Why do some productions choose not to overdub foreign characters?

Question

When watching movies and series that need a character with a foreign accent (e.g. an Indian TV series that needs a British character, or an American movie that needs a French character), I've noticed that sometimes they will just go with a domestic actor who looks the part, and have them say their lines with a less-than-convincing accent. For instance, Alfred Hitchcock on El Ministerio del Tiempo, or some of the Jamaican characters in the second season of Luke Cage.

I would think that, if a good foreign actor couldn't be found, the easiest thing would be to simply have the domestic actor play the role, and overdub them with a voice actor with the appropriate accent. But many productions don't seem to follow this route, and stick with the inaccurate accent of the domestic actor. Why is this?

Answer 1

TL:DR - They think no-one will notice.

I think sometimes there's a reason - Pete Postlethwaite with a dodgy perhaps Indian accent in The Usual Suspects - as the entire story was told by an unreliable witness, this character, with a Japanese name, Kobayashi, & an unlikely accent [there's even some Hungarian in there which my Hungarian-speaking partner tells me is utter tosh] feels like it's done to make the structure more 'unreliable'.

On the other hand, sometimes it's just lazy - they think people won't be able to tell the difference. 2½ painful series of Designated Survivor listening to an Australian, Ben Lawson playing a British MI5 agent was enough to set your teeth on edge.

I'm a Brit - I can tell the difference. Amazingly many Americans can't. The number of times in the US I've been asked if I'm Australian is just mind-boggling.