it is. There’s nothing we can do about that. We can’t force the Americans to change their minds but we could also just not be so envious and bitter about it and celebrate at the same time all the other people who do amazing work and are huge stars in our own country and then get to break out as well.”

Posh actors aren’t the only success stories: “There’s the Fassbenders, there’s tons of people who aren’t upper class – Daniel Craig isn’t upper class. Actually there are three or four upper class actors from Harrow and Eton but there are tons more from everywhere else and if there’s not, it’s because [Americans] want to see upper class films full stop and showbusiness is about demand. It’s not about forcing people to have what they don’t want – it’s difficult to say what they want to see. They do want to see The Full Monty and when there’s another Full Monty made, they’ll want to see that too. The danger of our world is it gets so furious and angry about something – it’s suddenly ‘where are the working class actors?’ But they’re all over the place and doing extremely well, I would say.”

[From Radio Times]

Rupert ends his comments by complimenting British soap operas (typically cast with working class actors), saying their soap operas are “the best soaps in the world.” Anyway, I think he’s right – yes, at the moment, Hiddles, Bendy and Redmayne are getting a lot of press, acclaim, awards and high-profile roles. But so are other actors who have less poshness. And Rupert is right about American audiences driving the demand for a certain type of British actor too – Americans love to think that England is full of Colin Firths, Hugh Grants and Benedict Cumberbatchs, and we don’t want to consider the idea that present-day England looks more like an old-school Guy Ritchie film. Americans want to think England is “quaint” not rough-and-tumble.

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76 Responses to “Rupert Everett: Americans are driving the demand for posh English actors”

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  1. Abbott says:

    I get what he’s saying, but I dig the English ‘middle class’ actors (at least according to their Wiki pages) like Jack O’Connell, Idris, and Hunnam over Redmayne, Cumberbatch, and Hiddles.

    • Sarah says:

      Yep but to Americans, all those actors sound “posh”. I think he means you don’t want to see chavs or similar in film.

      • Abbott says:

        I dunno, O’Connell and Hunnam don’t sound all that ‘posh’ to me and my brain short circuits whenever Idris is around so it’s hard to remember what he sounds like. Redmayne’s voice sounds like someone’s great-aunts windchimes; lovely but no thank you. Just my opinion.

      • Damn says:

        Hunnam is from the working class.

      • Sixer says:

        O’Connell has a clear not-posh midlands accent. Idris has a clear not-posh London accent. Hunnam has a smoothed out lack of accent, as we’d see in news presenters and the like. Not posh either.

        Hope that helps!

      • Abbott says:

        I should’ve clarified middle class with ‘not posh.’

        Sixer: by ‘clear not-posh London accent’ do you mean ‘vocal stylings of an angel?’

        (I’ll admit, Hunnam’s speaking voice has a weird pitch to it)

      • Sixer says:

        I mean um… “he really doesn’t need to bother saying anything when he looks like that”!

        I say posh and not-posh on here because the definitions of working/middle class aren’t really the same either side of the Pond. Whilst here in the UK, posh is a relative term – it’s anyone who is posher than you! Stateside, you guys understand posh to equal public school and an RP accent.

      • ISO says:

        Haha. The hole in his argument is that most Americans can’t hear the difference between posh and working class. Kevin Costner played Robin Hood FFS. It’s just that posh actors can afford to schill it out longer.

    • loud noises says:

      oconnell and idris aren’t middle class – at least how the term middle class is used in the uk.

    • zinjojo says:

      I had no idea that Charlie Hunnam is a Brit! I’m not actually sure I’ve ever heard him speak, but have just looked at many pictures of his lovely bare behind 🙂

    • Tough Cookie says:

      you had me at “Idris”…..mmmmmm…..and I did not know Charlie Hunnam is a Brit!!

    • LVN says:

      I love English actors, but non-posh sounding Ray Winstone is still one of my favourites among the current British actors.

    • EN says:

      The truth is , Americans can’t tell the difference between most British accents. To us all of them sound wonderful and “posh”.
      And even when they hear the difference between an Englishman , an Irishman or a Scotsman, they still love all of these accents. And they sounds either endearing or sophisticated. It is just how it is.

