City Of Angels

Nichols: That's a very good simile.

Streep: It's just, it's so--I mean nobody means to be insulting but... it is. I mean, if I only played people from New Jersey, it would be such a limited career. [Laughter] But it would be honest.

Laurence Olivier could never really do a good American accent.

Nichols: Or a Jewish accent, God help us.

That whole generation of English actors couldn't do American. But they didn't grow up with television.

Thompson: That's exactly it. My mom and dad both went to theater school, always expecting to do Shakespeare. They were required to do three accents at drama school. RP--you know, Received Pronunciation--a country accent and then maybe Irish or Scottish. You know, that's all you needed. Now you practically have to know the f--ing U.S. postal district.