# Actors who were totally miscast, all wrong for the role, and yet did a wonderful job with it.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-were-totally-miscast-all-wrong-for-the-role-and-yet-did-a-wonderful-job-with-it/553600
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [September 13, 2010, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-were-totally-miscast-all-wrong-for-the-role-and-yet-did-a-wonderful-job-with-it/553600 "2010-09-13T13:37:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)
#### Post date: [September 15, 2010, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-were-totally-miscast-all-wrong-for-the-role-and-yet-did-a-wonderful-job-with-it/553600/61 "2010-09-15T13:57:59Z")
Nicholas Cage as Big Daddy in **Kick-Ass**. The comic had some pretty specific physical characterization, and Big Daddy seemed more like a Kevin Smith role, plus Nic has been hitting the action blockbusters a bit too much lately. But he nailed this.
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### Author:  [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)
#### Post date: [September 15, 2010, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-were-totally-miscast-all-wrong-for-the-role-and-yet-did-a-wonderful-job-with-it/553600/62 "2010-09-15T14:05:19Z")
> [@Krokodil](#):
>
> Nicholas Cage as Big Daddy in **Kick-Ass**. The comic had some pretty specific physical characterization, and Big Daddy seemed more like a Kevin Smith role, plus Nic has been hitting the action blockbusters a bit too much lately. But he nailed this.
Well, a Kevin Smith role if he lost 150 ounds maybe,
---
### Author:  [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2010, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-were-totally-miscast-all-wrong-for-the-role-and-yet-did-a-wonderful-job-with-it/553600/63 "2010-09-16T06:50:40Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#):
>
> Pretty Boy Leonardo DiCaprio as Arnie Grape? The kid is supposed to be an ugly total retard. He got raves and the first realizations of his amazing acting ability.
Is this a retroactive assessment? Other than a small stint on Growing Pains, this was pretty much his premiere performance, wasn’t it? Not ties to any kind of baggage or expectation…
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### Author:  [@multimediac17](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/multimediac17)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2010, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-were-totally-miscast-all-wrong-for-the-role-and-yet-did-a-wonderful-job-with-it/553600/64 "2010-09-16T08:01:12Z")
In the mid-nineties, Madonna’s acting career was a joke (and would be again in the future), despite some performances that got good reviews, like Desperately Seeking Susan, Dick Tracy and A League Of Their Own. She was considered pretty poisonous to a movie, apart from those three (and her documentary Truth Or Dare) none of her films had done well.
Who would have thought she could be so amazing as Evita? A pop singer who couldn’t act with a voice many thought was weak, or at least nothing special, playing a classic Broadway character? She owned the performance, made what could have been (and sort of still was) a very boring movie watchable, and sang with a voice nobody knew she had. She even won a Golden Globe! Bet nobody saw that coming after Body Of Evidence or Shanghai Surprise.
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### Author:  [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2010, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-were-totally-miscast-all-wrong-for-the-role-and-yet-did-a-wonderful-job-with-it/553600/65 "2010-09-16T12:16:09Z")
> [@FlyingDragonFan](#):
>
> I know someone who was around Glau for a short spell, and to hear him tell it, human-normal might be a miscasting for her. \ He said she was every bit as spacey as River Tam. \
Are you sure you aren’t just remembering [XKCD](http://www.xkcd.com/579/)?
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### Author:  [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2010, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-were-totally-miscast-all-wrong-for-the-role-and-yet-did-a-wonderful-job-with-it/553600/66 "2010-09-16T14:07:39Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#):
>
> > [@Annie-Xmas](#):
> >
> > Pretty Boy Leonardo DiCaprio as Arnie Grape? The kid is supposed to be an ugly total retard. He got raves and the first realizations of his amazing acting ability.
>
> Is this a retroactive assessment? Other than a small stint on Growing Pains, this was pretty much his premiere performance, wasn’t it? Not ties to any kind of baggage or expectation…
Leonardo was seen as a lightweight pretty-boy, and Arnie was a very serious role.
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### Author:  [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2010, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-were-totally-miscast-all-wrong-for-the-role-and-yet-did-a-wonderful-job-with-it/553600/67 "2010-09-19T01:33:06Z")
> [@Bob Ducca](#):
>
> “Pull off” is understating things a bit. Ledger took an iconic role and absolutely owned it to such a degree that his portrayal is now the icon.
