I had this experience upon watching Batman on one of the cable channels and seeing Jack Palance playing the big mob boss. It had totally slipped my mind that he was in Batman in the first place.
Anyone else had this happen?
Charlize Theron surprised the shit out of me by being the stuck-up girlfriend of our drummer hero in Tom Hanks’ terrific ‘That Thing You Do’ when I re-watched it last week.
I remembered the girl but did not know that was who played her. I remembered Chris Isaak and everyone else but Theron.
MiM
When I first saw the First Wives’ Club, I was a little kid and so I had no idea who most of the actors were. On my second time round, it was all, “Whoa, Sarah Jessica Parker played that bimbo? I didn’t know that was Dan Hedaya! What the hell is the dad from Seventh Heaven doing in here?”
It wasn’t until I rewatched part of “Coming to America” on a TV rerun that I realized that Eric Lasalle (of ER fame) plays Eddie Murphy’s rival, and the thug that attempts to rob Murphy’s faux-McDonald’s is played by Samuel L. Jackson.
Also, who’s that kid wearing the goofy “Robin Hood” cap in “The Raven”, and looking overwhelmed in the company of Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, and Peter Lorre? Oh, (insert deity)! It’s Jack Nicholson!!
In the last scene of “The Lavender Hill Mob”, Alec Guiness has a short exchange with a pre-Roman-Holiday Audrey Hepburn. If you blink, you’ll miss it.
I re-watched National Treasure this weekend in prep for the upcoming sequel.
I had totally forgotten that **Harvey Keitel ** was in it! And a joy he was to watch, too.
Paul Reiser was in Aliens? Was he in it the first time I saw it twenty years ago?
There are a couple of surprises in the movie My Bodyguard. One I remembered; the other, though I did not.
Dr. Cox was in “Wall Street.”
Not exactly “forgot” so much as “didn’t connect”:
- Michael from “Lost” was in “Matrix Revolutions”
- Locke from “Lost” is the FBI guy who gets blown up in the “X-Files Movie”
When I was younger, I watched “The Prince of Egypt” in theaters.
A few years later, I realized that Ralph Fiennes does a speaking (and singing) part in that movie. Kind of surreal.
I once won five dollars off a friend who insisted that John Goodman wasn’t in The Big Easy.
Joe Pantoliano (from the Sopranos) in Goonies.
Joey Pants in Risky Business!
Heather Graham in Drugstore Cowboy.
David Duchovny in Twin Peaks (2nd season). (and come to think of it, Heather Graham in 2nd season Twin Peaks.)
Nigel Hawthorne, who went on to be Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes, Minister, was in the Clint Eastwood movie Firefox.
It’s TV, but damn! John Doe was Dominic Purcell of “Prison Break.” When I read this in a PB thread, I damn near fell off my chair.
Tim Robbins in this cinematic masterpiece.
I was astonished to recognize a dowdied-down Jodie Foster - speaking fluent French! - in the Audrey Tatou WWI drama A Very Long Engagement.
Randy Quaid, almost unrecognizably young, is in both Paper Moon and What’s Up, Doc? Ditto Larry Hagman in Fail-Safe as the President’s young Russian translator.
I’ve got eXistenZ on DVD. (Yes, it’s sick & twisted & not usually “my type of film”–but I like it a lot.)
Rewatching it recently, I kept wondering just who was playing the “Seminar Leader.” It was Christopher Eccleston. In my defense: He wasn’t using his Northern* accent.
- “Lots of planets have a North.”
Continuing my game of “Spot the Doctor”–Bright Young Things is a Britstar-crammed retelling of Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies. Directed by Stephen Fry.
I recognized David Tennant immediately–playing a character named “Ginger.”*
- “I never get to be ginger!”
The most striking example has to be Robert Duvall’s screen debut in To Kill A Mockingbird. He played Boo Radley.
I was scrolling through my satellite TV guide last night, and spotted Dead Again. “Huh,” I thought, “that was playing in my theater back when I worked in the movie theater.” And I looked at the stars, none of which I’d remembered being in it: Kenneth Branagh, Andy Garcia, and Emma Thompson. Relatively speaking, a lot of star power, but back then I guess it didn’t seem so impressive.
Oh, and I’ve been watching my new hi-def horror movie channel a bunch, including watching C.H.U.D. right around Halloween, and I was muchly shocked to see John Goodman in a bit role as a cop. He had maybe two lines.