Simmy Marcus, artistic director of the famous Bow Street Academy in Dublin, recently watched the latest Knives Out production, “Wake Up Dead Man,” and was struck by the number of British and Irish actors playing the American lead roles.
“You’ve got Daniel Craig, Josh O’Connor, Andrew Scott, Darryl McCormick…I was like, ‘Are you doing anything that interesting?'” he told Variety.
But “Wake Up Dead Man” is not the only example.
Spielberg’s sci-fi return with “Disclosure Day” also welcomes O’Connor back and brings to the top a who’s who of American accents from across the Atlantic, including Emily Blunt, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson and Henry Lloyd-Hughes. Indeed, a casual observer of Hollywood over the past decade has regularly seen what has been described as an “invasion” of British and Irish actors, an ongoing and sometimes heated debate (particularly when it comes to notable historical roles such as Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln and David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King).
It has gotten to the point where many people are simply considered American. Marcus said his partner recently complimented someone he used to watch on an American show about his Irish accent. What he had to point out was that the actor in question was actually “Irish.”
Marcus now wants to export some of whatever is in the waters of the Emerald and British Isles to the United States, with Bow Street Academy set to open its first director’s campus in Los Angeles this September.
But it’s not alone. While major Hollywood productions are leaving American studios and heading east to the growing film and television hubs of Britain and Ireland, acting schools in Britain and Ireland are slowly charting their course westward.
Based in the historic The Lot at Formosa, where Charlie Chaplin first founded United Artists Studio, Bow Street Academy LA joins Identity School of Writing, a London-based university that opened its first Los Angeles branch in 2018. Meanwhile, LAMDA, London’s oldest drama school (founded in 1861), opened an office in New York last year and will begin offering short courses from there.
Bow Street Academy LA will be directed on-set by Oscar-nominated screenwriter, director and producer Kirsten Sheridan (who recently wrote the screenplay for FX’s hit Say Nothing). Along with Marcus, he was part of the trio of directors who helped establish The Factory in Dublin in 2010. The space began as a grassroots hub for filmmakers to chat, exchange ideas, and develop ideas, and it was where up-and-coming talent like Barry Keoghan worked. Niamh Algar and Jack Reynor will show their early skills. However, it soon became a drama college, relaunching in 2015 as Bow Street Academy (more formally recognized as the National Film Acting Academy of Ireland).
Since then, the school has continued to grow, but Marcus said the idea to expand overseas came about around 2023 when they noticed “a large amount of students enrolling, particularly from the United States and even Los Angeles.” When I ask aspiring actors why they are prepared to travel all the way from the West Coast of the United States to Dublin for acting lessons, the answer is often, “Because there’s nothing like it here.”
But what exactly is “this”? What specific training is not available in the United States?
In addition to a completely screen-centric focus, Bow Street offers “a different approach to interpreting what[students]are doing as actors between action and cuts,” Marcus says. “We’re not interested in comparing ourselves to other artists in America, but a lot of the performances over there seem to express emotion and express what the characters are going through, whereas our approach is more conceptualized, giving the actors the power to make their own interpretations of what’s happening in the scene.”
The result, Marcus argues, is that the characters are built from the inside out and include more of the actual actor, resulting in performances that feel “more authentic and human.” “So I feel like I’m more of a voyeur when I’m watching a performance.”
The key to Bow Street, and the secret sauce behind its entire curriculum, is Gerry Grennell, a Dubliner who helped establish the first course when it was still The Factory.
Often credited simply as a “dialect coach,” Grennell is a sought-after behind-the-scenes collaborator with a truly eye-popping name, having worked with the likes of Johnny Depp, Meryl Streep, Natalie Portman, Tom Cruise, Matt Damon, and Anne Hathaway, to name a few. He famously helped the late Heath Ledger hone his acting skills for the role of Joker in The Dark Knight, while he also coached regular customer Oscar Isaac for more than a decade (including in Dune and Frankenstein). Under their relationship, Isaac recently became a patron of the Academy.
