Right Star, Wrong Movie
By Garrett Socol

 

The quirky comedy Office Space wasn’t a box office success when it was released in 1999, but through the years it justifiably garnered cult status. Written and directed by Mike Judge, the movie focuses on a disgruntled computer programmer who can’t stand his boring job, not to mention his intolerable boss, so he devises a clever (and illegal) way to take advantage of the company. The leading role is played by Ron Livingston who co-starred in the 1996 movie Swingers. (He later played Berger in a handful of episodes of Sex and the City.) Livingston, a good actor, delivers a decent performance in Office Space, hitting all the right notes, but he doesn’t make the material soar. Take a minute to imagine Owen Wilson in the role. With his beach-bum looks and mischievous boy-man personality, Wilson was born to play this part. He wasn’t a star in 1999, so chances are he wasn’t even considered. But if the timing had been right, Wilson would have been beyond great, and the movie might have taken flight to become a major comedy hit.

Casting can make or break a movie. If an actor is completely wrong for an important role, a film can crumble faster than a sand castle in a windstorm. If you were casting the role of an uneducated female janitor, Nicole Kidman wouldn’t come to mind unless you were in some kind of altered state. But that’s precisely what she plays in The Human Stain opposite Anthony Hopkins as a professor who appears to be white but turns out to be black. As in African American. Sir Anthony Hopkins. This was just about the oddest case of double casting in recent film history.

Author Anne Rice publicly complained about the casting of Tom Cruise in the film version of Interview With The Vampire. Then she famously withdrew her complaint after she saw the finished film, claiming she liked the performance. Not everyone agreed, but at least Cruise changed one mind. No minds were changed after The Bonfire of the Vanities was released. On paper, Tom Hanks seemed wrong to play WASP millionaire bond trader Sherman McCoy, and the completed film confirmed this hunch. It bombed as badly as Jay Leno at 10 PM.

After playing Batman in Batman & Robin, George Clooney jokingly said he almost killed the franchise. But other actors might have massacred it with even bloodier results. The list of leading men who were considered to play Batman includes Bill Murray, Joshua Jackson, Ashton Kutcher and Henry Cavill. Henry Cavill? Huh? Well, he happened to be author Stephenie Meyer’s first choice to play Edward Cullin in the Twilight series, but at 25 he was too old to play the teenage vampire. He was too young to play James Bond (after being seriously considered) so Daniel Craig landed the part. He was practically handed the title role in Superman Returns, but when a new director was brought in, Brandon Routh donned the Superman suit. This poor Brit must feel like the fifth Beatle, but don’t count him out just yet. The charismatic Cavill has a few good years left.

It’s well known that Tom Selleck was the first choice to play Indiana Jones on the big screen, but his small screen shooting schedule on Magnum, P.I. prevented him from doing the movie. Grant Show (star of the TV series Melrose Place) was offered the part in Thelma & Louise that made Brad Pitt a star. Unfortunately, he was set to shoot a tiny part in a Jackie Collins mini-series and couldn’t get out of that commitment. Along with readers of great literature, he probably wishes Joan’s sister had never been born.

Anne Hathaway got the best reviews of her career as well as her first Oscar nomination for Rachel Getting Married. She gives an excellent, fearless performance, but that’s what it is: a performance. The joy of truly great acting is having a performer transport us into a world in which they are the character. Hathaway doesn’t become this rehabilitated drug addict the way Judy Davis became Judy Garland or Charlize Theron became serial killer Aileen Wuornos. Hathaway is basically miscast. Debra Winger (who plays her mother in the film) would have been ideal in the role if the movie had been made twenty years ago.

Meryl Streep can usually do no wrong. But in 2005, she took a rare wrong turn playing a middle-aged Jewish mother and psychiatrist in Prime. On the surface she does all the right things, but none of it is believable. Legendary film critic Pauline Kael thought of Streep as a great technician. In her review of Silkwood, she wrote that Streep imitates raunchiness meticulously but the fire, the passion underneath is missing. I think Kael would have warmed up to Streep in her later roles (she retired from The New Yorker in 1991), but she certainly would have slammed her in Prime. Even our most revered, most Oscar-nominated actress proves that miscasting can kill a movie.

