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December 21

Ryan Gosling and "Hey Girl"

There's a popular Internet meme that consists of pictures of Ryan Gosling, captioned lolcat style in the following format: "Hey girl, <non sequitur>" (for instance, there was one about political campaign work that went "Hey girl, you can drop campaign literature on me anytime". I've managed to trace it back to a blog called Fuck Yeah Ryan Gosling, but does anyone know what their inspiration was or how this meme got started? Did he say "hey girl" in one of his movies or something? I checked our article and it has nothing, and of course Google is buried under a slew of imitators. Any ideas? Thanks! Meelar (talk) 04:58, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Did an Owl really say O RLY?? Does Rick Astly frequently crash parties uninvited? Are cats really bad at spelling?. More to the point: Do Internet memes really need a reason to be, beyond their own existence? --Jayron32 05:01, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

At the same time, Internet memes do start somewhere. I'm wondering if it's a line from Crazy Stupid Love. I seem to remember the line in a trailer for the movie, at a minimum, but don't quote me on that. --McDoob AU 93 15:40, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Ryan Gosling "Hey Girl" meme dates back to 2008, when this was started. -- kainaw ™ 15:44, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

British actors playing Americans

British actors have a long history of going to the USA and appearing in flims or TV shows. This has often been to play the bad guy - probably because they are native English speakers without a hard to understand foreign accent, yet different enough to be from 'somewhere else'. However, I have noticed a seemingly recent trend where British actors have started to play American characters, complete with American accents: eg. Dominic West and Idris Elba in The Wire, Stephen Moyer in True Blood, Andrew Lincoln in The Walking Dead and maybe even Hugh Laurie in House. Is this in fact a recent trend? Astronaut (talk) 16:29, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bob Hoskins played an American detective in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, which was released back in the late 1980s, so not terribly new, I would guess. --McDoob AU 93 16:38, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hoskins had played several American characters, with varying regional accents. His natural voice sounds almost cockney. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:20, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Stan Laurel was English - does that count? (Out of interest, why do you say "maybe even Hugh Laurie in House" - he's definitely English, and definitely playing an American.) AndrewWTaylor (talk) 16:42, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I thought about that when you mentioned it, but I think Laurel still spoke with a light British accent, as did Oliver Hardy, and he was American. --McDoob AU 93 16:49, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Expatriate actors in the United States contains 123 Canadians, 47 Australians, 1 Pole, and that’s it. No Brits or any other nationalities, which is a big lie. But Category:British expatriates in the United States and its sub-cats give me Leo G. Carroll, Brian Cox (actor), Daniel Day-Lewis, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman, Basil Rathbone, Dougray Scott, Naomi Watts, Joanne Whalley, Kate Winslet, Catherine Zeta-Jones. These all at least in some roles have portrayed Americans.

Then there’s Richard Burton, whose George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (film) is still memorable.

Lots of other non-expatriate British actors made Hollywood movies playing Americans. In The Aviator (2004 film), Kate Beckinsale played Ava Gardner, Jude Law played Errol Flynn (an Australian actor who sometimes played Americans), and the Australian Cate Blanchett won on Oscar for playing Katharine Hepburn. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 17:14, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes [1]. Card Zero (talk) 17:18, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In reviews I saw of Romeo is Bleeding, many references were made to Gary Oldman's spot-on American accent and how he was better than other British actors. So, it was regular for British actors to portray Americans back in the early 90s. -- kainaw ™ 17:36, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Way earlier than that - Ronald Colman, Cary Grant and others were playing characters with mid-Atlantic accents back in the 1930s and 1940s. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 17:41, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure Cary Grant really counts, since that's his real accent. Though born in Bristol, he lived in America from age 16, having run away to join the circus. He was pretty much ethnically mid-Atlantic. Card Zero (talk) 18:02, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Gregory House M.D. and Damian Lewis [2] in Band of Brothers (TV miniseries). Alansplodge (talk) 19:19, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dr House/Hugh Laurie has already had at least 2 mentions above, Alan. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 22:12, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Including the OP! Shooting from the hip as usual... Alansplodge (talk) 00:30, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Shooting from the lip. more likely. :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 18:50, 22 December 2011 (UTC) [reply]

No mention of Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara? The Mark of the Beast (talk) 22:59, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How about Peter Sellers effecting 3 accents in Dr. Strangelove: The American president; the German title character; and a presumably very specific British accent for Mandrake. Supposedly he was also going to play the bomber pilot (presumably with appropriate western drawl), but had to be replaced when he got injured. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:18, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Half of Easy Company were British as well. - X201 (talk) 11:09, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Let's try Maxwell Caulfield as Michael Carrington in Grease 2 and Miles Colby in The Colbys.24.90.204.234 (talk) 19:20, 25 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Stephen Graham (actor) in Boardwalk Empire. --Viennese Waltz 22:07, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]