And no one’s brought up casting a milkshake, a box of french fries, and a meatball as a team of superheroes?
You really shouldn’t talk that way about Lynda Carter, Adam West, and Lou Ferrigno.
I actually thought he was just right for The Matrix - not sure about the sequels though.
But yes, he really, really, sucked in Much Ado About Nothing. I’m still hoping they might release a ‘special edition’ with him digitally edited out and replaced by, I dunno, anyone else. Flat Eric would have been a better choice.
Keanu Reeves in—well, anything, but especially as Harker in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
My sister is of the opinion that there would have been better casting choices even among the rest of the Dracula cast. Including, but not limited to, Anthony Hopkins or Wynona Rider in drag.
[p.s…heh, just finished reading the rest of the thread. I see I’m beaten to the punch.]
I can’t tell if Katie Holmes ruined the character of Rachel Dawes in Batman Begins, or if she just did a masterful job at playing a smug, holier-than-thou harpie. Actually, I’m leaning towards the latter.
Jessica Alba in Fantastic Four. I mean…Jesus. She looked like Roy Batty, only without the charisma.
Hayden Christiansen would have been perfect as Anakin/Vader. If they’d dubbed him.
This a perfect example- it ruined what would have been a classic film. I spent the whole time thinking ‘why is this hot youg chick in love with this 50 year old drifter?’
One example of an non-Asian playing an Asian that was not a total disgrace, Ona Munson in The Shanghai Gesture.
I still cringe at Christopher Walken as Johnny Smith in Dead Zone. The movie is pretty sad compared to the book but crazy-evil Walken as the gentle-teacher-come-victim-of-tragic-destiny is just jaw dropping. What WERE they thinking?!?
There’s a whole sub-category of Bad Casting Because the Hollywood Version Completely Rewrote the Story. It’s not the actor’s fault.
Arnold Schwarteneggar should ever have played Quaid* in Total Recall – the original story calls for a Woody Allen-like nebbish.
Or Whoopi Goldberg in Burglar
I’m surprised we got this far and no one has mentioned David Carradine as Kwi Ciang Cain in the Kung Fu series. It’s bad enough they cast a white guy as an asian, but Bruce Fucking Lee was involved in the development of the series, and they decided not to cast him as the lead.
Replace “duuuuude” with “whoa” in the above quote and you have what I came in here to say.
I don’t know if it was on in the States but how about Derek Jacobi as Brother Cadfael in the TV series? Derek Jacobi is a great actor and was brilliant as C’C’Claudius but not as Cadfael - in fact he played them as the same character :smack: .
Cadfael is a stocky, powerful, ex-sailor, ex-Crusader, Welshman who has spend most of his life knocking round the Eastern Mediterranean, not a slight, stuttering Englishman who looks like he has hardly stepped out of the library.
Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes-too old, too ugly, and way too wooden.
Or for that matter David Carradine in Kill Bill 2. He was so anti-menacing I can’t even watch the scenes with him because because it ruins the “revenge” mood the movie is supposed to have. They might as well have cast Woody Allen.
It’s the Jonathan Pryce defense. The character is half Asian/half caucasian. If you are not going to cast a half and half actor does it make a difference if the actor is white or Asian?
Hey, now! I thought Jacobi made a great Cadfael. I don’t think he stuttered in that role.
In the threads on The Tudors many of us have been complaining about the casting of Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry VIII.
Nobody thought of this one? He mumbled a lot-and that scene (when they unload Sonny’s bullet-riddled corpse at the undertaker)-and the undertaker is afraid that he’ll be dragged in to some Mafia burial scheme…“I donna wanna haava his mothutha to se himm lika thiss…looka how theyya massacurred my boy”-the fake tears were classic! Brando looke dlike he was going to burst out laughing!
Meg Ryan as Pamela Morrison in The Doors. When she talks about doing acid, I laugh my ass off.
I hope they changed their minds after seeing (hearing?) her performance, because Maaya was brilliant as Hitomi.
I loved it, personally…finally, a Japanese schoolgirl heroine who ISN’T all squeaky-voiced! She sounds authentic, rather than being a “celebrity seiyuu”, and it really helped the character and the impact of what she went through, to have her be that real.
Now, for odd casting in anime, how about Megumi “Lina Inverse” Hayashibara as the laconic and emotionally isolated Rei Ayanami in Evangelion?
John Wayne in The Quiet Man. Fabulous movie, wonderful acting all around (even from John, I’ll admit), beautiful scenery. But casting him as the titular character… no. Maybe it only bothers me because I actually read the story in class before seeing the movie, but I just can’t see him as an Irishman returning to his home town.
Halle Berry as Storm in the XMen series. Halle Berry as Catwoman.
Angela Basset would have been great in either one.
Angela Basset is a beautiful woman, but she is too old for those roles. Heck, Halle is too old for those roles. Congrats to Hollywood for choosing mature women for young roles (like they’ve done for men for years), but I would prefer they use more age-appropriate thespians all around (and not do stupid shit like having Zeta Jones fawn over Connery).