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Miscast? Or Not?
A thread from earlier today by member @simontemplar got me thinking about movies and television, and why and how casting decisions are made. Often for money, I suppose. And vanity. And to score political points.
Although ST’s thread about the latest Jack Reacher movie was about its deficiencies of plot, my comment on it was more about its deficiencies in casting, and how inapt I thought it was that Tom Cruise (5’7″) should play Jack Reacher (6’5″). This put me in mind of other spectacularly bad casting decisions, and which one might just be the worst ever? Cruise as Reacher is certainly in the top three, IMHO. But I’d also nominate Kevin Costner’s turn as Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (or as pretty much anything else, really). Bad as he is in POT, that movie does have some redeeming qualities (a lovely one at the very end, anyway) and Alan Rickman’s performance as the Sheriff of Nottingham is wondrous.
Then there are those casting decisions which cause consternation to begin with, but which end up being so sublimely “right” that we cannot imagine any other actor in the role. I remember an interview with Bernard Cornwell, author of the “Sharpe” series, in which he expressed his initial unhappiness with Sean Bean’s being cast in the role for the ITV serializations of his novels. Sharpe, you see, was clearly described in Cornwell’s first few books (which I do love) as having very dark, even black, hair; Sean Bean’s hair is of a decidedly blonder shade.
Then, Cornwell watched the first Sharpe episode on television.
“After that,” he said, “I never mentioned the color of Richard Sharpe’s hair again.”
What casting decisions resonate with you, for good, or for ill?
PS: I’ve always had mixed feelings about Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn. Is it just me?
Published in Entertainment
Geek.
guffaw and ouch!
Alan Rickman as Snape
Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Alan Rickman as the Colonel in Sense and Sensibility. (Unexpectedly)
Alan Rickman as the bad guy in Die Hard.
All perfect. I’d watch him in anything. So sad he’s gone.
Kevin Costner only got away with Dances with Wolves because he didn’t say much. “Shh, shh. Don’t speak, Kevin.”
I’m say that I’m a fan of Mortensen’s performance. Also, when you consider who was originally cast, we should be extraordinarily grateful.
Wenhem was … fine. The part was a disaster as written for the film. In general, the Gondorians/Numenorians were mishandled in the movies.
I imagined Robert as a handsomer and younger Bryan Blessed. Apparently, so have many fan artists.
Agreed. Generally, GoT casting has been very good, but Renly was a particularly bad exception.
^This.
The kid who played Joey in Shane was so cloying it almost ruined the movie for me. Almost.
Colin Farrell can be very good in the right role — In Bruges being the best example, though he was also quite good in the otherwise-forgettable Fantastic Beasts — but he just didn’t work as Alexander. The fact that the rest of the Macedonian cast adopted Irish accents to cover for him was clever (while the Greeks were English) was clever, but just very odd. He wasn’t the worst problem in that movie, but he was one of them.
Speaking of which, I want to put in a vote for Rory McCann being under-underappreciated for his performance as Sandor Clegane in Game of Thrones, especially in the first few seasons. A marvelous performance, even if the plot’s gone completely off the rails.
Also, his speech at the Hyapasis in Alexander is one of the best moments in that movie. The heartbreak he conveys for disappointing his king and friend just gives me all the feels.
I recall that when Interview with the Vampire came out, there was a lot of hissing at the idea of Cruise being Lestadt. Say what you will about Cruise, he acted the hell out of that.
lol.
Agree, pretty much all round. Sense and Sensibility was a charming movie. Screenplay by Emma Thompson. Always enjoy watching her. We sometimes use the locution, “I’m having an Emma Thompson moment” to describe a sudden collapse into tears and flapdoodle, reminiscent of those at the end of S&S, or in Love Actually when she turns on–of all people–Alan Rickman, and in a few others as well.
Speaking of Hugh Grant, which I was not, but he’s also in S&S, I very much enjoy Four Weddings and a Funeral, although I think Andie McDowell was pretty weak, and I’d nominate Rowan Atkinson in an almost cameo role, as a perfectly cast tongue-tied and loony vicar. (He’s pretty funny in Love, Actually, too, which is probably why I’m thinking of it):
OK. Now I am really going to show my age.
I remember a handsomer and younger Brian Blessed. He made his name in the UK as Police Constable Fancy Smith, in the BBC series Z-Cars, which debuted in 1962. (The name is based on the police radio call signs for that district (around Liverpool). Remember, it’s “Zed,” not “Zee.”
Those who are Everton football fans will know the theme music from the show, which is unmistakable, and annoying.
Anyhoo, back to Brian Blessed. He was quite the hearthrob in his younger days.
Z-Cars was the first somewhat gritty, “ripped from the headlines” sort of police show. We loved it. Many of its early episodes were directed by an up-and-comer who later made a name for himself in Hollywood, Ridley Scott.
I never read a Nero Wolfe mystery before I listened to Michael Prichard’s performances on Audible. Since these are first person tales told by Archie Goodwin, the narrator is one of the main characters. For me, Prichard is Archie just as Sean Bean is Sharpe.
BTW, if you read these books by a man deeply of the left in his time, you will weep for what we have lost in the way of social freedom and common sense. Archie would be every “-ist” there is today. But Mark Van Doren nailed it: he is Huck Finn (another great character today called “problematic”). Stout was on the left and a patriot. His radio broadcasts during the war, “Speaking of Liberty,” began with the image of the American Cracker barrel: everyone sitting around and everyone having a say. No “shut up” leftist totalitarianism for him.
