Reddit Asks: "What's your favorite casting that you initially thought was wrong?"

[stewie_e]

"I couldn't get over the fact that the leading guy was the weirdo with the boards from Love Actually." https://t.co/RAVePZMFkN
- BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) September 3, 2023

Reddit asked r/popculturechat, "What's your favorite casting that you initially thought was wrong?" Here are 5 of BuzzFeed's picks...

1. Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise in It

Comments

[euraylie]

I’m addition to Heath, Tom Cruise as Lestat. But they of course both nailed their respective roles

[josiefier]

Tom was arguably born to play Lestat. I know none of us could have imagined it then, but that remains his best performance

[januarysix]

I really wish we had gotten a Vampire Lestat movie with Tom.

[euraylie]

Omg teen me so hoped at the time

[josiefier]

We were robbed. That's all I can say. Especially if I could have had my Lestat/Interviewer fantasy come to life. As it is I'm also mad I didn't get my Marius/David continuation after Queen of the Damned. Like, why do the best pairings appear in the final scenes?

[lucifersam]

it's tied with magnolia for me

[screamingintune]

if he had taken on more roles like Magnolia instead of becoming Scientology Action Man we would be arguing over his best role. PT Anderson cast him as a scary dude and I feel like it resonated a little too much and he over-corrected for the rest of his career

[genbu_no_miko24]

I remember when Heath was cast everyone went "????" cause he was too much of a pretty boy for the role. But when the first teaser trailer got released and we got a sneak peak of the joker laugh I was like "oh he's gonna kill it". Mark Hamill has always been thee joker for me cause of the laugh but if you got the laugh down then you got the Joker.

Lestat's casting always cracks me up cause Anne Rice was vehemently AGAINST Tom's casting lol. I think I heard in her mind she had envisioned someone like Julian Sands (RIP) for the role. Daniel Day-Lewis too and he was actually approached and offered the role but he was already really method for his role in In the Name of the Father so he said no.

Either way Tom did good cause Anne later took out an ad where she publicly apologized for being against his casting and praised his performance.

[euraylie]

Yes, I remember all of this! I was one of Heath’s naysayers, although I’d liked him in A Knight’s Tale and Brokeback. Fans went mental over the choice

The casting director for IwtV must’ve had the third eye lol … I also wonder what made Tom think he could take on the role (plus, he did have a lot of gay rumours at the time, if I remember correctly, and still went with this rather homoerotic role)

[nigelwitthebrie]

“The casting director for IwtV must’ve had the third eye lol”

It was Susie Figgis who was the casting director. She really had an eye for casting. Her last known Hollywood gig was for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, but left Hollywood for good cuz she didn’t like how Chris Columbus were directing the children in that movie.

[genbu_no_miko24]

What'd she say about his directing?

[nigelwitthebrie]

Columbus wanted Daniel Radcliffe for the role from the start, after seeing him in the BBC's 1999 adaptation of David Copperfield. But Radcliffe's parents were unsure at first.

“After an appeal on BBC's Newsround, they saw a whopping 40,000 kids. Casting director Susie Figgis reportedly quit over frustrations with Columbus and an American casting director coming onboard to extend the search stateside.

"I feel I have done my absolute best to find a child and during our search we've met some great kids," Figgis told the Daily Mail. "Ultimately, it's the director's point of view and vision."

From what I read it was more of the frustration and lack of structure when it came to casting calls. Susie Figgis auditioned 40,000 kids, only for Chris Columbus got what he wanted by signing Daniel Radcliffe at last.

[euraylie]

Her casting for HP was pretty spot on (except that all the first generation were aged up by at least a decade..I guess to match Alan Rickman, who was fantastic of course). And Chris Columbus’s directing was really uninspired. I would’ve liked to have seen Terry Gilliam ‘s take

[blahblahcakes64]

but left Hollywood for good cuz she didn’t like how Chris Columbus were directing the children in that movie.

This is quite shocking to read considering Columbus is well known for being great with kids on set and hating stage parents, etc. (He started "casting" parents as well as kids after working with the Culkins, who were, of course, awful parents.) What was her concern?

[nigelwitthebrie]

I think it had more to do how he was so disorganized with the casting calls. He initially wanted Daniel Radcliffe when he spotted him on a bbc show, but since his parents were reluctant, he made Susie do a nationwide casting call for the role of Harry Potter alone. She saw 40,000 auditions and just when she thought she found the right Harry, Chris signed Daniel to the movie.

If he did that to me, I would be crying tears of frustrations.

[mixtape_reverie]

Yeah it sounds more like he put her thru the ringer and she was over it.