Pick as many as you want, or as few as you want. Minimum has to be 1 actor or actress that the casting director hit a homerun with, or swung out looking. You can also disagree or agree with others as appropriate, but at least supply one of your own.
The one you supply CAN be the person you supply for someone else’s choice, but prepare to defend your choice… (I.e. don’t come in, say something like SFP, you’re full of beans, that choice sucks. My choice is you know who…)
See? That sucks.
Ok, for my first of many (not all in this post, so you don’t become bored realizing I’ve picked all the best ones, (guffaw),… in no particular order
Marc Vann - Conrad Ecklie. the CSI supervisor/kiss-ass out to get Grissom’s job and/or Grissom. His male pattern baldness, along with his nasally twangy voice combined to make him perfectly annoying. His by-the-book rule enforcement just gave him the weasel tri-fecta of annoyances. I hated this guy from the first time he was introduced, and he never failed to annoy me, a perfectly unlikeable character from day one to the end. A perfect choice.
James Gandolfini - Tony Soprano. He really IS Tony Soprano, isn’t he? I can’t imagine anyone else in the role, and I don’t want to. Most of the Soprano cast is like this for me with a few exceptions. I won’t take too many of the Sopranos cast, so I’ll just go with
Aida Turturro - Janice Soprano - a perfectly cast family martyr who cared about no one but herself throughout the run of the series. All she wanted to do was live in the lap of luxury, while some poor mobster was stuck screwing her to appease (or annoy) Tony. Richie Aprile, Ralph Cifaretto, and poor Bobby Baccalari, who never had a chance, were all victims of their relationship with the black widow. I hated her with a passion, which is exactly how she was supposed to be portrayed.
Nancy Marchand - Olivia Soprano - the matriarch, and the single biggest influence on the show in Tony’s life until she unexpectedly died in season two. She was a miserable old woman who only got pleasure in life by subtracting some from someone else’s life. I hated her because I hae someone in my family that I relate perfectly to this character, and I will always regret what David Chase had in store for her as the Sopranos progressed. A huge loss to that series.
Carroll O’Conner - Archie Bunker - may be the single best choice in the history of tv or the movies. I hae read the rumor of Jackie Gleason in the role, and I’m sure he would have been ok. But he would never be Archie; he was already Ralph Kramden.
Well, that’s how I see my first handful, again in no particular order.
Daniel Radcliff - Harry Potter. One problem is a lot of people saw the first movie at around the same time they read book one. All it needed was for the director to stay aligned for the most part and there you go: thoughts automatically jived with the senses. People swear Radcliff was ideal for Harry, as were Grint and Watson for their respective roles. I think deciding this is not as easy as it looks. Radcliff as a kid was cute and adorable. But he wasn’t what JKR had us thinking in book one. I was thinking more of thin, feisty, runty kid. A bit like a young Scott Baio.
Granger was described as having bushy brown hair and an overbite but I can’t help imagining a thin bespectacled girl with neatly combed hair with tight clips, dressed as a future librarian.
I wouldn’t have thought so by just looking at her in other roles, but Elizabeth Banks was absolutely perfect as Effie Trinket in The Hunger Games. It was exactly how I pictured Effie looking and sounding as I read the book!
Doug Hutchison totally nailed the character of Percy Wetmore in The Green Mile–he was the perfect little weasel!
Ian McKellan as Gandalf He is exactly as I always pictured Galdalf looking and being.
As for miscasts -
I never liked Joe Pantoliano as Ralphie in The Sopranos. He never really clicked with the rest of the cast it was always The Sopranos with Joe Pantoliano interjecting.
Another that had the same impact on me was Samuel L Jackson as Mace Windu. Revenge of the Sith was playing in the background on my tv over the weekend and I completely forgot he was in it. Suddenly I’m hearing SLJ and I thought somehow the tv switched to something else…even hearing it in the background it made me think how he just didn’t sound like he belonged in that movie.
Miscast: Barbra Streisand in All Night Long. She was supposed to play a timid and mousy character; Streisand does not do timid.
Great Casting: Shelly Duvall as Olive Oyl. No need to say anything more.
Also from that movie, Richard Libertini as George W. Geezil. Geezil barely made it to the cartoons, but if you read the strips, Libertini would have been the first person you thought of.
Best of all time: Pelle Hvenegaard in Pelle the Conqueror. The first name is no coincidence: Hvenegaard was named for the lead character. His parents loved the book, and when it came time to make a movie, he was the right age. So he was literally born to play that role.
Hugh Laurie WAS House. Nobody else could have done that role.
Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption. I love to tell people who saw the movie but didn’t read the orginal Stephen King novella it was based on the Red was a middle-aged red-haired white Irish guy. Their jaws just drop.
Ron Perlman as Hellboy. I am not a fan of that genre, but Perlman should have gotton an Oscar for the way he played that role. Just serious and natural enough not to be a caraciature, but not too serious.
IMO the whole Soprano family were one of the best job of casting ever - especially Edie Falco & Jamie Lynn Sigler as Carmela and Meadow. I mean look at them, they really do like mother & daughter.
For bad casting, I have to say pretty much most of the cast of “Once Upon a Time.” Nobody looks particularly like a iconic fairy tale character, but especially the actors playing Prince Charming and Snow White. The Prince is moderately handsome, but absolutely not “charming.” And Snow is just plain odd looking. I can’t put my finger on it, but something seems weird about the way she looks.
On the other hand, the guy playing Rumpelstilskin is spot on.
Robert Carlyle, on Once Upon A Time. As Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold. GAD, he is wonderful. He’s the reason I started watching the show, saw his picture in a print ad for OUAT in a magazine and said, oh, yes!
Sean Connery as 007. Oh, sure, I’ll sing Daniel Craig’s praises, but think back to Connery’s literal first appearance: the iconic World’s Coolest Killer music starts up, but all he’s doing is playing cards while lighting his cigarette and introducing himself to someone. And he completely sells it, long before getting called on to plausibly beat the hell out of men and sleep with women and deliver a never-ending supply of sly quips.
a Man for All Seasons – Paul Scofield , in both the play and the film, was perfect. I’ve seen other actors in the role, but none of the others really did it right (although I’d love to have seen frank Langella when he performed the role on Broadway several years ago)
The Rpyal Hunt of the Sun – This one gets both a Best Cast and a Miscast. I never saw the play onstage, but when it opened on Broadway it had David Carradine as Atahualpa, the Incan emperor. I can’t think of another non-Incan who looks so much like my idea of an Inca.
At the same time, Christopher Plummer played Francisco Pizarro. I don’t think Plummer (who realy do like as an actor) is at all right for the part. But I think he was one of the worst possible choices for the part of Atahulalpa, which is what he played when they turned the play into a movie. Plummer is so hopelessly North European that there’s no way you can suspend your disbelief that far. Gandhi – Ben Kingsley was absolutely perfect in the role.
Best: Don Knotts as Barney Fife and Art Carney as Ed Norton.
Worst: Gerard Butler as the Phantom of the Opera. Yeah, let’s cast the part of a hideously ugly musical genius by getting a handsome man who can’t sing.
