Poor casting decisions

I thought Bill Paxton was the wrong guy for the HBO version of A Bright Shining Lie.

Just too damn big physically for the person he portrayed.

What are some of the Lounge's votes for bad casting calls?

Imagine my surprise when I saw the movie and Morgan Freeman was cast in that role.

as Alex Cross in
Kiss the girls....
not what I thought while reading the books

I do like him as an actor though


lost

Way too old to be Alex Cross. Should have been Denzel. Speaking of Denzel...he shouldn't have been Lincoln Rhyme in "The Bone Collector".

A very good actor and a good screen presence... but, he's not Alex Cross. Maybe Denzel Washington would have been good.

Tom Hanks - totally wrong for the part.

Melanie Griffith - REALLY totally wrong for the part.

Bruce Willis - are you fucking kidding me? That character was supposed to be a washed-up alcoholic Brit reporter (think Christopher Hitchens).

It was so WEIRD to see her in bed with a guy!

but I've never seen a movie w/ her in bed w/ a woman.

:shrug:

it was very weird.

:hi:

he won a Tony for the part!

Why, oh, God, why?

If you ever want to witness the worst, most stereotypical portrayal of a Japanese man ever put on celluloid (I mean, so over-the-top, it would embarrass Krusty the Clown), this film is for you.

mikey_the_rat

The whole audience stood up and applauded when she got killed at the end

and, George Hamilton is not exactly an acting heavyweight.

Hank Williams AND Evel Kneivel. That takes chops! Okay, maybe he wasn't very convincing as either...:)

She was the consummate "boss's daughter" in the film (and in real life)... everything handed to her on a platter, indulged, pursued by the handsome rogue who is just using her to get to her father. I think she was meant to be an irritant. If she'd been traditionally beautiful and charming and endearing (wasn't Winona Ryder up for the part?), it would have clouded Andy Garcia's covert motivations...who wouldn't fall in love with Winona Ryder?

I think Sophia's work since (Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation) show her to either be (a) smart enough to have played the role that was deliberately irritating and shallow, or (b) continues to genuinely be irritating and shallow, but with a wonderful support system in place because she's FFC's daughter.

thanks

Truth be told, I prefer her performance in Godfather III over ANY of her writing or directing.
I'm obviously down with (b)

Kate Kapshaw in Temple of Doom
Mimi Rogers in anything where she's not nekkid

It cost Spielberg $100 million to divorce Amy Irving for Kate.



ONE

HUNDRED

MILLION

DOLLARS.

for that money

At a dinner where the question "Why do you stay with your wife?" came up, after the expected round of "She's the light of my life", "She owns a piece of my heart", etc., Bruce came back with something akin to "Because no woman on the planet gives a better BJ than she does"

I love that movie but she makes me cringe in it.

She played a low-born simpleton very convincingly. Although the director's cut gives her too much screen time.

It was so hard to see her hack through that movie. "Please respect my wish and go." No emotion. I've never seen her in anything else, so i have the impression that she is a lousy actress. I could be wrong.

No need to mention a movie at all.

but only in "Never Say Never Again." Before that, wonderful. At 53, and looking 60, I couldn't buy it.

As Allan Quartermain in "League of Extraordinary Gentleman" he was a bit aged, too. I had trouble believing he could walk upright for extended distances, much less engage in fistfights.

And someone has to mention John Wayne as Ghengis Khan. I don't hate John Wayne--I think he was excellent in all those films where he played John Wayne. But don't expect him to play someone else, for chrissakes!

I think that Bob Fosse was a certfiable American Genius, but casting Hoffman as Lenny was just a terrible mistake. Hoffman is a wonderful actor, but his trademark diffidence and hesitancy were ALL WRONG for an aggressively verbal creature like Lenny.
Elliot Gould would have been so much better.

...which is evident in the film All That Jazz.

In both instances their performances were devoid of the nasty edge that the person they were playing had, which was Lester Bangs complaint about Dustin in Lenny

I also didn't care for Hoffman's portrayal of Bangs, but I don't like any Cameron Crowe projects except for "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" I was really hoping that book would be reissued during the Cameron Crowe hypefest of a few years ago.

And whoever cast George Lucas as the director of those films should be catapulted.

Gotta wonder if anyone ever thought about calling Haley Joel Osment's agent back in 1997...

She has the body to play a stripper, but the role required an actress with a light comedic touch as well, which Moore does not possess.

Except the bastard older brother Chet in "Weird Science"

hey, that rhymes


in Aliens

:rofl:
my favorite line in the movie.

He's only on screen for a few minutes, he has very few lines, and then he's out of the movie. Although he does manage to set the film's unbelievability factor on "High" immediately by being the lead badass of the group (especially when he makes Brian Thompson cower; Thompson could crush him with one hand).



mikey_the_rat

I agree with one notable exception: he played the prototypical freeper in the film, The Last Supper and pulled it off pretty well.

He really hit that one out of the park, especially how he played the razor's edge between "annoying blowhard" and "sociopathic brute."

but everybody hates those movies, so I guess it doesn't matter.

But he was freaking hilarious in Twister, one of my favorite bad movies.

...We're in some pretty serious shit now, man. Game over!

Okay, she's acceptable as a ditzy blonde valley girl (Never Been Kissed). But PLEASE keep her away from anything that requires an accent or any kind of substantive acting. She always plays the same character in every movie and has the emotional depth of a wading pool.

They should have reversed roles.

that they are playing against type.
If I recall correctly, there was a lot of pressure during production about their playing "ill suited" roles.

straight guy IMO.

