Having been misquoted by journalists every single time that I was ever interviewed (which ain't much since I'm not a celeb but I did have a strange knack of ending up in the paper way back when I was 16) I believe that the journalist wrote whatever the hell they though they heard which may or may not bear any relation to what the celeb actually said.

I notice this as well. Americans being quoted as saying things that they would never say - like for example saying "maths" instead of "math". Having been interviewed for articles twice in the UK, I can attest to what dabitch says, the interviewers basically took the general sentiment of what I said and put it in their own words, which made me feel ridiculous at the time as I would have never phrased things the way they were written.

interesting, thanks! that would drive me crazy. I am sure it goes the other way around in the US, but it sure is annoying,

Well, between Star Wars I, II, and III, V for Vendetta, and Closer, Portman has spent significant time in London (not counting dating Nat Rothschild). It's also quite possible she adjusted her slang to the reporter. I wouldn't characterize that as "putting on airs", personally. It's more like code switching.

I'm here to chime in on both possibilities: as a former journalist who did quite a few interviews, I have never changed the subject's words; if it felt necessary I would paraphrase part of the comment and only *quote* a bit of it (and by "necessary", I mean to keep the interviewee from coming off as silly or a million other wrong conclusions that can happen when quoting a brief spoken passage verbatim and out of complete context) ... but I was incredibly meticulous about that, and I realize that this is actually the exception when it should be the rule. I also realize that entertainment writers are probably (as a whole) going to be less scrupulous than those covering politics, science, law, etc., if only because the backlash for misquoting in hard news will be greater. So in this case, I agree that cavalier "quotations" may indeed be the case.

But also, I'm a American who sometimes says "flat" instead of apartment, sometimes says "lift" instead of elevator, etc. And I don't even live in Britain... but a great many Greeks have been educated/lived in G.B., and probably the majority who study English here learn the British style. I taught English for a couple of years in a school that prepped students for Cambridge certificates (by far the most popular choice in ESL here), and the variations I wasn't already familiar with (been reading British literature since I was a wee girl), I learned and used - but I had already been shifting a lot of my language for the people I knew here who used the British terms. If I were a person spending a lot of time in Britain, and was interviewed by a British journalist, I would use mostly Brit terms.

Didn't want to come off as a journalist-hater there, the few times I was in the paper was always for something fluffy so it's not like they were hard hitting news reporters (some were interns) or journalists with many years of experience under their belt. Fun trivia, my inlaw family are all journalists, so dinner at their place makes me feel quite grilled - they can't seem to speak without doing lots of probing questions. ARGH!