Good Actors in Horribly Miscast Roles

Self | December 1, 2012 | PJ-Comix

[PJ-Comix]

Even good actors sometimes get horribly miscast in the wrong roles. The case most often cited is this first one in which John Wayne played an odd role for him...a Mongol warrior.

John Wayne: Miscast as Genghis Khan in "The Conqueror," the Duke had to utter lines like: "My blood says, take this Tartar woman."

Susan Hayward: Co-starring as the tartar woman love interest in "The Conqueror." Yeah, an Irish chick from Brooklyn as a Tartar woman on the Asian steppes. The closest thing about Hayward to a tartar is that she had a tart tongue.

Chuck Connors: Tall, blond, blue-eyed, Connors somehow was chosen to portray an Apache Indian barely five feet tall. Does not compute!

George Peppard: I really enjoyed watching "The Blue Max." My favorite aerial movie about WWI. However, one person just did not fit the role...George Peppard as Lt. Bruno Stachel. Peppard was simply too American to convincingly portray a German. Oh, and you don't have to be a German to portray a German since two English actors in the same movie were very convincing as German officers: James Mason and Jeremy Kemp.

Laurence Olivier: Yes, even actors at the top of the acting profession can be horribly miscast as Olivier was as General Douglas McArthur in "Inchon." Thankfully very few people have seen Olivier in his completely miscast role.

Leslie Howard: I recently saw "Gone With The Wind" again for the umpteenth time and noticed that Leslie Howard was quite long in the tooth to be playing the youthful Ashley Wilkes. And did Southern gentlemen talk with British accents?

Jimmy Stewart: Stewart was almost twice the age of the 25 year old Lindbergh when he flew solo across the Atlantic. Sorry, but mere hair dye does not make one convincingly youthful in "The Spirit of St. Louis." Actually, George Peppard would have been good in the role of Lindbergh...if he mastered Lindbergh's slightly sing-song upper Midwest accent.

Richard Burton: As Leon Trotsky in "The Assassination of Trotsky."

Charlton Heston: His miscasting in "A Touch of Evil" was so horrible that it was even referenced in "Ed Wood" when Wood ran into Orson Welles at a bar and after telling Welles about being forced to miscast roles, Welles replied: "Tell me about it. I'm supposed to do a thriller for Universal. They want Charlton Heston as a Mexican."

[waredbird]

Also a big Reacher fan. Not only am I disappointed with the Cruise casting, the trailer shows him in a remarkable driving scene. Reacher has no license and is a self described below average driver. And Child is happy with all this????

[Yaelle]

Ugh, robin Williams. You find yourself screaming at the screen, “No! Don’t take your shirt off! Don’t! Noooooo — ye gods!”

[oh8eleven]

Kevin Costner, Robin Hood.
Kevin Costner, any role he's ever played. He's never anyone but Kevin Costner.

[Popman]

John Travolta in Battlefield Earth.

That movie was SO BAD, can you even consider it was miscast...

The whole movie was miscast...could any actor be cast and not be a laughing stock...?

[CatherineofAragon]

Good points, actually, but that’s Hollywood.

[CatherineofAragon]

Seriously

[P.O.E.]

John Wayne as Centurion in the Greatest Story Ever Told. (actually not miscast, just weird hearing his characteristic drawl at Golgotha)

[CatherineofAragon]

$70K for suffering through that movie, in that costume....holy cow. I’m surprised he didn’t rate a higher salary than that.

[CatherineofAragon]

I will 2nd that, LOL.

[Robert DeLong]

My nomination goes to a movie that has not been released yet. At least I don't think it has been released yet.

Will never watch it, even if someone paid me big money.

Jane Fonda as former First Lady Nancy Reagan. Alan Rickman plays President Ronald Reagan in The Butler, filmed in New Orleans. Fonda reportedly appears in just a few scenes. The pic stars Forest Whitaker as White House butler Eugene Allen whose career spanned 34 years there. Director Lee Daniels adapted the screenplay with Danny Strong.

[Future Snake Eater]

The main problem with Williams' movies is that they all have nearly the exact same character arcs:

Wacky guy with wacky issues does wacky things. Stuffy person/people don't like it, and scowl a lot. Wackiness is halted. Wacky guy gives impassioned speech. Wackiness is continued through altered, slightly more subdued means. The day is more-or-less saved.

This arc worked in "Good Morning, Vietnam" but his subsequent 4,342 films that used the exact same meme got a bit boring.

[wtc911]

The ZARDOZ budget was only $1 million. It was a syfy indie.

[JoeProBono]

Rod Steiger In Oklahoma

Pore Jud Is Daid

[robowombat]

Olivier as the Mahdi was laughable.

“I am the Mahdi, the Expected One of God’

Hmm, that sounds like another actor in a dark face I know of.

[Gaffer]

Leonardo DiCaprio in any movie where he tries to play some kind of a macho man. He is a born and bred pussy.

[Fair Paul]

OJ Simpson as a LAPD Detective in “The Naked Gun.”

[hattend]

Jimmy Stewart got the role of Lindberg because he actively sought the role. He really wanted to play the part.

When TCM shows the movie this trivia is usually explained by Robert Osborne.

One of my favorite movies.

[RightOnline]

Well played. :)

[Robert DeLong]

Oops, guess I messed that up since Jane Fonda is NOT a good actress. Still a miscast though.

[sima_yi]

Rod Steiger In Oklahoma

The Winner!