      Just like with French, anything sounds good in French.

  2. zimmer says:

    I guess I’m one of the Americans he’s talking about. Have loved Firth forever and now have a bit of a crush on Redmayne, but Craig isn’t so bad either.

  3. Sixer says:

    All these actors talking about class are at angry dolphins* with each other. They’re all having slightly different conversations and then arguing their own point in conversations that aren’t the same as the one they’re having.

    The current problem with posh/not posh is not one of who is about *now*. It’s one of who will be about in ten years’ time, because of cuts to arts and arts education funding in post financial crash austerity Britain. So Rupert is quite right to say that there are gazillions of successful British not-posh actors but wrong in that he seems to be replying to people who aren’t criticising the now, but sounding warnings about the future.

    I do think the debate gets skewed by what Americans do or don’t like. There’s a vibrant TV, film and theatre industry going on here that really plugs away without any thought about which posh wannabes have decamped to LA for the global adulation and big bucks. And here’s where you’ll find the commoners. Just watched Maxine Peake in a fab indy film last night. She lives in Salford!

    *angry dolphins = Sixerspeak for crossed purposes (cross porpoises, geddit?!)

    • Lilacflowers says:

      I intend to use the phrase “at angry dolphins” in a labor/management meeting this afternoon.

    • Sixer says:

      Another Sixerspeak favourite is “geriatric headgear” for passe or unfashionable. (Old hat, y’see).

    • mabel says:

      What an excellent explanation, very true.
      The thead’s made me think, off up a byway, of a recent UK film or series, (neither of which I saw,) about a bunch of do-badders, mostly Irish. Seems they hired every Irishman they could find and slotted him.
      Lo! when it was onscreen in Ireland, everyone’s falling about laughing at the baddie from Dublin with his strong Cork accent; the baddie’s Dublin Daddy with his Norn Iron tones; the heart of gold goodtime gal from the wilds of Connemara and her very odd West-Brit/Dublin 4 accent.

  4. Boston Green Eyes says:

    Back in the 80s when I lived in London, I dated an actor (no one famous as far as I know). He spoke with a slight toff accent but he actually had a really poor, working class background. He said he was taught to speak with a middle/upper class accent in drama school. Even back then, it was felt that working class actors who spoke with their original dialects wouldn’t get as much work as someone with a more “genteel” accent.

    • Lilacflowers says:

      Michelle Dockery’s normal speaking accent is worlds away from Lady Mary.

    • Sixer says:

      It’s the other way around now, BGE! They’ve stopped enforcing RP in drama school and EVERYONE wants actors who can do as many regional accents as possible. Even the poshies – eg Rose Leslie (posh) doing a northern accent in GoT, James Norton (posh) doing a Yorkshire accent in Happy Valleys. Or even Owen Teale (Welsh) doing another northern accent in GoT.

      Very little RP is spoken on British TV these days. Only in the period dramas.

      • Boston Green Eyes says:

        That’s really weird, and not in a good way. So back in the 80s we had scores of working class actors getting jobs and moving forward, albeit with a posher accent. But now we have posh people getting all the jobs, albeit with a regional/working class dialect.

        Not fair.

      • Lilacflowers says:

        While here people are erasing their regional accents for GA. The Wizard of Oz would never be made today with the scarecrow, tin man, and cowardly lion sounding like they wandered in from the streets of Boston and New York. They would all be accent neutral.

      • Sixer says:

        No, BGE. You misunderstand entirely. Not posh actors are no longer forced to lose their regional accents. Characters in TV dramas don’t speak uniform RP any more. That’s what’s changed. It’s a good change. Your ex-boyf will be working – if he’s working! – using his own natural accent or perhaps even another regional accent, depending on the show’s setting, and will probably only be asked to use RP if he’s in a period drama.

        The worry, as CM and I have posted here, is what will happen in the FUTURE due to recent cuts in arts education funding. Because there’s a danger of there not being any working class actors coming through. So then, the picture you paint might come true.

        @ Lilac – really? That’s interesting. I’m going to listen out. Although I’m no expert on US accents – can recognise generic Southern, New York, Boston and that’s about it.

