The best casting I've seen that's visible on screen right now is Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln. The worst casting choice right now, IMHO, is Sally Field playing his wife, Mary Todd. He makes the movie, but I think she is terribly miscast or at least misdirected. JMO. Good casting in the past: Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl in "Popeye." Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in "Breakfast at Tiffany's." Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara and Olivia de Havilland as Melanie in "Gone with the Wind." Charlize Theron as Ailene Wournos in "Monster." Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton in "Monster's Ball." Siguorney Weaver as Ripley in "Alien." Rita Moreno as Anita in "West Side Story." Marlon Brando as "The Godfather." Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird." Charlton Heston as "Ben-Hur." Gary Cooper as "Sergeant York." Henry Fonda as Tom Joad in "The Grapes of Wrath." Paul Newman and Patricia Neal in "Hud." Nick Nolte as Doc in "Cannery Row." James Dean in "East of Eden." Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. Daniel Craig as James Bond, as good in his 007 interpretation as Sean Connery was in his, maybe better. Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Predator." Mickey Rooney as Andy Hardy. Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Cliff and Shelley Winters in "A Place in the Sun." John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," "Hairspray" and "Pulp Fiction." Christopher Walken in "Hairspray." Kevin Costner in "Dances with Wolves." Dustin Hoffman in "Little Big Man." Jamie Foxx from Terrrell, TX as "Ray." Rudy Youngblood from Belton, TX as Jaguar Paw in Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto." Pierce Gagnon as Cid in "Looper." Matthew McConaughey in "Magic Mike." Bad casting in the past: Marlon Brando as a Japanese houseboy in "The Teahouse of the August Moon." Mickey Rooney as a Japanese landlord/neighbor in "Breakfast at Tiffany's." John Wayne as the Mongolian conqueror "Genghis Kahn." Charlton Heston as a Mexican police investigator in Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil." See a pattern? Imagine if an American actor had tried to play Mr. Miyagi in "The Karate Kid" or a Japanese character in "Tora! Tora! Tora!" Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates in the remake of "Psycho." Vince played psychotic killer Lester Long memorably enough in "Clay Pigeons," but he couldn't begin to touch the iconic psycho that Anthony Perkins portrayed in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller and Vaughn or someone in charge should have known better. Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze in some Batman movie. Hayden Christensen in "Star Wars." Kevin Costner in "Robin Hood." There are some of my casting cogitations, some pretty old, some more recent and several examples of what I'd consider good vs. bad casting choices involving the same actor. Your thoughts?
When I first heard Michael Keaton was cast as Batman, I thought it was an all-time terrible casting decision. Then I saw he made a terrific Batman. As far as great casting decisions, I'd say Hailee Steinfeld, Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon in the latest rending of True Grit were terrific and while John Wayne was good as Rooster Cogburn, Kim Darby and Glenn Campbell were spectacularly bad in roles where they had a great opportunity to shine in the 1969 True Grit.
I didn't watch it, so really can't say, but I thought Will Smith as Ali was goofy. Did he pull it off?
Here' the review I posted: Saw "Ali" with Will Smith in the title role. Smith was very good. The Link From director Michael Mann and also featuring Jamie Foxx as Bundini Brown, Jon Voight as Howard Cosell, Mario Van Peebles as Malcolm X and Ron Silver as Angelo Dundee. I vividly remember paying five bucks in 1966 to watch Muhammad Ali training to fight Cleveland "Big Cat" Williams at a gym in Houston just before they met in the Astrodome. That was a well spent five dollars, paid to watch "The Greatest" work out: skipping rope, punching on the speed bag and heavy bag and sparring. Even though at that time it could have bought me ten delicious .50 cent Whoppers from Burger King which would have fed me for almost a week. Ali was very impressive in person and, IMO, so was this movie. Highly recommended for those who lived through those years and followed his boxing career and the travails of his personal life. This was akin to my watching and enjoying "Apollo 13" or "Frost/Nixon" on the screen after living through those events in my salad days. The relevance to you and your interest in any of these flicks might depend somewhat on your age and/or personal investure in those particular moments of history. For me, I thought "Ali" was a worthwhile rental.
really bad: Paul Newman as the rapist Mexican bandit in The Outrage, a wretched American remake of Rashomon. the worst: Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's. What were they thinking? He played Holly Golightly's Japanese American neighbor. So bad it is worth watching just to see how bad a decent actor can get. shockingly good, unexpectedly: Mel Gibson as Hamlet. He's no Gielgud or Burton or Jonathon Pryce, but he is plenty good.
