To play a great American, cast a Canadian

I can rest my case with Raymond Massey, the Canadian actor who made the best Abraham Lincoln on film. Or maybe even Alexander Knox, who played Woodrow Wilson. I'll skip Dan Ackroyd who played Jimmy Carter on SNL. My point is that many American characters are played by Canadians. There's Marty McFly, a creation of Michael J. Fox, Ace Ventura, played by Jim Carrey. The list goes on: Margo Kidder (who went to my high school) was Lois Lane and Alan Young (who also went to my high school) was Mr. Ed's pal on TV. The tradition goes back to Mary Pickford through Walter Pidgeon up to John Candy and Dorothy Stratten. But can an American play a Canadian? I'll give you two examples: George Segal played a tough RCMP officer in Tom Ardies' thriller, "Russian Roulette" and no less than Paul Newman played Reggie Dunlop, the player-coach in "Slap Shot". He could skate like the wind, swear like, well, like a hockey player, and he slept under a giant Canadian maple leaf flag.