Damian Lewis, yes or no?

[Egan]

Originally Posted by Eichhornchen

Well I suppose the nub of my question was to discover, particularly from our American friends, whether there was any question as to why the role was given to a non-American, given that he would have to get to grips with the accent, and given that my American nephew once assured me that no Briton could fool an American that way. If the US audience found him convincing in the role then fine, but did they?

As far as I know, the reason for such a large amount of Brit actors in it - and there are a LOT - is partly because it was mostly filmed here and also because it is actually a joint HBO/BBC production into which the BBC put quite a bit of cash. They were supposed to have been making a show of their own based around a British battalion (about the 5th Seaforths, based on a book called 'Battalion by Alisdair Borthwick) but went with the HBO production instead.

Here's the cast list. It makes interesting reading.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185906/fullcredits/

I think there are actually more British actors in it than American or if there aren't it's damn close. A couple of them live near me. I see the lad who played Babe Heffron occasionally in the supermarket I use, and I've seen a couple of the others around as well. Always cracks me up that Ross McCall who plays Liebgott is a wee guy from Port Glasgow along the Clyde coast.!