Miscast Actors

Get a life, OP.

Mozart’s wife in Amadeus.

What accent was that - California?

Meryl Streep in Postcards from the Edge. Her acting was fine, but her look just didn't fit the role.

George Clooney. Batman. Nuff said.

Kevin Costner as Robin Hood. I was rooting for Alan Rickman's sheriff to run him through with a sword.

John Lithgow in Terms of Endearment. Okay actor, but too grandfatherly for the role of Emma's lover.

NO. WAY. R6 ! John Lithgow was perfect.

Claude Rains in Casablanca. If he can't drop his English accent to play a French man, cast someone else.

Paul Henreid in Casablanca. If he can't act, cast someone who can..

Casablanca? Wasn’t that about 70-75 years ago? How do you feel about Jane Fonda 50 years ago, R8?

I’m sorry, R8. I can’t stop my typing fingers tonight. I’m going to bed.

John Slattery in Mad Men. He lacked the feel of that time period. Jon Hamm didn't really have the right essence either, but his looks pulled the character off.

Michael Caine in Hannah and her Sisters. Every time I see that movie I notice that he has no chemistry with Mia Farrow or the actress who plays her sister. And that character would work better as an American.

You do realize OP, that whoever made the movie into a TV series, went in a different direction and their Alice was more Lavin-like, less naive and more feisty as they likely thought that people would respond better to that sort of character.

WEHT the kid who played her son? He was hot in a 70s sort of way.

R13 answering myself -- he seems to have dropped out of acting, his last role, via imdb, was in 1994, about 23 years ago.

Did not realize he was related to an actress from that show you all love, Facts of Life

[quote] You do realize OP, that whoever made the movie into a TV series, went in a different direction and their Alice was more Lavin-like, less naive and more feisty as they likely thought that people would respond better to that sort of character.

Clearly they also must have wanted to annoy the hell out of the audience too, since that's what they did with this different direction.

A middle-aged Barbra Streisand as a high-priced and exceptionally desirable Manhattan call girl in "Nuts"

R13 right. They also made her from New Jersey and although not explicit she was very clearly supposed to be more "ethnic."

But r16 yeah major lolol

Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf (!) in "The Hours"

Not "the audience" R15

Just you

The series ran for 9 years, 1976-85 and while I was only alive for the final season, that sure sounds like it was a hit, one that likely made the producers, writers and actors some sizable bank.

Hi, Linda (r19)!!

Hi OP!!!

Denise Richards as a Nuclear Physicist in one of the Bond films.

Woody Allen's ponytail in Scenes from a Mall.

Is R19 speaking to us from the grave?

Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird.

(I kid, I kid. Just wishing more people would post in this thread.)

Henry Hull as The Werewolf of London. What a cold fish.

I agree about Michael Caine and Hannah...but I really like Michael Caine.

LInda Lavin was fine because outside of the title the TV series had pretty much nothing to do with the movie. It's like "What's Happenin'" was based on the movie "Cooley High." Outside of having black teens in it, it was nothing like the movie.

Well, they did bring Mel/Vic Tayback over from the movie, and the characters of Flo and Vera. It's interesting because the diner is really only a side plot in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, but clearly that was the part that was deemed sitcom ready.

Scorsese wanted the tagline of the movie Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore to be "Kiss my Grits!", but the producers didn't think it fit the general mood of the movie. A couple of years later, the creators of Alice gave a nod to Scorsese by cleverly incorporating the line into the television show via Flo.

Sofia Coppola in The Godfather, of course.

Winona Ryder in Bram Stoker's Dracula and Little Women and The Age of Innocence. Basically anything having to do with period drama.

Keanu Reeves in any movie that doesn't have the words "Bill" or "Ted" in the title.

Demi Moore as Hester Prynne. I still can't believe anybody thought that was a good idea.

[quote]Keanu Reeves in any movie that doesn't have the words "Bill" or "Ted" in the title.

