Why in the world did they cast this actor in the movie...

Maybe some of us polished a different kind of buffalo when we saw her... knowhattamean?

 

spot on. i've been trying to remember the movie and the actress that made me call people and ask if they saw that s***.

 

+1,000,000

The first time I saw The Dark Knight, I kept thinking to myself "Damn, Katie Holmes is looking rough!" I didn't know that they switched to Gyllenhall, so for the entire movie I was just insanely distracted by her presence.

 

This has long been a pet peeve of mine - how otherwise-good or even great movies have been utterly destroyed by astonishingly poor casting choices. Granted, some of the movies have been able to rise above their casting misfires to become hits, or classics, or maybe cult classics. But in all the cases I can think of, with the right casting, the films could have been SO much better.

Let's see, in no particular order...


Highlander: Roxanne Hart as Brenda. Ugh. Just awful. If ever a movie absolutely needed a strong, beautiful female character, this movie was it. And she was none of those. Purely atrocious. It's a tribute to how strong the concept was, and how much fun Connery and Brown were, and how intense Lambert was, that this movie was as successful as it was, and it ultimately spawned a whole industry. Despite the worst casting decision they could have made.

Spider Man (multiple): Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane. If ever there was an actress who was the very antithesis of the character she played, Kirsten is it. Yes, the Spider Man franchise has been enormously successful overall, but not because of her. She spends the entire series looking bored, stoned, miserable and just plain ugly. This was a terrible casting choice. There are probably 20 other actresses in her peer group who would have been better for the role.

Watchmen: Malin Akerman as Laurie. Oh my God. All I can say is, she must be better at fellatio than she is at acting. It's one thing to make a bad casting decision in a run-of-the-mill movie. But Watchmen had essentially been hovered over by rabid fans for over 20 years, it had an enormous budget and even bigger expectations. This was not the time to cast some chick with no talent in essentially the leading role of the movie. This choice may go down as one of the worst casting decisions in all of film history. *Postscript* Matthew Goode as Ozymandias . Actually Matthew is a fine actor, and brought everything he could to the role. He was simply not the right choice for the role. The graphic novel was very explicit and specific about Ozymandias' character, especially about how he looked. He was supposed to be a virile, golden Adonis. For whatever reason, they went with the opposite of that. It didn't work. There were a few scenes where he played it well, and overall I have no problem with his performance as such. He just wasn't the character who was in the novel, he was someone's 'bold, edgy decision' and it was wrong.

The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Ok this one holds a special place in my heart, as I have read all 5 books of the trilogy probably 20 times each. No source material could have been more precious to me, and nothing was more anticipated by me to see being made (finally. FINALLY!) into a movie. And nothing has ever really been as utterly disappointing as this movie was. Every single thing done, every single choice, every single line of the script, I mean, every bit of it - ruinously bad. And the cast. Oh holy hell. I can't even bring myself to think about it any more.

And on that note, two other 'franchises' completely damaged by horrible casting choices.

X-Men (multiple):Now understand - I am not implying that the actors and acrtesses are *bad* as such. But every single casting choice, with the possible exception of Patrick Stewart, was wrong. And even Stewart was a lazy choice (Hey, he's bald and he's the right age, let's use him!). Plain and simple, this was a case of a studio allowing a director to take an existing property and 'make it his own'. Terrible idea. Raimi already proved that he could take the actual story and characters in Spider Man and successfully translate that intact onto the screen. Singer, however, had some other story he wanted to tell other than anything to do with X-Men, and so it became his anthem on 'gay rights'. Ok, whatever, but then on top of it, the choices were among the worst I have ever seen (and for those of you saying Jackman was 'perfect' as Logan, well all I can say is, you must not have been much of an X-Men reader back in the day). Every choice was wrong, even McKellen (and I LOVE Ian McKellen), but I would have to say the worst was Anna Paquin as Rogue. What the heck were they thinking? Rogue is not some little depressed mousy helpless kid, for crying out loud. And Famke Jansen as Jean Grey? WTH? hugely disappointing. Now like I said, these actors are all talented, especially Jackman, Stewart and McKellen. But most of the movie was dreadfully miscast.

