By Lacy Baugher for Actors and Actresses on December 14th, 2015

Watch: ‘Downton Abbey’ Stars Doing American Accents is Amazing

Allen Leech, Michelle Dockery and Hugh Bonneville at a PBS screening. (Photo: Stephanie Berger/PBS)
Allen Leech, Michelle Dockery and Hugh Bonneville at a PBS screening. (Photo: Stephanie Berger/PBS)
Allen Leech, Michelle Dockery and Hugh Bonneville at a PBS Season 6 screening. (Photo: Stephanie Berger/PBS)

The Downton Abbey cast has been out and about quite a bit over the past week or so, doing the press rounds in America as the US premiere date of Season 6 inches ever closer. (FYI: It’s January 3, if somehow you’ve been living under a rock missed this memo.)

This of course has lead to a lot of delightful clips and interviews, largely because this cast is just adorable together, but the best bit thus far has to be their appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last week, during which the chat host convinced them to give viewers a look at what Downton Abbey might be like if only it sounded a little different.

Stars Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery and Allen Leech were ostensibly on the show to dish the show’s final season, and generally provide vague hints about its direction. During the course of their chat, Colbert suggested that part of the reason Downton is such a megahit in the United States is that Americans are still enraptured by those posh British accents the Crawleys display, and wondered if the show would be so beloved if everyone didn’t sound so classy all the time.

In order to put this theory to the test, Colbert has the three actors reenact a scene using their best American accents instead. 

 The end result is a clip that is both amazing and mildly terrifying. Watch for yourselves below: 

Dockery’s pseudo-Valley Girl version of Mary Crawley is everything. Honestly, the only thing that would have made this better is if they’d managed to convince Dame Maggie Smith to do this press tour. (Can you just imagine?)

At the rate we’re going, I think I’m going to miss the cast of Downton Abbey talking about the show as much as I’m going to miss the show itself! 

By Lacy Baugher for Actors and Actresses on December 14th, 2015
Lacy Baugher

Lacy's love of British TV is embarrassingly extensive, but primarily centers around evangelizing all things Doctor Who, and watching as many period dramas as possible.

Digital media type by day, she also has a fairly useless degree in British medieval literature, and dearly loves to talk about dream poetry, liminality, and the medieval religious vision. (Sadly, that opportunity presents itself very infrequently.) York apologist, Ninth Doctor enthusiast, and unabashed Ravenclaw. Say hi on Threads or Blue Sky at @LacyMB. 

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