I'll give him a pass in [italic]Parenthood[/italic] because he's in his underwear.

[quote]It's like "What's Happenin'" was based on the movie "Cooley High." Outside of having black teens in it, it was nothing like the movie.

Once again, the part of the movie they used as the genesis of the TV series was a scene in a diner.

Ryan Gosling in any movie he's been in.

[quote] Ryan Gosling in any movie he's been in.

They're reviving the [italic]Mickey Mouse Club[/italic] while we're still dealing with the fallout of the last one.

Mia Farrow never had much romantic chemistry with anyone. She always was kind of a road company Sandy Dennis. Jeff Daniels was the one who was miscast in "Terms of Endearment"--he didn't seem like an English professor, let lone a lecherous one. It's a role he could play now but couldn't pull off then--he's actually gained some depth as an actor overtime. The role was more Kevin Kline territory, although he probably was a little too old for the part.

Kevin Spacey as a human being

Flo never says "Kiss My Grits" in "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," R30. Diane Ladd was fantastic as Flo and her vocabulary was a lot more colorful.

[quote]. She always was kind of a road company Sandy Dennis.

Omigod, this is so true.

Jodie Foster in "Sommersby." It's been about the only movie she's ever been in where she was required to have romantic chemistry with anyone--even in "Bugsy Malone" where she played a floozie she wasn't required to have it. And so far that's been good for her career, because she's a very good actress for the most part. but she was unable to simulate any sexual chemistry with Richard Gere.

He was unable to do so either, but to be fair he HAS been able to simulate in other movies with other actresses (Brooke Adams, Deborah Winger, Julia Roberts, etc.)

Diane Ladd's Flo was a character; Polly Holliday's was a caricature.

"The original Alice was childlike, a little eccentric, vulnerable, and strong while a little wounded. And she was a fresh freckle face!"

Dammit OP, CBS should have hired me for the role.

Shelley Duvall in "The Shining". She was uglier than the old crone in Room 237.

It is true that she wasn't as brassy as Lavin played her - I can't picture Lavin doing those scenes where the newly single Alice is nervously going around to bars trying to get a singing gig. Burstyn was great (as was Diane Ladd).

At age 43, James Mason was far too old to play "young Hentzau" in The Prisoner of Zenda.

A more modern example would be Benedict Cumberbatch trying to wrestle a southern accent into submission in "August: Osage County."

The ugly, untalented asshole Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor in Dawn of Justice. I'm not sure how many pairs of kneepads that guy went through in order to get the role of the most intelligent, delicious comic-book villain ever, but...wait, isn't he Jewish? Never mind.

Mia farrow could have promoted herself as a waifier Sandy Dennis without the tics. Whatever one thinks of Woody Allen, he basically revived her career.

The pilot script for the sitcom had Flo's signature line as "Kiss my honeydew!" It was changed to "grits" by the network, to be less suggestive. Neither version is heard in the movie,

[quote] Mia farrow could have promoted herself as a waifier Sandy Dennis without the tics. Whatever one thinks of Woody Allen, he basically revived her career.

See also: Blake Edwards and Julie Andrews

That was (I guess my failed attempt at) a joke at R30. I thought about the unexpectedness of such an awful television show, a sitcom no less, being made from a Scorsese film. I was trying to say that "Kiss my Grits!" DIDN'T make it into the movie because of producers. I thought it was funny to imagine Scorsese wanting a tagline like that in one of his films.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Carry on...

OP, why didn't you just call it "Alice vs. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" and be honest about it?

Billie Piper in Mansfield Park. A lot of actresses have been miscast in movies based on Jane Austen books, but this one was the most horrifying.

Speaking of Linda Lavin, did any of you ever see her in GYPSY? Yeesh! Talk about miscast. She was cold as ice as Rose and plays "Rose's Turn" like a song of triumph sung by one's drunk aunt at a Christmas party.