...but then they recognized that it would have been terribly predictable and formula. "Bluto moves in next to Leonard Pinth Garnell" would have been as hokey as some Disney piece of crap. So they switched the roles and decided to make it dark and weird....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighbors_(film)

Didn't realize that was Belushi's last movie... casting him (or ANYONE) in "Continental Divide" was a mistake.

I can't imagine Andy Griffith and Don Knotts reversing roles, but it would probably come off just like 'Neighbors' did.

the always brilliant Colm Meaney, who was also in the film, would have done a much better job as Costello.

... but especially in Branagh's production of 'Much Ado About Nothing'

Kenneth's cast a very disparate group of actors in just about all his Shakesepare adaptations, and *all* did adequate to stellar. But for whatever reason (maybe because he's just a really bad actor :shrug: ), Keanu simply didn't pull it off. ("Dude, if thou pricks me, do I not bloweth gnarley chunks?").

"Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" and "River's Edge" he does pretty well, but basically because he's playing a couple of stoner idiots, albeit with a heart of gold.

:shrug:

Granted, I haven't seen it yet, but it's probably because he's in it that I haven't made any effort to. I'm sure one day this summer, one of my pals will come over with that DVD in tow and I'll give it a try (but I'm not promising anything.... lol)

No way...I'm not sure anyone could play Ali, "When We Were Kings" is the best film capturing Ali's personna.

He wasn't Willy Wonka! He was too young, cold, childish, and Michael Jacksonish. Plus, that crappy, unnecessary backstory with Wonka and his father. They should've cast Eric Idle instead, but I guess Burton MUST cast Depp.

Why did they put him in it, when Alec Baldwin was a dead-ringer for the real Ed Wood? He looks just like him. That would have been the role of Alec Baldwin's career! Johnny Depp pulled it off as far as the mannerisms and all that, but I kept thinking, "How great it would be to have had Alec Baldwin doing this." At least Martin Landau saved the movie with his brilliant portrayal of Bela Lugosi.

Since that character in the Marvel comics grew up in Africa, and the character had an African accent in the X-Men cartoons, I would have expected Storm to have an African accent in the movie series. Berry didn't bring that to the character, and I felt that was a betrayal of who the character was. Not to mention that Berry just did a lousy job of acting in those movies in general.

Someone else could have been more true to this character, and I think someone like Iman would have been a much better casting choice.

Would have been awesome. I'm an X-Men comic book geek, and was really pisswed when I heard Berry got the Storm role (wasn't Storm tall?).

While she's only 5'4", her performance as Mace in "Strange Days" convinced me that if they ever made an X-Men movie, she'd be perfect for it.
She had this great presence on screen, she seemed much taller than she was (I was surprise when I looked on IMDB and realized she was only 5'4") and she didn't shy away from action scenes in Strange Days.

It would also help if they gave Storm a better presence and better lines than they did in the X-Men movies. She was really a throwaway character in the movies.

Excellent movie, excellent director, excellent cast... except her. Average as usual.

Her role was supposed to be played by Cate Blanchett, but due to her pregnancy Cate had to drop out of the film.

She is completely overrated as an actress, IMO.

Although she did a good job in Sleeping with the Enemy. Maybe b/c the role required her to not speak much.

Overrated in Erin Brockovich, definitely. IMHO got the Oscar because of the subject, not because of her performance.

Dorothy is supposed to be in her early 20's. And what did they do....they cast a woman who was 50 years old.

Completely off the mark. In the comic, Rogue is a mouthy bad ass Southern chick with a truckload of attitude. Paquin is just too wishy-washy.

Honorable mention: David Thewliss as Remus Lupin in the "Harry Potter" series. Too prissy for a character whi is supposed to be physically scruffy as well as mentally and emotionally tortured.

Portraying Charles Bukowski calls for someone more grizzled, say Billy Bob Thornton.

Although they changed the character's age to 24, she still seemed too old for the role.

None of them fit IMHO. I know Anne Rice eventually came around (probably because she could make money off of it) but I never did. For chrissakes, Antonio's character was supposed to be a 15 y.o. redheaded boy!

I could sort of see him as Louis.

But Antonio Banderas WAS a bad choice. And we shant speak of Tom Cruise.

I'm not saying he's a bad actor or anything, just a poor choice. To me, Louis was tall, angular, willowy, very thin and dark-haired. Very Frenchy/European-looking. I can't think of an actor who would be perfect but he'd look more like Rupert Everett or Daniel Day Louis (not that either would be perfect, but closer). Brad is so all-American and robust looking. It didn't work at all for me.

And no, I try very hard not to speak of Tom Cruise.

Tom Cruise always plays arrogant cocky types, and I thought his "acting personality" was a good fit for Lestat because of that. However, I don't think he had the look physically.

:spray:

:spray:

Tom Cruise in anything but especially Interview with a Vampire and Kate Capshaw in Temple of Doom.

:P

:rofl:

:rofl:

:-)

Batman and LA Confidential come to mind. Totally did not deserve an Oscar for her lackluster performance.

Although she was excellent in My Stepmother is an Alien, since the role called for erect nipples in a nightie. :shrug:

that fucking poseur

She's supposed to be the woman Superman (SUPERMAN!) is goofy in love with, but she showed about as much personality as a potted plant, imo. The role needed someone sharper and sassier, neither of which she was in that movie.

I always thought if you took the cast of Kramer vs. Kramer and put it in the Shining it would have been the most terrifying movie ever made. Could you imagine Dustin Hoffman chasing Meryl Streep with an ax?

Kubrick reported had great difficulty with her, she couldn't act scared enough.

jeez, what a line reader.

Her cleavage had a supporting role.








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