Viewers think Gillian Anderson forgot her accent during BAFTAs speech
BAFTA viewers were wondering if Sex Education star Gillian Anderson forgot her accent as she stepped out onto the stage at the awards ceremony, though there's a very good reason for it.
Anderson presented the Best Supporting Actor category, which went to Robert Downey Jr for Oppenheimer, and before reading out the winner she gave a short speech on the connection actors make.
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"BAFTA winner Al Pacino said 'the camera can film my face, but until it captures my soul you don't have a movie," Anderson said in her speech as she praised the nominees for giving a 'performance full of soul'.
However, as she gave her speech the folks watching along at home were wondering why a star born in America who they thought was American was delivering a speech in a flawless British accent.
Sure, Anderson has played British parts in the past but most viewers thought her natural speaking voice was American.
"I thought Gillian Anderson was American," was a pretty popular reaction to her speech at the BAFTAs.
Others thought she was putting the accent on because the BAFTAs were a British awards show and wondered why she didn't 'just speak naturally'.
Someone else suggested that Anderson had 'forgotten she's American' while another said they found her British accent 'so funny'.
However, some people struggled to get enthused about her British accent when she donned a pair of glasses to read her speech and they became obsessed about that instead.
As for why she does this, Gillian Anderson was born in Chicago but spent some of her childhood growing up in London.
Basically she's spent enough time in both the UK and US that she can easily do either accent and tends to switch it up depending on which audience she addresses.
Anderson gave an interview about it last year and it's just something she can do as effortlessly as donning a pair of particularly comfortable slippers.
She said: "It goes back and forth because I grew up in both places, so it depends on who I’m talking to.
"So usually when I’m talking to Brits, it slides into British, and vice versa for American."
Anderson said she was sometimes 'conscious' of the accent switch as it could throw people off a bit to see her speaking two different dialects with ease.
She said she 'literally can't help' the accent switch as it's just something she does depending on the company around her.
Joe Harker