If I had been in charge of casting...!

This thread serves as a perfect companion piece to the last one.
Can you actually picture someone else stepping into a specific role in a movie?
Do you ever get that nagging feeling—just a gut instinct—that a different actor would have nailed a part much better?

I have plenty of thoughts swirling around, though I can only pull these few examples to the surface right now...

Take the film "One Night at McCool's" by Harald Zwart... It features quite an ensemble cast. Just to refresh everyone's memory on the plot, it’s a "Rashomon-style" tale about a dangerous woman—Mary Jo Smith—who systematically turns everyone from her husband to a police inspector into her lover.
Michael Douglas plays a bit of a pushover—quite the transformation—but then again, seeing as he played a gay inspector in that New York TV series, it isn't exactly out of left field. John Goodman plays the smitten inspector, while Matt Dillon portrays the naive, cowardly husband who seems terrified of everyone...

Personally, I feel like he isn't fully inhabiting the role—he seems a bit detached—and I think he would have been much more effective if they had gone with Dermot Mulroney.

In the movie "The Saint" by Phillip Noyce, it just wasn't Val Kilmer!

He completely did a disservice to such an iconic and noble character...😠

I know I'm going to get flak for this, but if I were cutting anyone from Leon, it would definitely be Gary Oldman. Man, that guy is just soooooooo much

I’ve been thinking about the various women Woody Allen has cast in his films over the last few decades—you know, the ones where he actually plays the lead role too:
Tea Leoni in Hollywood Ending
Elizabeth Berkeley in Jade Scorpion—which, hellooo? 😵 😵
Mira Sorvino in Mighty Aphrodite
...at least, those are the ones popping into my head right now.

It isn't necessarily that these actresses were given bad roles, per se, but rather that they just don't quite fit as partners for our dear neurotic friend. Don't you get the feeling that as Woody gets older, he's increasingly opting for younger, more conventionally "glamorous" women as his love interests? His partners in the earlier days—think Mia Farrow or Diane Keaton—worked so perfectly; their specific brand of neurosis complemented his own, making everything feel balanced. But this recent stuff...

I actually think it’s pretty great how he is who he is—just totally unapologetic about picking up women that a regular guy looking like him wouldn't stand a chance with. And honestly, Elizabeth Berkeley is solid; she was really good in 'Scorpio,' even if she's one of those actresses Hollywood loves to pick on.

Jose Chase2 said:I know people will argue, but I would absolutely cut Gary Oldman from Leon. But man, that movie is soooooooo good.👎

Arguments aside. Everyone in Leon is simply outstanding.

I’d swap Laurence Fishburne out for Chris Rock in The Matrix. It would’ve kept things from being so dead serious. 😁

Mel Gibson simply does not belong in Braveheart.

I have also observed that there has been a massive shift and a profound difference in his performances compared to his earlier roles.
It is almost as if the man has lost his grip on reality, appearing entirely unconvincing and caricatured, as though he is merely mocking everything he touches.

I can say with absolute certainty that in every single film produced following Deadly Weapon, Mel Gibson has been nothing short of catastrophic.

One of the most talked-about casting disasters lately—Richard Gere in First Knight. A total miss. I guess they were just too worried about having an all-British cast.

In one of his more recent films directed by Roman Polanski, Johnny Depp takes on the role of a scholar—sort of a modernized version of Indiana Jones.
They really had to crowd him with props, gluing on a mustache and beard—unless, of course, that was all his own...😉I honestly walked away with this feeling that they took Macaulay Culkin, dyed his hair, shoved him into a white wig, wrapped him in plastic, and then forced him to impersonate Orson Welles...
Someone else would have been much better suited for this part...

Sophia Williams said:In one of Roman Polanski's recent films, he cast Johnny Depp as this intellectual, somewhat sophisticated version of Indiana Jones.
Honestly? Someone else would have been a far better fit for that role.

If you ask me, it would’ve been better if Polanski hadn't filmed that absolute disaster ("The Ninth Gate") at all.🙂
And don't even get me started on his earlier misfires—stuff like "Cul-de-sac" or "Repulsion"...

brightscout63 said:Honestly, it’d be better if Tarantino had just never filmed that disaster ("The Ninth Gate"). 🙂

I remember thinking that movie was actually pretty solid at first. It had so much potential. Then the ending just falls apart into total nonsense. I don't even remember it anymore—basically scrubbed it from my brain. 😁