Fantastic Four: Gruffid, McMahon and Alba. Chiklis and Evans were fine choices as Thing and Human Torch. But Gruffid and Alba ruined it, and Julian McMahon as 'Dr. Doom' was among the worst casting decisions I have ever seen. These choices, among all the other badness, turned what could have been a terrific franchise into a bad joke. Yuk.

Special Mention: The Star Wars 'Prequels'. It's possibly dangerous to point at the casting decisions of these movies and place any real blame. This is because every choice in these movies, starting from the very top on down, I mean every thing to do with them, every choice was misguided and bad. The alleged writing, the story, the characters, the timeline, everything. Epic badness. I guess I should say though, since technically the same actor (Ian McDarmid) played Palpatine in every Star Wars movie, maybe he should be given a pass. And I guess Frank Oz did ok. And Mayhew, Daniels and Baker, of course. But the casting mistakes in these movies should serve as lessons to future generations. Ewan McGregor came through relatively unscathed, so good for him. And he clearly gave it his all. And maybe he would have been a good choice for a young Kenobi, if Lucas had bothered to actually care enough about the character to give him anything worthwhile to do. But he made the prequels all about young Darth vader, and the two actors he chose to play the roles, Jake Loyd and Hayden Christensen are also up for the all time hall of shame for casting no-talent actors in extremely important roles. Miserably bad, so much so that the movies are now essentially unwatchable except for people playing drinking games. And Natalie Portman is by all accounts a decent actress, but in these movies, with nothing given to her to work with in the script or by the director, she was totally lost, and utterly wrong for the part. And lastly, WTH is Sam Jackson doing in these movies? Seriously? Samuel L Jackson, playing a Jedi Master? Sigh.


And lastly, The Dark Knight: Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel. There is one movie I have seen her in where she was able to play 'sexy', and that was 'Secretary'. And even then, the character was more of the 'ugly duckling' who, at the end of the film, finally becomes something attractive and self-assured. But in The Dark Knight, she was just the ugly duckling, and then she went boom. Nothing about her radiated any kind of presence, nothing which would have driven these two powerful men to go to extremes to be her chosen mate. She was beautiful or strong or anything at all really. Just plain, whiny and then gone. Probably at least 20 different actresses would have been better for the role. Rachel McAdams, anyone?


Honorable mention: Enchanted: Susan Sarandon as the nasty old witch. Ok while it was definitely typecasting, whatever acting talent she may have possessed at one point in her life (debatable), it's gone now. She is nothing but a hag, and single-handedly cast an apalling gloom over an otherwise delightful movie. Amy Adams' coming-out party could have been so much better, except for Susan hanging around in the cast waiting to bring the whole movie down into a heap of burning miserable rubble. Susan Sarandon is now the official 'Kiss of Death' to any and all movies, so, casting directors: beware!

 

He was especially terrible in the "Jack Ryan" role. I hope he doesn't reprise it for a future movie. Harrison Ford basically gave him his support for taking over the role. Big mistake.

 

Also, Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone was the worst thing to be put on film

 

Why don't ya give me a siiiign!
Come on, OP, some kind a sign!

 

Woah. Mother of all well-thought out, non D&D rants. Repped.

 

Sofia Coppola in Godfather III.. why?!

Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader

Shia LaBeouf in Indiana Jones 4

 

I think what he's trying to say is that he wants to know what you're doing after the show.

 

All you guys and your comic book movies, THIS is the real deal here...

 

how about old man river for robin hood?

 

Right?

Come on, poster -- do you do. more. than. post?

 

Tobey Maguire as Venom.

Seriously?

 

Sounds like you're having trouble separating the source material from the adapted. The only casting choice I thought horrible before and after XMen was James Marsden. He has that good 'ole boy look, sure, but he doesn't have the chops to play an important role like Cyclops...I guess good thing for him his character was relegated to supporting status.

