Unlike many of the characters in “The White Lotus” Season 3, Chelsea isn’t American. She’s from Manchester, just like the actor who portrays her, Aimee Lou Wood.
Wood said that creator Mike White preferred her own accent compared to an American one when she tried both during the audition stage. “I can do an American accent. But Mike just wanted my Manchester one,” Wood told The Sun.
She finds that she often doesn’t come across as an American because of one specific tell.
“It’s the teeth! No Americans have my teeth. I think that genuinely is one of the things,” Wood added.
“I played an American in a play in Chicago and afterwards this guy in the bar, he was talking to me and he went: ‘I knew it. I knew it. Your accent was great but I knew you weren’t American. You just don’t look American,’” Wood said.
Wood clarified that she is able to do a believable American accent, but White thought that making her character American was unnecessary.
“He just didn’t see why she needed to be American and why we needed to add that extra layer of distance between me and her,” Wood told Elle. “So he was like, ‘Let’s just make her from Manchester.’ And I was like, ‘Great.’ And it worked. But it was so funny because everyone keeps being like, ‘So you couldn’t do the American accent.’ And now I’m like, ‘I need to correct this guys! I can do an American accent! I swear!’”