You know when you watch a film and you get completely sidetracked by a minor detail?

[BlackAmericanoNoSugar]

I'm watching a film on Netflix called Love Again. The plot is fairly so-so which is probably why my mind is wandering. What's bothering me is that the film is set in the US but almost the entire cast is British doing American accents with varying degrees of success (apart from Priyanka Chopra Jonas who is not British obviously, but who I think is supposed to be American too but her accent drifts around a bit). Why? Why not use American actors? Sam Heughan is British in it, is that because they wanted him to be American but he couldn't manage the accent convincingly? Celia Imrie nearly blew my mind, she looked so typically like one of her usual characters but then opened her mouth and was American.

Why not use American actors?
I guess the answer has something to do with US cultural hegemony. Actors from all over the world go to the US if they want to make it big.
I've read that the biggest, most profitable US films are intended for viewers all over the world whose first language isn't English. They won't notice if the actors' US American accents aren't quite right.
But the actors are still expected to do a US American accent because that's the default at the epicentre of the industry.

I read an interview once with Australian actor Guy Pierce, who had a Los Angeles producer ask him why he was talking so funny. When Guy Pierce explained that he just did the American accent when he was being filmed, the producer said "But we (US Americans) don't have an accent"

I'm guessing now that they must be filming in the UK because pretty much everything is indoors and any outdoor scenes that are recognisably New York don't have the actors in them. Which is why almost all the actors are British. But, as you say, US based things probably sell better than non-US so the Brits have to be American. Although I think putting an actual storyline in would be a first step before deciding on location.

I went to see a film set in Suffolk, and it was filmed in the Isle of Man. A signpost at the corner of a road gave it away.

In the same vein, recently watched a new series of a great crime drama I love. Two of the characters had hair styling that really distracted me.