and of course, Barbra Streisand in “Hello, Dolly.” A 27 year old playing a middle aged widow? With no attempt to age her character at all. The scenes between her and Walter Matthau just don’t seem to work. She was the hot new talent in Hollywood at the time, with a fabulous singing voice. Perfect for musicals. But just not this one. Carol Channing will forever own the role of Dolly Levi, but she was considered box office poison. The movie lost a ton of money anyway.
I never cared for George Clooney in O Brother Where Art Thou? I kept thinking, Why the hell isn’t Billy Bob Thorton the lead in this movie. 1930’s Mississippi and Clooney are worlds apart.
Richard Chamberlain is just plain cheesy so casting him in anything that isn’t meant to be cheesy is a mistake. Ditto Burt Lancaster.
Julia Roberts is, as many have already stated, consistently miscast when artisitic integrity is eclipsed by the need for box office draw. Ocean’s Eleven was a big mistake - watching her walk down those stairs during her opening scene was just painful. The girl can’t walk. Worse was her casting in “The Mexican.” While she played well against James Gandolfini, there is virtually no chemistry between her and Brad Pitt. That scene near the beginning where she is screaming at Brad Pitt from the balcony of her apartment is just awful.
Marley23 has a good point. The fact that Keanu Reeves usually looks like he’s suffering from shellshock is what makes him the perfect choice to play Neo. After all, Neo has just found out that his entire world and everything he thinks he knows about life is a computer-generated simulation!
It seems like some contributors to this thread are not exactly making the distinction between “bad actors cast in good roles” and “inappropriate actors cast in good roles”. The latter doesn’t imply that the person in question was a bad actor, just that they weren’t the right personality or didn’t have the accurate look/build for the part.
For example, Adrian Brody just won an Oscar, but I doubt anybody would think he’d be right for the title role in Rocky. But sometime ago somebody did think that John Wayne would be right as Genghis Khan. That’s what the OP is looking for.
And along these lines, Katherine Hepburn playing a 1930s era Chinese farmer(!) in “Dragon Seed.”
In fact, I think the entire cast (mostly Chinese peasants and Japanese imperialists) was played by white folks.
I think you’re mixing up Marathon Man, which was an OK movie, with The Jazz Singer.
I LOVE the movie and I LOVE the actor but…
Godfather: Jameas Caan as brother to Michael, Fredo and Connie? Caan is a great actor, but I can’t get past he doesn’t look as “stereotypically” Sicilian as the other siblings.
I was being a smartass and alluding to the fact that any time I see Olivier, I only think of **Marathon Man **. That’s right, I don’t even think of the Shakespeare films which I love so much. Just Nazi Dentists.
I’m not really as dumb as I look, I just show up that way on film.
Agree with Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes. That man had the charisma of stale roadkill.
Julia Roberts in Steel Magnolias. She’s a Georgian and couldn’t affect a natural southern accent to save her life.
Demi Moore in that movie with Michael Douglas where he is the victim of sexual harrassment. The plot might would have been much more compelling had someone like Kathy Bates or even Susan Sarandon been cast as the powerful executive.
Winona Ryder as Abigail in The Crucible AND in Age of Innocence, both opposite the exquisite Daniel Day-Lewis. Ryder was too young and waifish for the latter and lacked sex appeal and chemistry with DDL in the former.
Love Stockard Channing but she was entirely too old looking to play a high school senior in Grease.
So was the rest of the cast.
I thought Broderick was excellent in the role, and did a remarkable job with it. He looked to me like a man in his 30’s. Certainly it was a different interpretation, what with Broderick actually singing and dancing rather than talking through the songs while the chorus danced around him, but different isn’t always worse.
I don’t mean to imply that Preston was bad, just that his interpretation of the role isn’t necessarily the only, or even the best way to play the part.
I thought reverse sexual discrimination was the point of the movie (still can’t think of the name). Traditionally it’s been the man who abuses his position of power to force young women into a sexual relationship and in this case it was the opposite. A twist, if you will. And I still think it was ridiculous to have someone beautiful and young in the role of the woman.
Come to think of it, I want to add Robert Redford to the list for being cast as the rich guy in Indecent Proposal. Gee, a million bucks to sleep with a clean, rich, handsome man? What’s the dilemma here. Would have been a better story had Billy Bob Thorton or Marlon Brando been cast.
Yeah, John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John were about ten years too old for their roles, but Channing looked twenty years too old.
So was the rest of the cast.
And yet there’s a plot afoot for a sequel in which Travolta and Newton-John and crew attend their 20th reunion (in the 1970s) with their teenage daughter, Kylie Minogue. (If it was their 40th reunion I could buy it easier.)
While Jamie Farr’s drag became a TV icon, did anybody ever wonder why an obvious mid-eastern actor (whose character even later referred to his Lebanese ancestry) was cast as “Max Klinger”, one of the most Germanic names possible?
I liked him a lot in the light-but-fun action comedy The Big Hit
Breaking with the spirit of this thread…
Keven Branaugh was perfect as Lockhart in HP.
Keanu Reeves worked as Neo (it’d be interesting to see someone else do it, but the part doesn’t require speaking 
). Not as perfect as he fitted into Bill and Ted, of course. (And no, I couldn’t take him seriously in Dracula.)
Nightcrawler in X2 was supposed to be a bit scared and lost, but get through due to his faith and courage. I thought he did it well Check out the X2 thread. 10% of the posts are NIGHTCRAWLER ROCKED! NIGHTCRAWLER ROCKED! If his character differed from the original, that’s another matter.
In fact, in general, I’ve learnt to be tolerant of changes to the look of characters in adaptions. So long as they fit the spirit, I’ll let it ride. After all, no-one’s perfect. I’d rather have someone who gave the right impression than someone who looks physically like the original. This doesn’t apply to large changes in age, sex, etc, unless otherwise justified; these change the character. Changing the skin colour sometimes does and sometimes doesn’t. It depends where it’s set.
Finally, back in the spirit of the thing, Good looking women ad friendless nerds. It’s ridiculous. If you want us to believe someone is not attractive, show us. You don’t have to choose an ugly actress (though if someone is supposed to be, eg fat, it’s a lot easier to pick up on it if they are), but show it somehow. Glasses don’t cut it. Hell, they can be good looking if they’re a good enough actor to portray not being social well. But you can’t just add glasses to someone gorgeous and expect us to feel sorry for them. (Though it can be overdone - in My Big Fat Grssk Wedding her transformation was almost too abrupt. Conversely in BTVS (sorry) Alyson H. portrayed Willow’s transition from a hopeless geek, to a cool geek quite well)
What’s funny is that while reading the book I always imagined Frannie looking like Molly Ringwald. Frannie=redhead, Molly=redhead… then they dye her hair black in the movie. WTF?
I’ll second this, since I don’t think an actor necessarily looks “African” merely because they are black. Wright actually looks like a black woman from Africa to me, even though she is from NYC, while Berry looks thoroughly American.
You’re joking right? I thought those two were perfect for those parts.