      • Hannah says:

        That’s not entirely accurate sixer. I know people who went to drama schools in the last 5-10 years. Respectively at top schools like LAMDA and the Royal central school of speech and drama. They are still expected to get their R.P up to a certain standard. I don’t know if you meant they aren’t forced to speak like that in every day situations? That is true, you will notice that the older generation many of them speak R.P in their personal lives even when they are actual originally from working class backgrounds. That isn’t the case anymore but R.P is still thought with rigour in uk drama schools.

      • Sixer says:

        Hannah – no, I mean RP isn’t taught as a requirement for jobs. They’re taught accent work generally with RP as one among many. And, as I said a couple of times already, outside of the period genre, they’re rarely expected to use RP when working in TV drama unless, of course, they’re playing a particularly posh person.

        It’s all a far cry from the 1950s-1980s when the required accent for almost all TV – presenters and actors alike – was RP.

        You only have to look at this year’s BAFTA-nominated performances – 12 nominations, performances based on 9 regional accents and 3 RP (Rea playing a posh person and it’s not his native accent, Watkins playing an eccentric for whom RP is an affectation, and Cumberbunny).

      • Bored suburbanhousewife says:

        @Sixer couldn’t agree more, and love love loved James Nortons accent (and all the accents ) in Happy Valley. Shout out to here to my boo Sean Bean who was one of the early generation of actors who decided to keep his own regional a cents rather than use the RP he was taught at RADA. I would say his Sheffield accent has become something of a trademark for him even though I have heard him do posh quite convincingly as well.

      • MtnRunner says:

        I’m just here to say that I will have a hard time seeing James Norton as anything other than a rapist after getting sucked into Happy Valley. I’m enjoying the non-posh British shows like H.V., The Fall, Luther after getting bored with Downton after 3 seasons. I’ve got Last Tango in Halifax next in my queue after getting through Luther. Now if we can get more of those shows on Netflix where we don’t have to pay $1.99/episode that would give them more exposure.

        While I’m at it. I loved Wolf Hall. Rylance is a babe.

      • Lilacflowers says:

        @Sixer, yes, the Cowardly Lion grew up on Manhattan. The Scarecrow is from the same Dorchester section of Boston as Mark Wahlberg, and the Tin Man has the accent Bouncing Benny should be imitating for Boston Senator Billy Bulger in Black Mass. Leonard Nimoy’s Vulcan pronunciation hails from Boston’s lost west end.

  5. CM says:

    I do love RE and his bitchiness (he’s a decent writer too) but I think he’s missed the point about this debate. Which is that these days, only aspiring actors with a lot of money behind them (i.e. posh boys) can afford to go to drama school or take low/no paying rep jobs to gain acting experience. The benefits and uni grants can’t support those from lower incomes. Julie Walters said recently that if she was growing up today, she never would’ve been able to go to drama school etc and never would’ve made it. It’s reducing the talent pool – we’ll never know who’s talent we’re missing on because he/she was forced to get a ‘real’ job and give up their dreams.

    • Sixer says:

      I agree. As I said above, all these actor commentators are getting their conversations muddled up and spouting off-topic hot air.

      Annoying, because it’s going to actually matter in a few years’ time.

      • CM says:

        Sorry – read yours after I posted and we basically have the same point. Yes – the real test will be in 5-10-20 years time. Lots of posh t*ats putting on Brummy accents?

      • Sixer says:

        EXACTLY. I love James Norton, but we don’t want future Happy Valleys to be entirely cast with ex-public schoolboys with learned regional accents, do we?

      • Lilacflowers says:

        My take away from it all is that they all need to stop jabbing at one another and work together to get the government to restore funding for arts education. But they all seem to be having too much fun complaining about each other

      • Sixer says:

        Yes. And I’m afraid to say that posh ones are not in the forefront of lobbying government. Too busy with retweeting what the UNICEF publicists write for them. And if they don’t want to get political – like my beloved Maxine Peake – then they could at least put their money where their mouths are, like McAvoy.