Awesome thread. The other day I saw some 50's B western and the Indians were all Caucasians with greasy faces and 5 o'clock shadows. I really hate to see Americans cast in English roles such as Robert Redford in Out of Africa. How about the overall casting in The Shining? Shelly Duval as the mousy wife, Scatman Crothers, Danny Lloyd, and the quintessential Jack Nicholson. Do they have an oscar for casting? They should because like the screenplay, it can make or break a movie.
Semi-Tough. There is no way that Burt Reynolds is Billy Clyde Puckett, no freaking way that Kris Kristofferson is Marvin "Shake" Tiller, and no freaking way in ******* hell that Jill Clayburgh is Barbara Jane Bookman. The worst casting I ever saw. And the script just butchered a great book. It was an awful, awful experience.
Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher. I'm not saying Cruise can't play a bad-***, but Jack Reacher is supposed to be a 6'5" x-MP that wanders from town to town. That sound like Tom Cruise to you? My choice would have been this guy (and yes, I do realize Tom Cruise has more name recognition than Ray Stevenson) . . .
I just finished watching the original Star Wars trilogy again. Harrison Ford was great as Han Solo but I always thought Mark Hamill was not well cast as Luke Skywalker. Luke needed more charisma.
Tom Hanks in the "DaVinci Code" waaaaaay too old Shelly Duvall in "The Shining" in the book she was a young very pretty blonde...ugh Shelly, not so much.
Sean Penn as Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High was genius. Kudos also the casting experts who cast Ray Walston as the teacher in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Ben Stein as the incredibly boring economics teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
Mel Brooks seems to always find a good cast for his movies. Many are dead now, but if he does any more i'm sure he will find a good cast again.
I thought the casting in Saving Private Ryan was remarkably good. With a cast that large and including that many recognizable actors, you'd think they might have missed on one, but they didn't. Tom Hanks and Tom Sizemore were fantastic in the lead roles. And the secondary characters were spot-on, too, e.g., Barry Pepper as the sniper; Ed Burns as the wisecracker from Brooklyn; Jeremy Davies as the despicable coward Corporal Upham; and other small, but solid turns by Adam Goldberg, Vin Diesel, Ted Danson, Paul Giammati, etc. Also, I thought Billy Crystal's casting of Thomas Jane as Mantle and Barry Pepper as Maris in 61* was perfect. The resemblances were uncanny.
I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that casting Russell Crowe as Javert in Les Mis is going to be an awful decision. The clip of him trying to sing while acting really didn't sound good.
Will Smith in anything. Wild, Wild, West? Really? I like Viggo Mortensen but thought he was way too much of a pretty boy for the father role of The Road. Robert Duvall on the other hand was outstanding (as usual) as the old man.
Morgan Freeman as Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption was a genious casting decision. In Stephen King's novella, the character Red is a white Irishman.
Loved Young Frankenstein. Gene Wilder was GREAT as the Doctor Loved Blazing Saddles. Thought Gene Wilder was terribly miscast as the Waco Kid.
Tom Cruise as von Stauffenberg in Valkyrie Could they not find a European, and I mean any European to play this part?
Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash was excellent. Had the right sound, stage presence, mannerisms, everything.
Valkyrie was not an otherwise good movie. They took a very interesting true story and somehow managed to make it boring. You might think I just hate Tom Cruise and I do; but I thought he did a great job in Collateral.
The Good: All Tarentino movies – he seems to see something that nobody would. John Travolta’s career was on its deathbed and Samuel Jackson hadn’t really done anything before Pulp Fiction. DiCaprio as the bad guy slave owner in Django looks awesome. Vin Diesel in Pitch Black. Jake Gyllenhaal as Donnie Darko (I wonder if he would have made a good Aniken Skywalker). All the Iron Man movies and spin-offs Johnny Depp in Pirates movies - although that did get annoying when they focused too much on that character. Tom Cruise as Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder. The Bad: It may just have been horribly directed/written, but Hayden Christensen. I’m a huge fan of Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, and Liam Neeson and they all were somewhat of a letdown. Hayden was a sniveling punk – not a badass. The Tourist – (Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie) Two a listers that just couldn’t pull it off on the screen Jake Gyllenhaal - Prince of Persia All the casting of Daredevil and Elektra - Jennifer and Ben just aren't superheroes.
Dicaprio in Basketball Diaries was just hard to watch. some of the Hoosiers guys weren't basketball players and at least they tried to find athletic looking / basketball skill having actors. It was so bad it was funny. For that matter, Dicaprio was a bad choice for Gangs of New York as well. Funny, I think he's a pretty talented actor - just some bad casting, imo.