Painful, R54. After reading this thread I decided to look up Linda Lavin in IMDb. Here's a quote from Linda regarding that awful television show:

[quote]I discovered that the character of 'Alice' represented 80% of the working women in this country, the blue collar and pink collar women. Hundreds of women have come up to me and said, 'It was because of watching "Alice" that I could get through another day with the baby in a high chair. I knew if SHE could do it, I could do it. I could go back to school, I could get off welfare, I could change my life.'

Hundreds of women? Hundreds? How is it possible that any woman drew inspiration from that charmless, dull character, let alone hundreds, and let alone on the level of being inspired to go back to school and get off of welfare? Either Linda was lying, or there were a lot of pathetic housewives out there in the 70's.

Another Linda quote:

[quote]Bea Arthur is the only true artist of the 20th century.

WTF?

I may get wrath from Brady Bunch fans but I feel Christopher Knight as Peter on Brady Bunch was miscast. He was awkward and could not act. I hate watching the shows where the storyline is about him. Too uncomfortable on camera, in my opinion.

^^But he was cute.

R57 cute, yes. Acting sucks.

Eve Plumb was the only Brady kid who really had any range. She was the Sylvia Plath of the group and had the show been on in a different era, would have definitely been suicidal.

Mosf of the Spauldings in the 90s on GL: Marj Dusay, Tobey Poser...even, I hate to say it, Ron Raines.

And in the 80s, of course, it was John Bolger. Nice guy. Solid actor, but an impossible act to follow.

The best Spaulding family would be IMHO:

Chris Bernau as Alan Beverlee McKinsey as Alexandra Kathleen Cullen as Amanda Grant Aleksander as Phillip Elvera Roussel as Hope Carl Evans as Alan-Michael Vincent Irizarry as Lujack/Nick

Meryl Streep in the mish-mash of a movie, Plenty, which I simply could not understand. Both she and the film were duds.

Suzanne Pleshette in “Rome Adventure “. The part called for a virginal school teacher. The character was even named Prudence. Sandra Dee yes, Suzanne no. The minute she started talking in that husky voice you knew she was a broad who could handle herself around men and wasn’t afraid of sex.

+1 on R52

And if the show was so awful, how did it manage to run for so long? Was it one of those shows that always had a good lead in? (Never saw it, so asking for real.)

David Scwhimmer as Robert Kardasin and John Travolta as Robert Shapiro in The People vs. OJ

Yves Montand in ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER. His accent was far too thick and he was too unattractive to play even an "every day" professor. However, it was really that damn accent. I wonder (and do not care enough to research it) what led to him getting that role. Montand was simply all wrong. If there were not so many other aspects of the movie that makes it enjoyable (yes, I know that it has its DL detractors), he would have ruined it for me.

Bamboo Harvester nearly ruined Mr. Ed. Too much of a scene stealer.

R59 agreed

R64 Totally agree. I eventually warmed to Schwimmer, but cringed entirely thru Travolta's performance. Cuba Gooding, Jr. was also miscast.

Which was a shame because the others were terrific.

Nothing to contribute, just popping in to say how great this thread is.

R30/R51, I got it and I thought your whole comment was hilarious. And I laughed again when I saw the replies from people not understanding the joke.

The Debt.

The young David is played by Sam Worthington. The old David is played by Ciarán Hinds.

The young Stephan is played by Marton Csokas. The old Stephan is played by Tom Wilkinson.

Either the young David and Stephan, or the old David and Stephan, should have been swapped. I have watched this movie 5-6 times, and I still get confused during the flashbacks and flashforwards.

[quote]Totally agree. I eventually warmed to Schwimmer, but cringed entirely thru Travolta's performance. Cuba Gooding, Jr. was also miscast.

[quote]Which was a shame because the others were terrific.

I watched that when it first aired on FX and enjoyed it back despite Travolta and Cuba being miscast. A couple of months back, I was browsing through Netflix and saw the show on there and decided to try a rewatch and it was hard to get through some of the Travolta and Gooding scenes. Travolta didn't deserve an Emmy nomination for that show.