An interesting one: Patrick Stewart was terrible as Gurney Halleck in Lynch’s Dune.
Most of the other bad performances in that film could be chalked up to it’s general weirdness, but Stewart was just off in that one.
You are right and I stand corrected. The earliest I know Blessed from is I Claudius, in which — now that I think of it — he was under pretty heavy make-up. This is from a few years later and… well, slap a full beard on him and you’d have a damn good Robert.
Brian Blessed, 1980
Also… how did we never get Blessed as Teddy Roosevelt?
You’ve disappointed me again, universe!
I like both Connery and Brosnan as Bond because the films had a different tone by the time Brosnan got to the role. Even Connery couldn’t make his later Bond films less silly. Brosnan acted with a light touch in films that were more about fun than gritty intrigue.
Going from a 6’5″ Marine to Tom Cruise in the Reacher series is a hard break. But Cruise performed well as a business-like soldier just doing what needs doing.
How about Samuel L Jackson as Master Windu in Star Wars? It doesn’t seem right whenever Jackson isn’t shouting. Nobody believes he could meditate quietly next to Yoda.
I found Yoda unconvincing as Shrek.
Everyone in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Everyone.
(Oldman is good, but he’s not playing Dracula).
Sean Connery will forever be Bond to me. They were also always released between Thanksgiving and Christmas and was a family tradition. (Never have read any of the novels.) Only Daniel Craig has come anywhere close.
I’ve never seen a Russell Crowe movie that he didn’t own. As Jack Aubrey he is perfect. (LA Confidential was brilliant despite Spacey.) Cillian Murphy would have been perfect, I think, as Doctor Maturin. Murphy can certainly play the brainy, dark character. To me, neither one can put a foot wrong and would enjoy seeing how they worked together.
David Suchet as Poirot.
Jeremy Brett as Holmes.
Sean Beane as Richard Sharpe.
Roy Marsden as Neil Burnside.
True, but we did get Robin Williams as Teddy. I don’t know if Williams caught the essence of the man, but he certainly had the face.
This is where I also give my lament that Eastwood never played Andrew Jackson.
That is my go to example when people complain about the prequel acting. When Samuel L “I’m tired of these [Oedipusing] snakes on this [Oedipusing] plane!” Jackson sounds like a cardboard cutout, it’s obvious that the problem is with the direction, not the talents or lack thereof of the actors.
Interestingly, Fleming didn’t like the initial casting of Connery, but after a couple movies he changed Bond to a Scotsman, he liked Connery’s portrayal so much.
Do yourself a favor then and don’t watch Les Miserables. O, it hurts to see him butcher one of my favorite characters.
The Bombadil episode in the books seems like Tolkien’s throwback to the child’s-tale feel of The Hobbit before plunging headlong into Deeper Matters. I don’t regret its loss in the movies, and doing the full setup on the Witchking / Nazgul Lord, let alone the ensorcelled pig sticker, would have burned a lot of screen time.
OTOH, I really regret that Jackson dropped the Scouring of the Shire. It reduced the impact of the War on the hobbits to a might-have-been vision at Galadriel’s pool, and removed a more decayed and appropriate end for Saruman.
/nerd
Have never seen it. And have no intention. Thanks for the tip though.
Child actors are always a crap shoot. Billy Chapin, who played John Harper in The Night of the Hunter, was phenomenal.
If you have ever read the book where Nero informs a prospective client waving a $100K check that due to Nero’s tax position, he’ll realize at most $9000 of it, you’ll see that the proposition that “at some point, you’ve made enough money” held little charm for Rex.
I agree that the elimination of the Scouring was a bigger deal. It didn’t show, as Tolkien did, that Merry and Pippin may have left the Shire as timid little hobbits, but they returned as battle-hardened veterans.
Everything about The Night of the Hunter was phenomenal.
One film I felt could have come close to greatness but was sabotaged was Glory. It introduced and made stars of Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes was strong and very believable as Robert Gould Shaw’s sidekick, but the film was taken down by Matthew Broderick in the starring role. If Broderick and Elwes had switched roles it could have been like Newman and Redford switching roles at the last minute in Butch Cassidy.
Benedict Cumberbatch as KNS in Star Trek into darkness is the most appallingly bad casting choice that I can think of in recent years, or ever. Asking anyone to try filling Montalban’s shoes in that role was going to be bordering on hubris but J.J. Abram’s treatment was very much a symbol of the contempt for the source material that has characterized his destructive forays into both of the major mainstream science fiction franchises. I could go on.
Here’s my personal head canon: in Augment Society, just like in Mongolian, “Khan” just means leader. Montalkhan Noonien Singh was one of those who didn’t survive the thawing process (Admiral Marcus mentions that they had a few failures in that regard.) Khanberbatch was a lieutenant who found himself the highest ranking surviving Augment and assumed the title of Khan. Note that Spock Prime is the only one who mentions Noonien Singh — neither Marcus nor Khanberbatch himself use that name.
They could have made a great movie with this, playing off the similarity of both Kirk and Khan being thrust into leadership positions they weren’t ready for, which would explain why both keep making rookie mistakes. They’re both motivated by a loyalty to their comrades, but they don’t have the experience they need to protect them.
As you can tell from many comments on this thread, I’m willing to accept seemingly odd choices, if they work for the story. And if I can figure out ways to make things work, why can’t the filmmakers?