10 International Stars You Never Realised Weren’t American

5. Christian Bale - English-Raised Welshman

And speaking of Christian Bale... There hasn't been a grand tradition of Welsh actors tackling the American accent with much success - both Michael Sheen and Matthew Rhys are giving it a good go, even if their accents on Masters Of Sex and The Americans, respectively, do come across as a tad laboured, but for the most part it's the likes of Anthony Hopkins and Richard Burton trying it out and still come across as really, really Welsh. Not so Christian Bale, whose background involved him making a start in Hollywood early (his career started in 1986) and who's practically grown up on the silver screen, to the point where people just assume the Welsh-born, English-raised actor is American now. It's not helped by the fact that he plays American icons - see The Dark Knight trilogy, American Psycho, Public Enemies - and that he, yes, ditches his natural accent when promoting films where his character hails from the US.