R70 +1

Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher. Totally miscast because he's the complete opposite of how the character in the books is described. Especially that he's tall which, um, Tom Cruise isn't. Whoever cast him in that role should've been fired.

Kiernan Shipka (Sally Draper) in Bette and Joan as Bette Davis' daughter. She simply can't act, and it was perplexing that the casting director didn't notice this. I wondered what Susan Sarandon was thinking in their scenes together.

Pal, who played Lassie, was miscast because he was a male and they should have cast a female to play her. Plus, he almost always indicated before raising his paw.

Meryl Streep in "Heartburn"

[quote] David Scwhimmer as Robert Kardasin

"Juice!"

Ruth Buzzi as the lead in Sophie's Choice

R79 I had a cat named Sophie for many years and I always wanted to develop a cat food called "Sophie's Choice"--"Take the salmon!"

Jennifer Aniston in any film. She's a good television actress, or at least good in Friends, but she doesn't have the range for films. Even the couple of films she wasn't that bad in, were just that... not as bad as usual.

The dog who played Astro Jetson. Good boy, but he chewed the scenery, and his speech impediment bugged.

R81: She wasn't good in that either and only got that because Lisa Whelchel wanted to be a church lady bearding her closeted pastor then-husband.

Helen Lawson as Lady Godiva. And she supposedly flashed beaver to the crew getting on and off the horse.

I think most of the 70's TV shows were miscast. Or maybe decent actors didn't want to get mired in TeeVee.

The networks were just throwing stuff against the wall and hoping it would stick. They had no idea what would turn out to be a mega-hit.

I mean would you have cast Gil Gerard as Buck Rogers?

Paul Lynde on The Paul Lynde show. Married? With kids. Anyway does anyone know what building it is that he walks out of in the opening credits?

Cameron Diaz in 'Gangs of New York.' Completely ruined the movie, and that accent....

R86, they also changed the opening. Instead of having his briefcase open, it originally had a pigeon shit on his windshield.

[quote] I think most of the 70's TV shows were miscast. Or maybe decent actors didn't want to get mired in TeeVee.

Considering the commercials of the era had John Huston selling TVs, John Houseman selling cooking oil (while doing both [italic]Silver Spoons[/italic] and [italic]The Paper Chase[/italic]), Lauren Bacall and Margaret Hamilton selling coffee, and Carol Channing selling kitty litter, I don't think that was a consideration.

Meryl Streep in August Osage County. The role was much more suited to Susan Sarandon; Streep never manages to drop her classy manners entirely; the character should have been more trashy. As for Alice - the movie was much darker and dramatic than the sitcom; it was a lighter version, not terribly funny but not offensive either.

Violet should have been played by Melissa Leo or Dale Dickey, R90. Either of those ladies would have knocked it out of the park.

Continuing in a Southern vein, I can't stand Mark Wahlberg in anything, but casting him as Arkansas redneck Bob Lee Swagger in Shooter, the adaptation of Point of Origin , ruined a great character and probably torpedoed any chance of the series getting picked up for a franchise. That part screamed for Barry Pepper or McConaghey, or a young Scott Glenn.

And speaking of Glenn, probably the worst casting ever was Travolta and Debra Winger as Texans in Urban Cowboy. They weren't bad considering, but years ago I read an article describingng the casting process and found that Jeff Bridges and Sissy Spacek were the original first choices of the director, till Travolta got a hold of the script and expressed interest. He was the biggest star in the world at the time, so that was the end of it for Bridges. It's still a classic in a time capsule kind of way, but with Bridges and Spacek as Bud and Sissy, it might have become a classic of another kind, on the order of The Last Picture Show or The Rain People, as opposed to the slightly campy popcorn classic it is.

Has anyone mentioned Lucy in Mame and Barbra in Dolly? Or that Lucy might have been a perfectly fine Dolly?