Patrick Stewart was a no-brainer for Xavier...yes the bald head helped...but he comes from a theater background and has a refined, sophisticated presence that fit perfectly for the role. Ana Paquin is a good actress and fit into the film version's take on the Rogue role quite well. McKellan was an excellent choice as Magneto and one of the reasons I enjoyed the first two so much (well at least the second one). I ask though, if you hated every casting decision, who would have fit the role better?

I know Hayden Christenson gets a lot of flack for his performance, but the casting choice was a good one. If you saw Life as a House, you'd know why I feel that way. It's not his fault though that he got some bad lines at times and bad directing at others. But his performance in ROTS, again, makes up for any miscues in AOTC.

I definitely agree with Gyllenhaal though...Holmes was perfectly fine as Rachel...Gyllenhaal just never fit.


--

How bout Thomas Jane as The Punisher...he did well in the end, but I know there was quite a few people that questioned the choice.

 

i thought he could have done better with a better script. That movie blew chunks.

 

Actually, you're right on all of this.

I mean to stress, I enjoy watching McKellen, I enjoy Stewart, I enjoy Jackman.. all of them in the X-Men movies, I thought they did their jobs as actors playing the roles given them as well as or better than anyone else who could have played *those roles as given*. So you are probably right that I am too close to the source material to separate casting from everything else.

However, being as close to the material as I was, I just have to say that Hugh Jackman as Wolverine just bears no resemblance to the Wolverine in the comics. I wanted to see a screen version of the character I had read for so many years. I wanted to see the amazingly beautiful flame-red-haired Jean Grey, I wanted to see over-the-top Phoenix, I wanted to see Cyclops be a badass, I wanted Magneto to be younger and more dynamic, and more wickedly evil than he was written in the movies. And the movies gave us none of that, opting instead for Singer's 'vision'.

So yes, it's part source material, but I still stand by the notion that, especially with Paquin and Jansen, the X-Men movies were awfully miscast.


And yes you are also right about the Star Wars movies, in that it is entirely possible that Hayden is a much better actor than he showed in those movies. I am not too proud to say that I have been in more than a few shows over the years with incompetent or disinterested directors who couldn't be bothered to try to get anything out of the actors, and it showed in the final product.

So maybe he can stand up and say 'Look, I did what George wanted me to do. Don't blame me.' And that's probably a valid argument, as George has proven himself to be an infantile megalomaniac time and time again, who has experienced the life-blessings and good fortune that would have made Forrest Gump blush, riding an entire career and life on the backs of actual talented people.

But the only other thing I have seen Hayden in was Jumpers, and while he certainly did a better job in that than he did in the Star Wars movies, I can't say that it absolved him of all culpability either.

Ah well, it's always fun stuff to talk about..

 

Don Cheadle as Rhodes...

WTF??!

 

Props to anyone who said Hayden Christensen in Star Wars.

He is a no talent ass-clown. It's like George Lucas said "he's tall and athletic, who cares if he can act"... I actually liked Lloyd in Phantom Menace (by far the best of the new Star Wars films). Christensen almost single handedly ruined 2 of 6 of the greatest films ever. I have to fast forward through all the Portman/Hayden scenes in AOTC because they are so unbelievable, poorly acted (and written for that matter), and there is no chemistry between the two AT ALL.

Also, whenever he tries to act angry (especially in AOTC) it is completely unconvincing. I have always thought this guy would have been a much better choice for older Anakin: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004936/ he is about the same age as Hayden and he really gives off that evil vibe that is so necessary for Darth Vader.

O well George Lucas, can't win em all.

Also just based on the trailers, Jake Gylenhall as Prince of Persia seems ridiculous. He is not an action hero, period. To be honest, I don't really like Jake Gylenhall at all. Born and bred Hollywood style. He pulled off a decent nerd in "October Sky" and "Donnie Darko" but then he goes and tries to pull off every role under the sun. A comedic "Bubble Boy," a Gay cowboy in "Brokeback Mountain," a Marine in "Jarheads"... Now an action hero? Come on Jake, draw a line.