Thinking of Rob   It's all about Robert Pattinson

The Telegraph on-line posted this article that mentions Robert Pattinson

In the 30 years since Colin Welland collected an Oscar for Chariots of Fire and famously declared: “The British are coming!” there have been plenty of false dawns.

British actors flocked to Hollywood only to find themselves cast repeatedly as villains, fops and toffs. But this year’s Cannes Film Festival proves that US studios have finally fallen for the charms of the British leading man.

The three major US films in competition all have British actors playing American leads.

Tom Hardy is the star of Lawless, a Prohibition-era gangster film in which he plays the toughest of three bootlegging brothers in rural Virginia.

Robert Pattinson, he of the teen Twilight franchise, plays the lead in another literary adaptation, Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis, as a billionaire Manhattanite.

And the long-awaited adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, that most quintessential of American novels, stars Yorkshire’s Sam Riley as Sal Paradise.

It is a state of affairs mirrored in US television, where British actors are slipping seamlessly into US lead roles, from Hugh Laurie in House to Damian Lewis and David Harewood in Homeland.

Industry watchers say we have entered a golden age for Brits in Hollywood.

“It’s what I call ‘Hugh Laurie Syndrome,” said Tim Gray, editor of trade bible Variety.

“When Laurie appeared in House, Americans said, ‘Who is this actor? I love him, he’s great’. Then we found out he’s British, and it’s like a magician has pulled a trick on you. People like to be fooled sometimes.

“In films, it started with Christian Bale in Batman, who showed that British actors can be better at playing Americans than Americans themselves.

“And now it really is a trend. Hollywood people are very imitative, very superstitious. If something is successful, then let’s repeat it.

“Also, there are a lot of good actors in the world. If you go to any gym in LA, you walk in and there’s 10 really great-looking actors working out. Go to an audition and there’s 20 great-looking actors sitting there. So if you’re looking for somebody with something different, British actors stand out. And there is that element of snob appeal: ‘He’s not only talented but he’s a Brit.’”

The new wave of British actors have also mastered flawless American accents.

Gray said: “In the 1970s, the British would push it a little too hard, they over-enunciated and would say, ‘You stoopid person’.

“Now they are really good. It’s partly the training, and partly because British actors I talk to say they grew up watching US films and TV shows.

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