The only people Heath Ledger’s the iconic Joker for are the ones who are too young to have seen another version.\* In fact I can’t think of an actor who played the Joker and was less iconic than Ledger.
\*Well, and the ones who felt bad about him dying so much that they let it affect their judgment.
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### Author:  [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2010, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-were-totally-miscast-all-wrong-for-the-role-and-yet-did-a-wonderful-job-with-it/553600/68 "2010-09-19T01:56:15Z")
> [@Dan\_Norder](#):
>
> > [@Bob Ducca](#):
> >
> > “Pull off” is understating things a bit. Ledger took an iconic role and absolutely owned it to such a degree that his portrayal is now the icon.
>
> The only people Heath Ledger’s the iconic Joker for are the ones who are too young to have seen another version.\* In fact I can’t think of an actor who played the Joker and was less iconic than Ledger.
>
> \*Well, and the ones who felt bad about him dying so much that they let it affect their judgment.
I was a kid for Cesar Romero, a mature adult for Jack Nicholson, and a disinterested occasional viewer for Mark Hamill’s voice acting. There are high points to each portrayal, and the actors’ respective interpretations are well drawn and well executed. Heath Ledger elevated the character in a way that even Jack couldn’t have accomplished (had he gone that direction), and it’s not in the least misplaced posthumous adulation to admire Ledger’s intellectualized distillation. It was a _tour de force_ portrayal rooted in a thorough understanding of the character’s philosophical basis that will continue to stand out from all previous and probably most subsequent interpretations for its quality and depth.
All IMHO as someone old enough to have seen other versions.
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### Author:  [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2010, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-were-totally-miscast-all-wrong-for-the-role-and-yet-did-a-wonderful-job-with-it/553600/69 "2010-09-19T02:49:34Z")
> [@xenophon41](#):
>
> > [@Dan\_Norder](#):
> >
> > The only people Heath Ledger’s the iconic Joker for are the ones who are too young to have seen another version.\* In fact I can’t think of an actor who played the Joker and was less iconic than Ledger.
> >
> > \*Well, and the ones who felt bad about him dying so much that they let it affect their judgment.
>
> I was a kid for Cesar Romero, a mature adult for Jack Nicholson, and a disinterested occasional viewer for Mark Hamill’s voice acting. There are high points to each portrayal, and the actors’ respective interpretations are well drawn and well executed. Heath Ledger elevated the character in a way that even Jack couldn’t have accomplished (had he gone that direction), and it’s not in the least misplaced posthumous adulation to admire Ledger’s intellectualized distillation. It was a _tour de force_ portrayal rooted in a thorough understanding of the character’s philosophical basis that will continue to stand out from all previous and probably most subsequent interpretations for its quality and depth.
>
> All IMHO as someone old enough to have seen other versions.
I started watching the movie interested to see what all the fuss was about, and by the end of the movie, I knew. I agree entirely with your assessment, to the point where I wonder if dissenters had seen the same movie I had. I think we need to give some credit to the writing as well, but clearly there were different directions an actor could’ve taken the role as written. Ledger took one I’d never seen - really the first characterization I thought of as real, as opposed to a best-estimate of a cartoon character. Jack Nicholson’s Joker was Jack Nicholson in whiteface, and Jack himself hardly seems real anymore. Ledger’s Joker will influence the Joker character in multiple mediums for years to come.
/I saw the 60’s camp series in reruns as a child, was a DC comic-book geek in the 80’s, and saw all the movies from Adam West on.
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### Author:  [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2010, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-were-totally-miscast-all-wrong-for-the-role-and-yet-did-a-wonderful-job-with-it/553600/70 "2010-09-19T03:30:44Z")
> [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](#):
>
> I started watching the movie interested to see what all the fuss was about, and by the end of the movie, I knew.
Same. It was an astounding thing; I was essentially skeptical of the whole enterprise, having seen _Batman Begins_ and having formed the opinion that the film makers had no real sense of the potentials of the story. (Not that previous film makers had realized those potentials, but my expectations were not raised by the current franchise.)