Bow Street’s new tutors in the US are now being trained in the ‘Jerry Grennell Method’, which Mr Marcus claims has been ‘tried and tested by the best set’. However, once the door opens, he will be working on the academy’s long-term course at the Los Angeles campus.
Simmy Marcus, Kirsten Sheridan and Jerry Grennell at Bow Street Academy LA
Like Bow Street, London’s Identity School of Acting was already a groundbreaking institution long before it planted its flag in the United States. Founded in 2003 by actor turned teacher and agent Femi Ogunes, the school offers part-time acting classes and has made a huge contribution to the diversity of the UK performing arts scene, helping to give the likes of John Boyega, Letitia Wright and Damson Idris an early springboard. In 2018, it opened a U.S. branch at the Taimur Arts Center in East Hollywood, with about 300 students enrolled.
For Oguns, who also oversees the Identity Agency Group, what sets his school apart is that it is “built not just on tradition but on the realities of the industry.” Identity’s instructors are working professionals, he says, and the training reflects the current casting landscape. “We put a lot of emphasis on preparing actors for employment rather than just graduating.”
Earlier this month, Identity School had to move from its Los Angeles site due to a change in ownership of the facility, and is currently looking for a new location in preparation for resuming the school year in September. Thankfully, Ogans points out that online schools are “thriving.”
Although not a campus, LAMDA’s midtown Manhattan office and studio facility was born in recognition of the growing appeal in the United States of the historic London stage school, long considered a fertile training ground for the West End and Broadway. Nicholas Holden, LAMDA’s vice-principal for academic affairs, research and students, suggests that around “one in three” students in various degrees and semesters are from the United States.
Holden said the school partnered with the Resident Theater Association to lease space on Eighth Avenue in early 2025 in a desire to stay connected to alumni and support their professional careers once they return home. The school currently holds auditions and networking events at the school, alongside workshops and masterclasses. But Holden says its short course program is an “introduction to acting, playwriting and everything in between” and will be “a really valuable catalyst for people to experience British actor training in New York”.
A core element of this British actor’s training, and what Holden says “makes[LAMDA]different from what people experience in America,” is its focus on ensemble.
“From a very early stage, our students understand what it means to work together, how projects are done, how being open to and understanding others enhances learning, and how the whole is stronger than the individual,” he says. LAMDA graduates are well known in the industry “for their ability to collaborate and create the spirit of an ensemble, in rehearsal and ultimately in production,” he claims.
And then there’s RADA, another famous and well-established acting institution in London. While it may not have a dedicated US location, it does run a short course program that includes an intensive five-day “actor training” in New York.
But when it comes to knowledge transfer, it’s not all one-way street. Bow Street’s Marcus said that one of the things he was happy about learning about the American culture was that “they never stop training” compared to Europe, where “traditionally, it’s like, you finish three years, you’re ready to work.” That’s why everyone in the film industry is welcome, including those looking to retrain beyond acting, at the school’s opening day on July 26, ahead of its September opening.
Whether one desires Bow Street’s “Jerry Grennell Method” or LAMDA’s ensemble focus, the central goal for the majority of American students applying to these schools is clearly to improve their chances of getting a job, that is, to increase their chances of nabbing high-profile American roles from under the noses of “invading” British and Irish stars.
Markus cites the success of Bow Street’s Irish alumni, led by Corgan, including rising stars such as retired professional rugby player Peter Claffey, who joined the academy and soon joined the cast of Bad Sisters and is now best known as Sir Duncan the Tall, the protagonist of Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
“But we have two Ringos and a John,” he said, noting that alongside Corgan, who plays Beatles drummer Ringo Starr in four biopics directed by Sam Mendes, alum Louis McCartney, who won a Tony Award last year for Stranger Things, has just been cast as a musician in the BBC drama Hamburg Days, and fellow alum Rhys Mannion will play John Lennon.
“All of a sudden, it really hits us,” Marcus says. “And that’s our new motto: Graduates work.”
