ICYMI: Here are some ‘Downton Abbey’ stars doing American accents

Pop quiz: what is the most quintessentially British show on television?

Answer: Downton Abbey.

Obviously. (Seriously, if you said something else, we need to talk.) We love us some British aristocratic melodrama, and Downton certainly delivers. But would the show have the same sparkle if it were set in America? You guys, I’m being literal with the sparkle talk. I mean, would the Granthams and the Crawleys be running around in tiaras all the time if they lived in the U.S.? Somehow I doubt it, and that would be a shame. After all, Downton Abbey is responsible for 99% of the tiaras on television. Just saying. The whole show is basically a fairy tale for us Anglophiles. (And we love it.)

Recently, a few of the stars of Downton Abbey appeared on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and all of them were great sports when Colbert explored the whole question of what exactly would happen if we moved Downton Abbey across the pond. Spoiler alert: it would morph into Clueless. In. Every. Possible. Way.

Colbert gave Michelle Dockery, Hugh Bonneville and Allen Leech cards containing dialogue from a Downton scene and had them do a run-through with American accents. We can’t stop laughing at this. We just can’t. Who knew how much Lady Mary had in common with Alicia Silverstone’s Cher?? And wait until you hear Allen Leech (a/k/a Tom Branson). There aren’t enough crying face emojis in the world to express our delight.

[Image and video via YouTube.]