It must be hard to turn down all the money and attention that comes with starring in a big budget studio flick, but that’s what agents and managers are for: to advise their clients. Unfortunately, sometimes these behind-the-scenes people only see dollar signs. Barbra Streisand in Hello, Dolly is just plain wrong (she admitted this herself), and Lucille Ball in Mame, well, the movie stops in its tracks when she sings. Her voice sounds like a bad case of strep throat. These two films (plus Clint Eastwood’s anemic warbling in Paint Your Wagon) helped cause the big screen musical to wither and die for several decades.

It’s rare, but casting against type occasionally pays off. When it was announced that Drew Barrymore would play Little Edie in HBO’s version of Grey Gardens, some thought this piece of casting would be the film’s kiss of death. But Drew proved the skeptics wrong by giving a shockingly good performance. Nothing in her arsenal had prepared audiences for this phenomenal turn opposite the brilliant Jessica Lange as Big Edie. When awards season came along, Jessica won the Emmy, but Drew took home the Golden Globe and the Screen Actors Guild award. This sharing of the honors seemed exactly right.

Then there’s something called “stunt casting” in which an actor is given a role to garner media attention: Elizabeth Taylor in The Flintstones. Mia Farrow in the 2006 remake of The Omen playing a Satan-worshipping nanny (after starring in Rosemary’s Baby where she gave birth to Satan’s child). John Travolta in Hairspray. It’s fun watching Travolta up to a point, but the movie (as entertaining as it is) loses something because of this risky move. There isn’t a moment when the Saturday Night Fever/Pulp Fiction star isn’t peeking through the fat suit. Imagine Bette Midler in the role; she would have been Edna Turnblad. Sure, the part has always been played by a man in drag (onstage as well as in the earlier, John Waters nonmusical version), but c’mon, Bette is as close to a man in drag as a gal can get. Also in the 2007 Hairspray, Michelle Pfeiffer does her best as the bitchy station manager, but she’s not an actress for whom comedy comes naturally. Picture Jennifer Coolidge in the part. All this aging blonde bombshell has to do is show up and she’s funny.

Flash back to the 1990 set of The Godfather Part III. Winona Ryder dropped out of the film for health reasons, so to play the role of Michael Corleone’s daughter, 19-year-old Sofia Coppola was hired. In addition to having the Coppola name, this neophyte actress had, well…not much of anything, and her performance is flat and lifeless. Sofia wisely decided to step behind the camera and found success as a director.

Pacino, of course, is the perfect Michael Corleone. Can you imagine blue-eyed blond Robert Redford playing the hot-blooded Italian? Believe it or not, he was considered for the role in the original Godfather. He was also considered for the title role in The Graduate. He turned down the James Caan part in Misery as well as the Richard Gere role in Unfaithful.

Gwyneth Paltrow turned down Titanic. Molly Ringwald said no to Pretty Woman. Jeff Bridges passed on Jaws (the Richard Dreyfuss role). Not only did Julia Roberts turn down The Blind Side, she passed on Sleepless in Seattle and While You Were Sleeping, but she doesn’t shy away from all films that allude to sleep. After all, she starred in Sleeping With the Enemy in 1991, and five years later she put audiences to sleep in Mary Reilly. Will Smith walked away from the role of Neo in The Matrix (immortalized by Keanu Reeves). Smith would have been great, and David Duchovny (who was in the running) might’ve been decent, but how about Kevin Costner? Hard to believe, but the man who danced with wolves was actually considered for the part. As was Lou Diamond Phillips.

The 2004 remake (and unfortunate “updating”) of The Stepford Wives is a disaster on so many levels. Since Ira Levin’s book was published and the film version was made in 1975, there’s been a distinct image of a Stepford wife in our culture. She looks a certain way, dresses in a certain style. Let’s face it: she’s basically a sex doll. No matter how talented these actresses are, Bette Midler and Glenn Close (cast in the remake) are not Stepford wives. Period.

And finally, a bit of trivia you’ll never need to know. Remember those cute little von Trapp kids in The Sound of Music? According to the website notstarring.com, the following actors auditioned but were turned down: Kurt Russell, Mia Farrow, Kim Darby, Patty Duke. So much rejection so early in life.

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