Ledger treated the Joker as if he were portraying an historical character, with documented motivations and a recorded viewpoint. This may be Acting 101 as far as I know, but it goes way beyond the comic book villain I expected to see.
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### Author:  [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2010, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-were-totally-miscast-all-wrong-for-the-role-and-yet-did-a-wonderful-job-with-it/553600/71 "2010-09-19T17:15:27Z")
> [@PunditLisa](#):
>
> **Olivia Newton-John** was way too old to play a high school senior, yet I can’t imagine anyone else in the role of Sandy in “Grease”
EVERYONE in that movie was waay too old to play high schoolers (except possibly Eve Arden). “Grease” is the poster child for Dawson Casting. ONJ did well in the part, though
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#):
>
> Anne Hathaway did a topless scene a the movie Havoc before she did Rachel Getting married. Havoc was really bad but it was nice to see her hooters.
Is this post misplaced from the “Actors known only for two things” thread?
> [@Minnie\_Luna](#):
>
> I swear on all that is holy, Sheen stopped “acting” around 1990. Ever since then, he has done nothing but play a bad caricature of himself.
Nicholson, too.
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2010, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-were-totally-miscast-all-wrong-for-the-role-and-yet-did-a-wonderful-job-with-it/553600/72 "2010-09-19T17:43:25Z")
> [@Dan\_Norder](#):
>
> The only people Heath Ledger’s the iconic Joker for are the ones who are too young to have seen another version.\* In fact I can’t think of an actor who played the Joker and was less iconic than Ledger.
I’m quite old enough to remember the Romero (in reruns, granted) and Nicholson versions, and I just could not disagree more.
What’s more, I’ll bet very good money that time will prove you completely wrong.
Ten, twenty, and thirty years from now, Ledger’s interpretation will still be the gold standard not only of The Joker, but of comic book movie villains in general.
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### Author:  [@A\_Dodgy\_Dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_Dodgy_Dude)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-were-totally-miscast-all-wrong-for-the-role-and-yet-did-a-wonderful-job-with-it/553600/73 "2010-09-19T19:12:48Z")
I thought the producers of Dexter were nuts to cast John Lithgow as a serial killer, but…
I was wrong and they were right. Lithgow was sensational as Trinity.
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### Author:  [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2010, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-were-totally-miscast-all-wrong-for-the-role-and-yet-did-a-wonderful-job-with-it/553600/74 "2010-09-19T20:16:38Z")
> [@Dan\_Norder](#):
>
> The only people Heath Ledger’s the iconic Joker for are the ones who are too young to have seen another version.\*
Wrong. Like others, I was an avid watcher of the Batman TV series as a kid, and saw the movies. I was grown up when Nicholson’s Batman appeared. I liked both Jokers. Heath Ledger blew them both away. Far far away.
> [@Dan\_Norder](#):
>
> \*Well, and the ones who felt bad about him dying so much that they let it affect their judgment.
Wrong again. I knew something interesting was going to be seen when the [“Why So Serious?”](http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=image&fr=yfp-t-701&va=The+Dark+Knight+Why+So+Serious) ads and [website](http://www.whysoserious.com/)appeared. which was incredibly heightened when I saw a sneak preview of [the opening bank robbery sequence](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rczy5pOq0rM&feature=related) at the IMAX. Even though I was mad that they wouldn’t let us stay and see I Am Legend (I even started a lame Pit thread about it) the sequence itself was mesmerizing and I knew then that Heath Ledger had not only pulled it off, he had created what was probably going to be an iconic character. It was confirmed when the movie was released, but I knew it long before Ledger died. He would have gotten the same acclaim, including the Oscar, had he lived.
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### Author:  [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2010, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-were-totally-miscast-all-wrong-for-the-role-and-yet-did-a-wonderful-job-with-it/553600/75 "2010-09-19T20:19:12Z")
I thought Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the lead for \*Brick \*was ridiculous. Yet scene after scene he started to sell me on an entirely different character and when it was over I thought he was perfect for the role.
