10 Non-American Actors Playing American Lead Roles in US TV Shows

Don't look now, but an invasion is going on, on U.S. TV at least: At least ten popular TV series have foreign-born actors in lead roles. What's more, these non-American actors are actually playing quintessentially American characters, which means the networks could have easily chosen from countless Yanks for the leads, but chose to go for the Brits and Aussies and other foreigners instead. And it's not because they're cheaper, because they're definitely not. One of them, as a matter of fact, just recently became one of the highest-paid actors on TV today.

We're pretty certain a lot of people who watch these shows have no idea their favorite American characters are actually played by non-Americans, what with their convincing American accents and everything. Here are some of them.

1. Hugh Laurie

For five seasons now, Hugh Laurie, an English actor from Oxford, has been playing the misanthropic medical genius Gregory House in the hit Fox drama House. With the utterly convincing American accent he uses on the show, not too many people are aware that he is everything but American. In any case, audiences love him, and the show's producers obviously do too: Laurie has just been offered a new deal that would pay him $400,000 per episode, or more than $9 million a year, making him one of the biggest earners on TV today.

2. Julian McMahon

Before playing the womanizing plastic surgeon Dr. Christian Troy on FX Networks' Nip/Tuck, Julian McMahon first charmed audiences as the demon Cole Turner in Charmed. Even then, few people knew that McMahon is from Sydney. Undeniable proof that he is Australian is the fact that his late father, Sir William McMahon, was Australia's 20th Prime Minister.

3. Anthony LaPaglia

In a show whose top three characters are not Americans, Anthony LaPaglia is top dog. He plays FBI Agent Jack Malone on CBS' Without A Trace, the only prime-time U.S. drama to have two Australians, LaPaglia and Poppy Montgomery, and a Brit, Oscar-nominated actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste playing Americans in the regular cast.

4. Damian Lewis

The fact that Damian Lewis is British could come as a big surprise to many people. After all, he was compelling as American World War II hero Richard Winters in the 2001 HBO mini-series Band of Brothers. Now he's playing Charlie Crews, an LAPD detective who was wrongfully imprisoned for 12 years before being exonerated by DNA evidence in the NBC drama Life.

5. Colin Ferguson

OK, so Colin Ferguson, star of the quirky Sci-Fi channel series Eureka, just became an American citizen, but he also happens to be a Canadian citizen, having been born in Montreal, Quebec. He grew up in Hong Kong, England, Connecticut and Toronto, and also holds a British citizenship.

6. Lena Headey

Who would have imagined that Sarah Connor, a very American character from one of the biggest American film franchises of all time could be played by an Englishwoman? Lena Headey, whose strong and sexy turn in last year's 300 gave us a respite from all that testosterone and those six-pack abs, has been doing pretty well as the star of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which airs on the Fox Network. And she's doing it with a very good American accent, and without Linda Hamilton's muscles.

7. Anna Paquin

Anna Paquin, who plays the mind-reading waitress Sookie Stackhouse in the new HBO drama True Blood, was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. When she was four, her parents moved to New Zealand, where her acting career began. And what an acting career it was, winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for 1993's The Piano, her very first movie. She has since been known to younger audiences as Rogue in the X-Men trilogy of films. For True Blood, she has to put on a southern accent, as the series, which revolves around humans and vampires trying to co-exist, is set in the fictional town of Bon Temps, Louisiana.

8. Anna Torv

Australian actress Anna Torv is the lead star of Fringe, a new science fiction drama from J.J. Abrams which just began airing on Fox in September. She plays Olivia Dunham, an FBI Agent who has been tasked to investigate unexplained phenomena with an institutionalized scientist, brilliantly played by fellow Aussie actor John Noble. Not a few people have commented that Torv bears an uncanny facial resemblance to a top Australian actress, the Oscar-winning Cate Blanchett.

9. Jonny Lee Miller

Film buffs may remember Jonny Lee Miller as "Sick Boy" in the Ewan Macgregor starrer Trainspotting. While he played a Scottish junkie in that film, Miller, who also happens to be Angelina Jolie's first husband, is actually English. He's currently making waves as the star of the ABC comedy-drama Eli Stone, playing the eponymous character, a lawyer with a brain aneurysm that is causing hallucinations which could actually be visions of the future.

10. Simon Baker

A new CBS series, The Mentalist, has Australian actor Simon Baker in the lead as an extremely intelligent and observant detective. He had previously starred in The Guardian, another CBS drama series that ended in 2004.

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