Lucy actually would have been a pretty great Dolly. I bet she could have kept up with that score and she'd have been hysterically funny. Barbra could have done Mame instead.

Streep was beyond miscast in August. She should have really been ashamed of taking that role away from another actress who could have really knocked it out of the park. Streep just can't play common and trashy very well. I could picture Ellen Burstyn, Diane Ladd, Grace Zabriskie, Sissy Spacek, or Jessica Lange doing a much better job with that character.

△△△Diane Ladd would have been awesome.

John Wayne as Genghis Khan in THE CONQUEROR.

Angelina Jolie as Colin Farrels mother in ALEXANDER. She was supposed to be ancient Macedonian or some such. But had an accent like a modern Hungarian gypsy tea leaf reader.

[quote]Barbra could have done Mame instead.

Or she could have just done them both.

Yeah, I can just hear the Upson's line: "Some smart Jew layer outbid us."

If WB really didn't want to cast Angela Lansbury like they should have then it should have been Doris Day or Ann-Margret.

But despite it covering up some pretty horrific child abuse, Lucy was genuinely good in [italic]Yours, Mine, and Ours[/italic]. Did the filming schedule overlap with [italic]Dolly[/italic] at all, or its with her TV show?

Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour

R98 Ann-Margret would have been marvelous and Roger Smith could have continued the line by playing Beau.

I was oddly attracted to Vic Tayback.

Keanu Reeves in Much Ado About Nothing. Absolutely baffling.

Thomas Haden Church in Divorce. I was willing to watch it to see how Sarah Jessica Parker played her part, but I could not get past that guy's awful acting. He made the show unwatchable. (Sarah Jessica's fillers didn't help either.)

[quote]Streep just can't play common and trashy very well.

As Ricki and the Flash will attest. Even though the movie was probably written so she could play the role, Meryl was still miscast. Awful movie all around.

[quote]As for Alice - the movie was much darker and dramatic than the sitcom; it was a lighter version, not terribly funny but not offensive either.

It was offensive in that it wasn't funny at all, and the acting was terrible. I'm amazed how many people continue to slip in a defense that that awful sitcom.

R65, I don’t understand it myself but there were/are women who found Montand attractive. My mom thought he was sexy, but then she also liked Charles Bronson. I guess she liked ‘craggy’

Kate Winslet in TITANIC. 'Rose' is a suppose to be a slip of a girl. Winslet not only looked like a model for LANE BRYANT but seemed tough enough that I think she would have taken Billy Zane's 'Cal' OUT for raisig a hand to her. DiCaprio just looks like a boy doing man parts.

on family guy peter and lois ran into kate winslet and lois says oh, look it's kate winslet!

and Peter says no, silly, that's Phillip seymour hoffman! Phillip seymour hoffman!

Tom Hanks. In anything. Most overrated actor in human history.

R104. Have you ever seen Silkwood? One of if not her best performance.

Barbra would have been very miscast as Mame. Mame is upper class, Upper East Side WASP. It's what makes her outrageous behavior especially funny and the difference between how she initially presents and how she really is defines the character. Nobody would bat an eye at a sassy Jewish girl pulling those shenanigans. (It's also why Mame can't get a good revival or a satisfactory film. That whole milieu has disappeared and today's audience couldn't get the nuance or the context. Just us old queens.)

Luke Null is another dude bro.

Jessica Pare (Megan) on Mad Men. Bad acting, wrong look and persona for the role, lisp-y baby voice. Ruined every scene she was in, and nearly ruined the show for me.

January Jones (Betty Draper) had that lisping baby voice, too. I doubt that women in the 60's talked like that, but Matthew Weiner cast Mad Men with quite a few actresses who do. It was irritating.

January Jones as Betty Draper was one of the most perfect castings in TV history. She can't play anything else bet she was perfect as Betty. God I hated Jessica Pare.

