British star Ophelia Lovibond on using an American accent in new Disney film

British actress Ophelia Lovibond said she had no problems using an American accent in her latest Disney film.

The Londoner stars in Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made as the single mother of a quirky 11-year-old schoolboy who runs his own detective agency in Portland, Oregon, alongside his imaginary polar bear friend.

Lovibond, 34, plays an American in the film but said years of watching US movies meant she found adjusting to the accent relatively straightforward.

She told the PA news agency: “There was a dialect coach on set, but it was more just if there was a rogue word that I wasn’t 100% sure of – more the pronunciation of it, rather than the accent of it. But I think it’s just from watching loads of movies; it’s just in there.

“I’ve always been a massive, massive movie buff, watching three of them a day sometimes and they’re usually American – from when I was a kid I mean.

“So unless it’s a really specific accent – like a West Virginia accent – and I might listen to No Country for Old Men or something to get into it, it just seems to be in there from movies.”

Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made launched on the Disney+ streaming service when it arrived in the UK on March 24.

The Tom McCarthy-directed film has been well-received by critics, who praised its off-beat tone and the performance of Winslow Fegley, who plays Timmy.

Lovibond, known for playing Carina in Guardians Of The Galaxy and Izzy Gould in the BBC’s W1A, was full of praise for her young co-star.

“He’s just such a special boy,” she said. “So professional, it was incredible, his work ethic. He’s just perfect; I said to Tom, ‘You must have been over the moon when you found him’, because his delivery of the lines is so kind of deadpan and he understands the delivery and the humour that Tom was after and you can see it in the film.”

Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made is streaming on Disney+ now.