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### Author:  [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2010, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-were-totally-miscast-all-wrong-for-the-role-and-yet-did-a-wonderful-job-with-it/553600/76 "2010-09-19T21:02:06Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> Everyone thought Michael Keaton was miscast as Batman – too lightweight and hard to believe as the Dark Knight. But he was probably the best of all the Batmans.
> [@kittenblue](#):
>
> Oh, thank you! For years I’ve felt all alone in this belief…convinced that I must be wrong about what I felt because “experts” told me I was wrong. But I really, really liked Keaton’s interpretation the best.
Don’t feel left out, **kitten** ; if someone had asked me to cast Batman, Michael Keaton would never have occurred to me in a million years, and he’s not just the best of a bad-to-mediocre lot, he really nailed the role.
I’m not sure my pick really fits the OP, but I would have never thought of Russel Crowe as Capt. Jack Aubrey in _Master and Commander_. But even more so, Paul Bettany as Dr. Stephen Maturin?? Maturin is consistently described as a small, pale, ill-looking fellow. Paul Bettany is too tall, too good looking, and fundamentally just too damned _healthy_ looking to be Dr. Stephen Maturin.
But both he and Crowe nailed the essentials of the characters.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2010, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-were-totally-miscast-all-wrong-for-the-role-and-yet-did-a-wonderful-job-with-it/553600/77 "2010-09-19T21:41:32Z")
> [@ExTank](#):
>
> I’m not sure my pick really fits the OP, but I would have never thought of Russel Crowe as Capt. Jack Aubrey in _Master and Commander_. But even more so, Paul Bettany as Dr. Stephen Maturin?? Maturin is consistently described as a small, pale, ill-looking fellow. Paul Bettany is too tall, too good looking, and fundamentally just too damned _healthy_ looking to be Dr. Stephen Maturin.
>
> But both he and Crowe nailed the essentials of the characters.
Yeah, but a young Rutger Hauer and Dustin Hoffman would have been perfect.
🙂
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### Author:  [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2010, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-were-totally-miscast-all-wrong-for-the-role-and-yet-did-a-wonderful-job-with-it/553600/78 "2010-09-19T22:04:09Z")
> [@ExTank](#):
>
> Don’t feel left out, **kitten** ; if someone had asked me to cast Batman, Michael Keaton would never have occurred to me in a million years, and he’s not just the best of a bad-to-mediocre lot, he really nailed the role.
Let me once again remind you all of **Robot Arm’s First Law of Superhero Movie Casting** :
> [@](#):
>
> Anyone can wear a mask. For the lead role in a superhero movie, cast an actor who can convincingly play the secret identity.
Michael Keaton was good as Bruce Wayne.
Christopher Reeve was good as Clark Kent.
Tobey Maguire was good as Peter Parker.
Does anybody believe Jessica Alba as an astronaut?
---
### Author:  [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2010, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-were-totally-miscast-all-wrong-for-the-role-and-yet-did-a-wonderful-job-with-it/553600/79 "2010-09-20T13:33:18Z")
> [@A\_Dodgy\_Dude](#):
>
> I thought the producers of Dexter were nuts to cast John Lithgow as a serial killer, but…
>
> I was wrong and they were right. Lithgow was sensational as Trinity.
Lithgow is one of those actors who can do anything so easily most people don’t think of him as a great actor.
---
### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2010, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-were-totally-miscast-all-wrong-for-the-role-and-yet-did-a-wonderful-job-with-it/553600/80 "2010-09-20T13:36:07Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I thought the producers of Dexter were nuts to cast John Lithgow as a serial killer, but…
Heck, he’d already played a soulless killer (who acts like a serial killer) in Brian de Palma’s **Blow-out** back i 1981:
> **[Blow Out](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blow_Out)**
>
> Blow Out is a 1981 American neo-noir mystery thriller film written and directed by Brian De Palma. It stars John Travolta as a sound technician from Philadelphia who, while recording sounds for a low-budget slasher film, unintentionally captures audio evidence of an assassination. Nancy Allen stars as Sally Bedina, a young woman involved in the crime. The supporting cast includes John Lithgow and Dennis Franz.
> Based on Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film Blowup, Blow Out replaces the medium of...
and he’d been a killer in another film before that
de Palma’s previous Hitchcockian outing **Obsession**
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