Hollywood's British invasion

We might be divided by a common language, but America's television is looking increasingly like our own, with more and more of our faces appearing on screens over there, and a seemingly endless stream of our programmes being remade stateside.

Our own Cat Deeley, Hugh Laurie and Christopher Eccleston are already big names in US network prime-time, appearing in American Idol, House and Heroes, respectively. Laurie, in particular, is seen as triggering "the new British invasion", as one US studio executive put it. Now the likes of Ray Stevenson (Waking the Dead, The Bill), Kevin McKidd (North Square, Kingdom of Heaven) and Julia Ormond (First Knight) are queuing up to have a crack at America, landing parts in prime-time pilots for next season. The former Ballykissangel actress Lena Headey has also been cast as Sarah Connor in the Terminator spin-off series, and - somewhat bizarrely - Michelle Ryan, who played Zoe Slater on EastEnders for five years, has swapped Albert Square for the lead role in NBC's planned "re-imagination" of the 1970s series The Bionic Woman, a part made famous by Lindsay Wagner.

Has the pond finally evaporated? Marion Edwards, the president of international TV at 20th Century Fox, thinks so: "The big trend emerging from the pilot season this year is the number of British and international actors in the shows being developed for next fall. The lines between US and non-US talent aren't just blurring; they're not there anymore."

Stevenson's big US break is in an apocalyptic CBS drama pilot called Babylon Fields, about a small Long Island town whose dead all come back to life. McKidd, meanwhile, plays a gambling addict who can travel back in time to correct all the mistakes in his life, in the NBC drama project Journeyman. Ormond, in turn, has a role in ABC's planned TV spin-off from the Brangelina assassin flick Mr & Mrs Smith.

"These actors bring a fresh look to a show," explains Edwards, whose studio is behind the three pilots. In a country that churns out so many hours of film and television, and where viewers absorb scores of hours of moving images each week, "they are quite simply faces we haven't got tired of yet." Some more of those faces going into the US pilot season this year include Natasha Richardson in the NBC comedy The Mastersons of Manhattan; Jack Davenport in the CBS drama Swingtown; Tom Conti in a Fox comedy; and Damian Lewis and Julian Sands, both in NBC dramas, Life and Lipstick Jungle respectively. Some estimates have Brits in a third of all network pilots for next season.

For those seeking a common denominator in the new British wave, all roads lead to Rome. The BBC's sword-and-sandal soap aired on HBO in the US, and plenty of casting agents must've caught it on their TiVos since Stevenson, McKidd, and other next season hopefuls Zuleikha Robinson (playing the love interest of a death-defying 300-year-old New York cop in Fox's supernatural drama pilot New Amsterdam) and Polly Walker, all appeared in the series.

Indira Varma did too. She was cast as a clever-clogs brain surgeon in the CBS medical drama 3lbs last season, recently unspooling on BBC1. "In this country a British accent automatically makes you appear smarter. That was a big part of the casting," says the show's exec producer, Peter Ocko. "After Rome, no fewer than three casting directors called me saying, 'you have to see this Varma woman'. You can't stop watching her." CBS could, however; the network axed the show after three episodes - part of the major blood-letting of last autumn - but BBC1 nevertheless aired the full eight on Sunday nights.

As well as abrupt cancellations should their shows under-perform one iota, what else can the new Brit crowd in LA expect? "The big difference between acting in the UK and in America," advises the Hammersmith-born actor Jamie Bamber, who has long since swapped parts in Peak Practice and Hornblower for the US sci-fi saga Battlestar Galactica, "is reflected in your sunglasses right now." He's referring to the iconic Hollywood sign against the azure Los Angeles sky. "I'm very happy to swap curry for sushi."

But it's not all one long episode of Entourage for Bamber. "Life is pretty mundane, actually. I work on my little TV show, play golf with Ioan [Gruffudd, a fellow Brit acting in LA] and my kids prevent me from losing my head up my arse in the LA circus." His big gripe about Hollywood, though, is: "Nobody knows how to grow old. As an actor, you're either forced into Botox or swept under the carpet and replaced by younger, better-looking people." He also voices some angst that many British actors must share: "It frustrates me that Britain can't make something like CSI or The Sopranos. Instead, British TV puts soap in primetime while every other civilised nation leaves it in daytime. Viewers should be more demanding."

Bamber's US show airs here on Sky One and any programme-buyer in the UK will say that having a local face is often a factor in deciding which US shows to acquire. However, the idea that the US studios are populating their dramas with British faces in order to secure sales in the UK is dismissed with a patient smile by anyone actually working in Hollywood. "Getting a slot on US network prime-time is valuable, so precious," explains Edwards, "that the needs of another network, least of all one in another country, never even enter the casting agent's mind." Ted Riley, the Canadian TV veteran whose job it is to sell the CSI franchise overseas, puts it more bluntly: "The only priority is the US network schedule. The after-market for these programmes is simply a happy side-effect."

But it's not just in front of the camera that Brits can be found in LA. Behind the scenes, they're increasingly evident, and the biggest show in the US for several years, American Idol, is produced by two school-chums from Liverpool: Ken Warwick and Nigel Lythgoe, formerly at LWT. Brits Simon Fuller, the creator of American Idol, and the ex-BBC drama chief Mal Young, are now developing an EastEnders-style blue-collar soap for Fox. In fact, visit Santa Monica or the Pacific Palisades and you'll probably hear more British accents than American ones, all from our TV execs now selling their UK experience to Hollywood.

Here's the thing: the US studios and networks are facing one of the biggest talent-strikes in years, with the writers', directors' and actors' guilds all preparing to strike this autumn unless they get a cut of new-media revenues. This alone doesn't explain the upswing in British actors, since they have to join the guild in order to work (albeit for far fewer dollars an episode than the local talent), but the looming threat means US networks are stockpiling UK formats in case the strike goes ahead, and British talent often follows in their wake.

With The Office as inspiration, this pilot season already has the highest number of UK formats ever going into the LA screenings later this month, with an entourage of British producers in attendance. BBC series including Life on Mars, Beast, The Thick of It, The Vicar of Dibley, Blackpool and I'm With Stupid are all being reworked by US networks, alongside Channel 4's The IT Crowd and ITV series Wild at Heart and Footballers' Wives.

For these scripted pilots the threatened strike simply adds to the formidable array of hurdles they have to overcome to go to series, but - in the words of Dick Wolf, the celebrated writer and producer behind big US dramas like Law & Order - "if there's a strike the networks will be airing tiddly-winks competitions." Or yet more British reality and gameshow formats, which - having UK ratings and episodes in the can - are quick to sell and get to screen.

It seems British formats, as well as our on- and off-screen talent, are looking good for next season in America. To avoid the kind of talent drain that the Canadian TV industry has endured, perhaps we need a spectacular flop to underscore the UK/US divide. Coupling USA II, anyone?