There’s casting choices I like; casting choices I can take or leave; casting choices I dislike but understand…then there are some which are so baffling, so confusing in their awfulness, that they stop me in my tracks every time I see the title of the film. My prime example: Colin Farrell as Alexander the Great. What were they thinking??? Had Oliver Stone completely run out of friends to tell him how stupid this was? Would no one else work for him? What? It continues to blow my mind…
John Wayne as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror. Casting so bad that it sounds like a skit from SNL or MadTV.
Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane
Alan Cumming as a charasmatic pussyhound in The Anniversary Party.
No. Just…no.
Hey, in the last couple of years Colin Farrell has the go-to man for any role, any time. I’m surprised he wasn’t asked to play a black lesbian single mother.
The worst casing in recent memory has been Jack Nicholson as an Irish gangster in The Departed. He didn’t look Southie, he didn’t sound Southie, and came off more like a demented crackhead than gangster. Why they didn’t just cast Ray Winstone in that part I don’t know. Every time he was on screen he pulled me right out of the film. He can be a good actor, but mostly, he just plays “Jack”.
I think Kirsten Dunst is pretty bad as Mary Jane Watson, but maybe the character is supposed to be a grating, fickle, self-absorbed ditz. That doesn’t make her any less grating, and with each installment I keep hoping that they’ll kill her off.
Also, Drew Barrymore in pretty much anything that didn’t have her playing a flaked-out bimbo.
Yeah, John Wayne in The Conqueror was a masterstroke of miscasting. It’s hard to get more wrong that than.
Stranger
People probably won’t agree with me, but I think casting Gary Oldman as Sirius Black and David Thewlis as Remus Lupin in the Harry Potter movies were some pretty awful decisions. IMO, Oldman looks like an old pervert (especially with the pornstache) and Thewlis just looks creepy. What is it with creepy mustaches, anyway? Considering that both of these guys were supposed to be attractive (albeit quite weathered and frayed after all they’d been through) I just don’t see it.
(Okay, I’m still a little bitter that they didn’t cast Jason Carter as Sirius, but even so, those were bad choices IMO.)
Sort of in the same vein, didn’t Marlon Brando play a Japanese character in Teahouse of the August Moon? I haven’t seen the movie so I don’t know if it worked. Brando could do pretty much anything.
Shelly Duvall as the wife in The Shining – the character was supposed to be a gorgeous blonde, and level-headed. I love Duvall, but the way she played Wendy Torrance, I might have looked for an axe too.
Charlton Heston as a Mexican cop in Touch of Evil – was that casting a metaphor or something?
If anyone can explain to me what Mickey Rooney was doing in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I’ll be happy to hear it.
Collecting a paycheck and making an ass of himself. I was just coming in here to mention Rooney. I fucking hate him.
I have seen it, and honestly, it almost works. It didn’t quite, but almost. I think he got the heart, but not the soul or maybe the other way around.
When it comes to terrible casting as an Asian, coming close to the John Wayne casting, is Mickey Rooney as the Japanese guy upstairs of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffanys. That was just painful.
Keanu Reeves as Don John in Much Ado About Nothing. I kept expecting to hear him say “duuuude” at the end of each line.
Michael Crawford in* Dance of the Vampire*. It’s one thing to make an ass of yourself on film, quite another to do it on stage.
Granted, it was not great casting (if I were casting the role in 1958, I would’ve gone with Anthony Quinn). But, in the overall scheme of things, it was necessary. Because he had clout as a star, Heston was able to convince the studio to have Orson Welles direct the film.
I love this film but can’t recall- was it really necessary for him to be Mexican, plotwise?
As for John Wayne in The Conqueror, I can’t picture any other actor delivering these lines with such skill 
“I feel this Tar-tar woman is for me, and my blood says, take her. There are moments for wisdom and moments when I listen to my blood; my blood says, take this Tar-tar woman.”
Ha! You think that’s bad casting? Keanu Reeves was cast as Constantine, for fuck’s sake. I mean, seriously, before that was announced, I could have thought and thought and come up with 100 Hollywood stars (of all nationalities) for the role and I never would have thought of Reeves.
Keanu Reeves as John Constantine in Constantine. He did his best, but the character from the Hellblazer comics is a weathered con-man and sorcerer who has been to the ends of the Earth and hell itself; a cynical antihero who has seen, done, and survived it all, often sacrificing his friends in the process. He is blond, looks a little like Sting (the musician, not the wrestler), and he is a working-class Englishman – that is pivotal to his character. A short list of actors who could have done an amazing job portraying the character: Daniel Craig, James Marsters, Paul Bettany, Ewan McGregor, Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, Kiefer Sutherland, and Anthony Stewart Head. Hell, fucking Sting could have done a better job!
To be fair, the Constantine movie was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the Constantine comic book.
Jake Lloyd as Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace.
Granted the movie was a disaster, the script had embarassing lines, and Lucas has no idea or a care in the world about directing actors but you think they would have cast a young Darth Vader to look at least somewhat mischievous, dark, menacing. At least a kid with dark hair and dark eyes or a deeper than normal voice or something. Instead the choose the cheery blonde haired blue eyed kid and give him lines like “Wheeee!!”
Does anyone have any anecdotal evidence as to what 1961 audiences thought of Mickey Rooney’s character? Did they find it funny, or as loathesome as well all do now?
I saw Breakfast at Tiffany’s in a theater during its first run. A few members of the audience actually booed, which was not often done back in those days.
On the other hand, Alec Guinness was rather charming as a Japanese gentleman in A Majority of One.