Are There Truly Roles that You Can’t Recast?

[TheVileOne]

Captain Jack Sparrow for me.

 

[Peyton Westlake]

For all that is sacred & holy, please do not ever recast anyone from The Shawshank Redemption or Godfather 1 or 2.
My respect for Hollywood would be extremely low.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Keanu Reeves as Jack Traven & Johnny Utah

Heh, yeah and they sorta tried both. I know Jason Patric was technically playing a different character in Speed 2 but he was just a Traven knock-off. And the Point Break remake was horrendous.

 

[terry78]

I'm probably more of a pragmatic cynic in that I feel that everyone is replaceable job wise. But that doesn't mean the next person would do a good job.

 

[jmc]

The question always comes down whether and actor or actress becomes so identifiable with the part it effectively influences the audiences perception of who the character is. Look at someone like Huge Jackman as the first live action Wolverine, I feel really sorry for the guy who's job it is to come in after that because of how much Jackman was loved. That said, lets switch to Wonder Woman. Lynder Carter for the best part of 35 years was who people thought of as Wonder Woman. Now it's Gal Gadot who I would argue has surpassed Linda's interpretation. Although you could argue TV and films is different, but maybe the passage of time needs to be factored in. Every Bond was compared to Connery because the change of actor happened quite frequently. If Connery quit and they didn't do a Bond film for 20 years would he be as revered? Who knows.

 

[Peyton Westlake]

The question always comes down whether and actor or actress becomes so identifiable with the part it effectively influences the audiences perception of who the character is. Look at someone like Huge Jackman as the first live action Wolverine, I feel really sorry for the guy who's job it is to come in after that because of how much Jackman was loved. That said, lets switch to Wonder Woman. Lynder Carter for the best part of 35 years was who people thought of as Wonder Woman. Now it's Gal Gadot who I would argue has surpassed Linda's interpretation. Although you could argue TV and films is different, but maybe the passage of time needs to be factored in. Every Bond was compared to Connery because the change of actor happened quite frequently. If Connery quit and they didn't do a Bond film for 20 years would he be as revered? Who knows.

I think one more thing you should factor in ,but will be incredibly hard to do would be that everyone has their own personal take on it & personal thoughts on who & what they like.
To some people, a certain character is held dear in their hearts, & to others the same character on screen they could care less who portrays them.
I do think time has a factor, if a character has like a 10 year gap or more, I dont think the outcry would be too much a factor.
Also, I didnt know you know Mr. Jackman that well enough to call him Huge

 

[terry78]

 

[weezerspider]

I don't think any other shark than Bruce could play the shark in Jaws.

Seriously, I can't think of many outside of those already mentioned - maybe Brando in the Godfather?

DeNiro won an Oscar just two years later for playing the same character. Vito Corleone and Joker are the only two characters to have two Oscar winning performances. I get DeNiro is playing a younger Vito, but I have a hard time considering Vito “un-recastable” when there is a legitimate argument over who played him better.

I think there are films that shouldn’t be remade, but not characters. Keeping with the Vito situation, The Godfather as a whole series(well, the first two) cannot be touched and a remake would make all the characters seem like characters who can’t be recast, when in reality it’s the film that can’t be re-done.

I’d argue the same is true of Indiana Jones. As much as Ford is great, I’d argue Spielberg and Lucas are just as important to the character and an Indiana Jones film without them involved is just as useless as an Indiana Jones film without Ford.

 

[Hobgoblin]

I can see someone else as the T-800, but I doubt we'd have T2, if say, Cameron's original choice of Lance Henrickson was The Terminator.

And that's a role they seem immune to reboot casting for sure.

Arnold is the Terminator...but I’ve wanted to see Lance Hendrickson in the role from the moment I’d heard about it. He seems so much more fitting for an infiltration assassin.

 

[Fincher]

Arnold is the Terminator...but I’ve wanted to see Lance Hendrickson in the role from the moment I’d heard about it. He seems so much more fitting for an infiltration assassin.

True. What does a machine need big muscles for, anyway? It's favoring looking imposing over making sense, and personally I was more of a fan of Robert Patrick as the T-1000. Creepy m**********r.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Yeah, I always found it a little silly that Skynet’s solution to win the war was apparently to have an army of identical bodybuilders infiltrate the human resistance.

 

[terry78]

It was a very pulpy sci-fi decision on Cameron's part.

 

[Wheels]

Do we really want to live in world without Arnold as The Terminator? I don't really. We'd never have gotten those roles of him playing Joe American with no change in accent at all.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Do we really want to live in world without Arnold as The Terminator? I don't really. We'd never have gotten those roles of him playing Joe American with no change in accent at all.

Haha yeah, Arnold playing guys with names like “Ben Richards” will always be awesome.

 

[Fincher]

Come on now, Arnold is as American as apple strudel.

 

[Schlosser85]

Haha yeah, Arnold playing guys with names like “Ben Richards” will always be awesome.

Adam Gibson

Howard Langston

 

[Schlosser85]

Come on now, Arnold is as American as apple strudel.

It reminds me of Tommy Wiseau expecting people to believe he's from New Orleans.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Haha yeah. Also, I remember on Prison Break, they weirdly cast Karl Hungus as an Italian mobster.

 

[Deck Rickard]

So I’m bumping this thread since there’s been some debate about Luke Skywalker lately. I hesitate to say exactly why because some people might not know. But if the character were to appear again in future Star Wars films or TV shows, would you like to see a recast (Sebastian Stan is the clear favorite here) or would you prefer a deep fake Mark Hammill?

 

[terry78]

Nerds would take a deep fake over anyone new at this point but hey.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Nerds would take a deep fake over anyone new at this point but hey.

Yeah that’s so true lol.

 

[terry78]

You see the flak they got for Solo.

 

[MilkmanDan]

I'd pick Sebastian Stan. As good as the technology is at this point, I'd still find the alternative too distracting.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Yeah I feel like some of the deepfake stuff they’ve done recently is impressive but most of it has just been in short scenes. Doing that with a major character in a movie or TV show would be tough. Marvel did it well with Nick Fury in Captain Marvel but Sam Jackson also hasn’t aged all that much since the 90s so I think it was probably not to hard.

 

[Sawyer]

You see the flak they got for Solo.

And I still say the flak was unwarranted.