# odd castings in movies and tv shows **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 12, 2006, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427 "2006-04-12T20:17:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mississippienne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2006, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427/21 "2006-04-13T23:25:42Z")
One thing that bugs me is casting families in movies. Hollywood tends to cast actors based on the notion “they have the same hair color, they can be related” even though the actors resemble one another not at all in features, body types, eye colors, accents, etc. One example is _Gladiator_, where the Emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) looked nothing like his sister Lucilla (Connie Nielsen). On the other hand, the casting of Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe) and his son Harry (James Franco) in the _Spider-Man_ movies was spot-on. Even the actors commented on how much they resembled each other. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Rhosis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@Sir\_Rhosis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Rhosis)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2006, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427/22 "2006-04-14T01:08:05Z")
> [@Robot Arm](#): > > How did **Hugh Laurie** wind up on _House_? I mean, what television producer was watching the utterly buffoonish Prince George on the third season of _Blackadder_ and said “that’s our bitter, ascerbic, pill-popping, genius, American Doctor!” > > I’m not complaing; he’s good. But whoever knew he’d be good in that role saw something in his past work that I sure didn’t. Was Laurie cast in **House** before or after his rather jerkish (but ultimately reliable guy after all) turn in the **Flight of The Phoenix** remake? Sir Rhosis ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2006, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427/23 "2006-04-14T01:21:25Z")
Robert de Niro on The adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle; I was boringly looking at that movie once and here comes the guy in scene… a great WTF?! moment if you ask me. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2006, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427/24 "2006-04-14T01:36:57Z")
> [@Robot Arm](#): > > How did **Hugh Laurie** wind up on _House_? I mean, what television producer was watching the utterly buffoonish Prince George on the third season of _Blackadder_ and said “that’s our bitter, ascerbic, pill-popping, genius, American Doctor!” > > I’m not complaing; he’s good. But whoever knew he’d be good in that role saw something in his past work that I sure didn’t. Not to mention the fact that he has traded his British dialect for a middle-American one. And I’m not complaining either; he’s perfect. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2006, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427/25 "2006-04-14T01:52:45Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Peter Falk also was cast against type as **Columbo** – he usually played a comic heavy, though that was less of a stretch. And don’t forget that the role was offered to Bing Crosby, but he turned it down. I suspect that it would never have got a second episode. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbo#History\_of\_the\_show](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbo#History_of_the_show) ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2006, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427/26 "2006-04-14T03:43:55Z")
> [@Earl Snake-Hips Tucker](#): > > Lawrence Olivier as Douglas MacArthur in “Inchon.” > > Not necessarily weird, but kinda neat: > > In John Wayne’s 1970 TV special [“Swing Out, Sweet Land”](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0262030/), some of the Founding Fathers: > > George Washington played by William Shatner (Canadian-born Jewish). > John Adams played by Lorne Greend (Canadian-born and Jewish) > Alexander Hamilton played by Ross Martin (Polish-born and Jewish) I’m old enough to have seen that John Wayne special when it first aired. What you may not understand is that it was mostly a collection of comedy sketches! Lorne Greene played George Washington (not John Adams). He was hosting a reception when Jack Benny came in and asked the President if it’s true that he once threw a silver dollar across the Potomac. Lorne/George laughingly answers “No, I never did that. I’m afraid that’s just a legend.” Benny beamed and said, “Good- then this dollar I found on the shore of the Potomac is MINE!” Get the idea- this wasn’t supposed to be a serious re-creation of history. Rather, it was a comedy special that used a lot of NBC stars in bit parts in sketches about historical figures. Lorene Greene’s TV “son” Dan Blocker was in the show also, as the chief of the Indians who sold Manhatan to the Dutch for $24. Joh nWayne interrupted the deal to show the chief what Manhattan would be like in a few centuries, and then asked, “Don’t you think someone is being cheated here?” Blocker agreed- New York looked like a hellhole to him, so he gave the Dutch a discount. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2006, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427/27 "2006-04-14T03:57:58Z")
I thought all the actors playing the Corleone brothers in _The Godfather_ were brilliant in those roles, but Al Pacino, James Caan, and John Cazale don’t look _anything_ like each other. I look at Mama and Vito Corleone, (esp. when you consider the young Vito bore a striking resemblance to Robert De Niro) and I’m supposed to think that Vito fathered Sonny? Wassamatta wit’ choo? ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2006, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427/28 "2006-04-14T04:08:15Z")
_Gigi_: > [@](#): > > Somehow Donald Faison (Scrubs) got cast as Sanaa Lathan’s dad in “Something New” ? He’s three years younger than she. Not her dad; her brother. Earl Billings played her dad; he’s 26 years older than she. The movie _King Richard and the Crusaders_ (loosely based on the Sir Walter Scott novel _The Talisman_) gives us the suave George Sanders as Richard I, and blue-eyed devil Rex Harrison as Saladin. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2006, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427/29 "2006-04-14T12:48:08Z")
Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes. He was too old, too British, and playing against his type. His acting was wretched. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2006, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427/30 "2006-04-14T13:06:48Z")
> [@Mississippienne](#): > > One thing that bugs me is casting families in movies. Hollywood tends to cast actors based on the notion “they have the same hair color, they can be related” even though the actors resemble one another not at all in features, body types, eye colors, accents, etc… IIRC (no cite), David Hyde Pierce got his _Frasier_ gig because his agent sent the casting folks a head shot pointing out their resemblance. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2006, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427/31 "2006-04-14T13:50:58Z")
In **Field of Dreams** you have New Jersey Italian Ray Liotta playing South Carolina country boy Shoeless Joe Jackson (and making absolutely no effort to be anything other than a New Jersey Italian). ---
**Author:** ![Crandolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7cd45c/32.png) [@Crandolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crandolph)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2006, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427/32 "2006-04-14T17:21:30Z")
> [@Jacob Silj](#): > > **Crandolph** beat me to **Lord Love a Duck** , actually Rod was \*\*38 \*\* at the time. God, I love that movie- Tuesday Weld was at her hottest. Plant skills for life! I don’t do bad things with boys! So two of us saw that then! The sweaters scene is unreal… everyone go out and try to find a copy of LLaD! ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2006, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427/33 "2006-04-14T17:42:33Z")
Nobody’s mentioned well-known Rat Packer and boozehound Dean Martin playing an airline pilot in the original _Airport_? Around the time it came out (1970?) he was hosting his own show, which took place in Dean’s swinging bachelor pad where the drinks were always flowing, and sexy Golddiggers danced. So upon hearing that Dean Martin was playing an airline pilot, you half expected to find him leaving the cockpit, grabbbing a cocktail from a stewardess (and possibly grabbing the stewardess), and making polite but loaded-with-innuendo chitchat with the passengers. Nope. He played it straight and did fairly well with it too. Good for him, but it just seemed to be a weird casting choice at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2006, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427/34 "2006-04-14T17:42:39Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > It happens a lot in the movies. Don’t get me started on the 20-something “teenagers” in a lot of films and TV shows. There’s actually a reason for that - it is much easier and cheaper to cast \> 18 year olds in teenager roles, thanks to union and labor rules. In a couple of years, or a change in appearance, or a screwup by the casting director, and they do look a bit long in the tooth. I’d love to see **The Story of Mankind** again (I saw it when it came out - it might be the first movie I remember being taken to - at a drive in.) That and \*\*Hellzapoppin \*\* are the top two I’m on the lookout for. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2006, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427/35 "2006-04-14T17:48:21Z")
Kirk Douglas as a Sicilian Mafia boss in _The Brotherhood_. A fine actor, but Sicilian? Gedoudahere! (BTW this was the movie that almost sunk _The Godfather_ before it was made. Studios were chary of another Mafia movie when the earlier one had bombed bigtime.) ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2006, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427/36 "2006-04-14T18:07:55Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > IIRC (no cite), David Hyde Pierce got his _Frasier_ gig because his agent sent the casting folks a head shot pointing out their resemblance. One of the casting folks had seen Pierce in the short-lived TV show “The Powers That Be,” asked his agent to send the info over and Fraiser went from being an only child to having a younger brother, because the resemblance was too good to pass up. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2006, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427/37 "2006-04-14T21:20:37Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > I’m old enough to have seen that John Wayne special when it first aired. What you may not understand is that it was mostly a collection of comedy sketches! I remember seeing it back then, too! IIRC, one bit went like this: Dean Martin as Eli Whitney showing off his new invention. “I call it the Cotton Beer.” “Don’t you mean the Cotton _Gin_?” “No–it doesn’t take me sixteen Clydesdales to pull a Martini.” ---
**Author:** ![maggenpye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@maggenpye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maggenpye)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2006, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427/38 "2006-04-14T23:54:36Z")
Everyone except Alan Rickman in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. Hugh Laurie auditioned for House while on location filming Flight OTP. His character in Sense and Sensibility (Mr Palmer) is also andtisocial, sarcastic and ultimately sympathetic. I know FAR TOO MUCH about this. My personal WTF casting decision is Val Kilmer in The Saint even after all these years it still makes my bits clench. How could they? ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2006, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427/39 "2006-04-15T00:10:01Z")
[Olivier was 41 when he played Hamlet.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040416/) ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2006, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427/40 "2006-04-17T14:30:38Z")
> [@Push You Down](#): > > Oh come on…aren’t we past that already? > > Both of them have had excellent dramatic roles over the years. > > “Eternal Sunshine”, “What Dreams May Come”, “Dead Poets Society”, “Truman Show” “Popeye” 😉 No, I know they did fine, I was just referring to the first time they were cast this way. > [@Baldwin](#): > > Not her dad; her brother. Earl Billings played her dad; he’s 26 years older than she. Whew, that makes more sense! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-castings-in-movies-and-tv-shows/352427.md?page=3)