I agree with R3 about Streep in Postcards from the Edge. She just didn’t look right for an LA chick. She was also miscast in Heartburn as a Jewish Nora Ephron and Silkwood as a white trash Oklahoman. Mike Nichols worshipped the ground she walked on so didn’t care if she wasn’t right for his projects.

In Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, a character plainly based on Kristin Chenoweth was played by...Sarah Paulson.

Bless her heart.

When Jessica Pare got the bigger role on Mad Men I couldn't understand why Matthew Weiner decided to sabotage such a good show. I wonder if the rest of the cast felt the same. Ridiculous casting.

Those teef.

Agree with R66 and R76.

The pig they cast to play Arnold Ziffel on Green Acres was a total scene hog.

most miscast actors on Guiding Light were John Bolger, Tobey Poser, and Marj Dusay and Daniel Pilon.

When Grant came back in the mid 90s, he must have gotten whiplash looking at all the new faces.

R102, I remember reading that Branagh only cast Keanu to get him in leather pants and oiled up.

More like Branagh wanted to get IN Keanu's leather pants.

I don't blame him, hope he did get to sleep with Keanu because it is the only thing that justifies that casting.

During the initial run of Mad Men, I felt that Jessia Pare's performance as Megan really detracted from the show. Recently,however, I've been rewatching from the beginning, and the character and performance make a lot more sense. Megan's is Betty's polar opposite, and being with Megan doesn't make Don any less of an asshole than he was with Betty. Pare gives Megan a very earnest, sweet quality. She's not a genius. But for the function Megan's character performs, it's a fine performance.

Allison Brie is adorable, but as Trudy she looks about nineteen and is very girlish. It's a little weird in the later seasons when Pete ages so rapidly.

Matthew Weiner's son in Mad Men. I realize Glen was supposed to be a man-child whom Betty the woman-child could relate to, but he was just a bad actor. Wooden and stilted.

[quote]Woody Allen's ponytail in Scenes from a Mall.

Worst casting in film history!

I’m still impressed with how the inexplicable miscasting of Ryan Philippe among brilliant actors turns out halfway through Gosford Park to be perfect casting.

And I’ll keep insisting that casting directors and film directors very often cast roles based on actual personalities and attributes, and that’s how Kevin Spacey ended up in the Usual Suspects, American Beauty and House of Cards. People behind the cameras knew about the allegations of duplicity and pedophilia and sociopathy and put those attributes to work in his roles.

[quote]Jessica Pare (Megan) on Mad Men. Bad acting, wrong look and persona for the role, lisp-y baby voice. Ruined every scene she was in, and nearly ruined the show for me.

It was as if the creator decided, "The show's been very good; too good actually.. The audience doesn't deserve something to be this good for this long." Then he cast Jessica Pare as Meghan.

The creator of Mad Men, not the Creator, God.

Liza in Cabaret.

Sally was supposed to be a bad singer in a cheesy act.

In the stage version she was r130. In the film she was supposed to be someone with actual potential.

[quote]And I’ll keep insisting that casting directors and film directors very often cast roles based on actual personalities and attributes, and that’s how Kevin Spacey ended up in the Usual Suspects, American Beauty and House of Cards.

Disney did it, too, and that's why they cast Bill Cosby as the devil.

[quote]Claude Rains in Casablanca. If he can't drop his English accent to play a French man, cast someone else. Paul Henreid in Casablanca. If he can't act, cast someone who can.

Never heard these complaints before, LOL.

michelle williams in all the money in the world.

Brad Pitt

Jessica Lange in the movie Losing Isaiah. Why did she stoop so low to do what was the equivalent of a Lifetime or Hallmark movie? Production should have cast Judith Light and called it a day.

Damon Wayans in The Last Boy Scout (1991)

"Liza in Cabaret.

Sally was supposed to be a bad singer in a cheesy act."

And yet she would eventually grow into the role.

Mark Wahlberg is miscast in anything that isn't Boogie Nights.