    • We Are All Made of Stars says:

      It’s good that you’re having this discussion over there because I think that any such discussions where people question the power structure are good ones to have. I would however have to point out that it’s the same in the States as well. If you really think about it, there are a disproportionate number of rich Americans in Hollywood too. Reese Witherspoon, Julia-Louis-Dreyfuss, Mindy Kaling, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Vince Vaughan, Adam Levine, Edward Norton, etc. are all from rich families. If we add second generation entertainment celebs, the list grows even longer. I think it’s a simple equation of how much easier it is to either have your parents use their capital to make your career happen at a relatively young age, or to have that financial safety net available should you not be successful. It makes life much easier than being Christina Applegate or Jewel and having to sleep in a car and be homeless until you make it.

      • Sixer says:

        I agree absolutely. And it may even be a harder conversation to have stateside, since to have it you have to break down the social mobility myths that mean a lot to the citizens. At least here in the UK, we’re used to shouting about inherited privilege and access.

        Perhaps that’s why similar conversations you guys have are more identity-based and about women or minorities?

      • Cate says:

        Yep, it is. Any risky, intensely competitive career like arts is the pursuit of the rich or people who don’t mind a lot of sacrifices.

      • Lilacflowers says:

        Rich Americans. Second generation entertainment industry. Child actors who grow up in the industry – Joseph Gordon Levett, ScarJo, Portman, Gosling, etc

    • Mary-Alice says:

      I don’t think he is missing the point, he is talking about the other side of the coin. (I love him too! He is one of a kind!) One side is the fact that drama education is expensive and the following insecurity makes it much easier for kids from wealthy families to study acting. But the other side of the coin is that like in any marketing endeavour, in acting demand defines the market. There is demand for the poshy types and the USA market is the biggest (yes, China is big but in general the Asian market is still developing in terms of Western presence) and this American demand is crucial for the marketing of certain acting types.

  6. Jazzy says:

    He’s not wrong. It’s all the sad Abglopholes who go crazy over pasty white ugly British dudes that’s causing this.

  7. We Are All Made of Stars says:

    Well quite personally I find the whole English thing supremely irritating and wish they would all just shut up and go home. Cumberbitch is first on that list for his incessant whining about how hard it is to be a rich white male in England. Right, bro. How anyone could watch pretentious English crap like Downton Abbey and find it anything other than irritating as all getup is beyond me. Rupert’s list of rich boy actors is also a lot shorter than it should be…Dominic West comes immediately to mind.

    • Boston Green Eyes says:

      I agree with losing the Lord Otter Cumberbrat, though I like the other guys well enough. He’s the one who makes me want to punch someone in the throat.

    • Jill says:

      Nah, other posh actors have mentioned it more than he has. He just gets the same 1 quote repeated ad nauseum. The worst one came from Helena Bonham Carter, imo.

      • Franca says:

        I loved the response KAthy Burke wrote to Helena.

      • Kaye says:

        +1.

        Carter said she was punished for her upper class background and isn’t trendy working class, whatever that means. Went on for 2 paragraphs. West said coming from Eton made him slightly above “pedophile” in terms of stigma. The others have made remarks, but DW and HBC were the most OTT I can remember offhand.

    • Tough Cookie says:

      Thank you!! I keep trying to watch Downton Abbey and it puts me to sleep.

    • Lilacflowers says:

      Hugh Laurie and Tom Hollander

    • Ann says:

      We’re all made of stars, so in agreement! I don’t get this plummy-accent, pasty-face dude fetishism. I cannot stand the upper class British pronunciation. It seems to place stress on every other syllable, with no added substance. But I’m fine with regional and working-class dialects, as far as I can make them.
      I’ll give West a lifetime pass for The Wire, though. He was also complaining that the Beeb was massively producing corset dramas instead of real life stories.

  8. Mrs. Wellen Melon says:

    Hubs and I are Americans who love BBC mystery series. We don’t care about posh so much as being able to understand what the actor is saying. Non-standard, regional variants of British English require us to make an effort to understand. We don’t always want to listen extra carefully and lose 25% of it anyway.

  9. Guesto says:

    He’s right. The much grittier (and imo far more impressive, not to mention far sexier) actors like eg. Christopher Ecclestone, Colin Salmon, David Morrissey, Jason Isaacs, Mark Strong etc are all doing extremely well.

