Why did Kate Donadio play the docu-film-maker Erica with English accent?

Why did the actress Kate Donadio play the documentary film-maker 'Erica' with an English accent?!

The actress's page at IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1828829/
states nothing about her nationality, but I assume from her other film (& theatre) credits that I have found online, that she is American. And the film was American, as were most of the real-life characters in the story.

No biggies, but being English myself, I just wonder what inspired the production team (etc.) to make her character English?!

The only intriguing fact - that *might* have influenced the decision to make the 'Erica' character English - is stated at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Peterson_(author)#2007_film) - that the actual film-maker was a Frenchman:

"[...] televised documentary variously named Soupçons (Suspicions), Death on the Staircase and The Staircase, which detailed Peterson's legal and personal troubles. The six hour documentary was assembled from over 600 hours of footage and comprises eight segments. It was released by Maha Productions in October 2004 and was directed by French filmmaker Jean-Xavier de Lestrade."

Perhaps the film-makers of this film ("The Staircase Murders", 2007) were simply scared (of being sued?!) if they made the docu-film-maker too close to his own identity, so made the man into a female character, and a Frenchman into an Englishwoman?!?!

Any ideas?!

~ by SceneByScene ~