    • Cora says:

      Agree. Sean Bean has done very well both in Britain and the U.S. and he came from a working class background (he was a welder before he became an actor). He’s a proud northerner and never lost his Sheffield accent.

      • Bored suburbanhousewife says:

        Yes see my post above that Sean decided to keep his accent after RADA and in this he was a trailblazer at the time.

        And another shout out to MarK Addy and Robert Carlyle as well.

    • seesittellsit says:

      Add to that Charlie Hunnam, Richard Armitage, good Lord, Daniel Craig and Kenneth Branagh – not to mention Ben Whishaw!

      They keep focusing on three blokes, Hiddleton, Redmayne, and Cumberbatch. James Norton went to RADA but family is ordinary middle-class. Hiddleston and Cumberbatch are actually only “posh” in the Burke’s Peerage sort of way on one side (Hiddles’ mother and Cumbers’ father), and frankly, I think Cumberbatch is now on the downside of the slope he thought he was topping last year.

      • j says:

        the focus on those three is dumb imo as it obscures the fact it’s happening now. it’s a younger generation issue. these guys are all 30+. back when they went to school, there was funding for actors from working classes still. that’s why there’s a healthy mix of rich and non-rich backgrounds in their peers.

  10. RUDDYZOOKEEPER says:

    I think they seriously overestimate the average American’s working knowledge of the difference.

    • Abbott says:

      Yup. Just see my comments up top. I’m peacing out and heading back to the GoT thread.

    • Lilacflowers says:

      This!

    • jen2 says:

      Agree. To most Americans, there are two British accents. Cockney and those who went to Oxford. Most are not aware of the different dialects and subtleties that come with British accents, just like most folks are not aware of different American accents.

    • Betsy says:

      Nailed it.

      If pressed I would say I prefer the “posh” movies because they don’t seem to feature violence. I really abhor violent scenes (which is why I see so few movies!).

  11. FingerBinger says:

    I’m American and I like Danny Dyer and Ray Winstone and occasionally Jason Statham. I also like Cumberbatch and Colin Firth. I find this posh versus others discussion tiresome.

  12. TheOtherMaria says:

    He’s an ass who masterfully deflected the real issue: CLASSICISM.

    Americans love an accent, period, his country simply elevates old money (wonder where we got it from 😒).

    Before he blames the American audience, he ought to discuss the financial bias of the UK entertainment industry, conversely we have similar issues here.

    I’ll take McAvoy, Fassbender, Elba, Hunnam, and Hardy any day of the week over Cumby and Hiddles.

    • Franca says:

      I’d take Hiddles over Hardy, but McAvoy beats all of them.

    • Jen says:

      Hardy has fooled you, he IS one of the posh ones!

    • Mary-Alice says:

      Blames? I don’t think he “blames” the American audience for anything. he states a simple and well known fact in the field – American audience, due to size and dynamics, is crucial for defining marketing of acting types and dictates much in the field. American demand more often than not makes or breaks in this field for those seeking international success.

  13. Susan says:

    It’s often a dialect/ability to understand the actor issue for me. There are some English accents that are just to hard for me to understand what they are saying. I don’t know how accent/ability to understand correlates with “poshness”.

  14. Pandy says:

    Confession: I don’t find Hiddleston, Cumberbatch or Redmayne attractive enough to watch in a film. I haven’t seen anything they’ve been in.

    • Olenna says:

      Have to agree. I’d never make the effort to go to the theater to watch a film they’re starring in. Hiddles is OK in an ensemble like the Avengers films, but I wish could have the 30 minutes of my life back spent watching him in OLLA on TV. What a waste of Tilda’s talent.

  15. Marlene says:

    Is Colin Firth considered posh? And on another note, where is Hiddles’s posh backside getting all the attention it deserves (I mean, where is CP trailer being discussed)?

  16. geneva says:

    There also seems to be a huge demand for Australian accents in our TV commercials…somehow replacing the rugged cowboy speaking on behalf of steak or trucks..now it is a big Aussie voice. Scottish accents for Scots lawn care, Irish accents for soap, …but posh British for our actors. Wish we could cast a wider net here …

    I like the quirky English actors like Stephen Mangan or Tom Hollander. more of them, please!