What is the Worst Casting in Movie History?

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Can you come up with a more inappropriate movie casting?

Apropos of the fact that Lost in Showbiz sat through an entire Colin Farrell movie last night - this is what we call a "news peg" - you are hereby invited to participate in a time-wasting Monday afternoon game.

The majestic addition to the Farrell oeuvre was called The Recruit, and saw Colin cast as a CIA agent. Seriously. Farrell at the Agency: insert your snarky joke about why no one foresaw 9/11 here.

The game, then, aims to identify the most hilariously inappropriate casting in movie history. Let's call it Casting Directors on Crack.

I shall kick off with something from the minor leagues - namely, Nicole Kidman really inhabiting the role of a brain surgeon in Days of Thunder. I will then challenge anyone - ANY LIVING SOUL - to top the casting of Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist in The World Is Not Enough.

Players, good luck to you all.

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Agreeing with the comments section:
Kevin Costner as Robin Hood in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
Ryan O'Neill in Barry Lyndon
John Wayne as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror
Keanu Reeves in anything after Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

I will also add:
Rob Morrow in Quiz Show
Jamel Debbouze, a one-handed actor, playing a soldier in Days of Glory (Indigènes )
Luke Wilson in anything

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Type: Discussion • Score: 37 • Views: 8,338 • Replies: 87

I have to say i really try to avoid type casting until I see the movie. Most of the time, I am not suprised because people are naturally good at either comedy or drama or whatever and moving outside of that comfort zone usually don't work for them.

However, sometimes it does.

I don't think Keanu is really that bad of an actor. I think he did a great job in the Matrix movies.

And why was Colin so bad in the Recruit? I liked the movie. Maybe Al just carried it. *shrug*

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Cormac McCarthy's novel, All the Pretty Horses, was a coming-of-age story centering on the love affair between a sixteen year-old American boy and the fourteen year-old daughter of a Mexican aristocrat.

In the movie version thirty year-old Matt Damon and twenty-seven year-old Penelope Cruz played the teenage lovers.

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Branaugh's Much Ado About Nothing cast Denzel Washington and Keanu
Reeves as the brothers Don Pedro and Don John. As a bonus, Michael Keaton
was horrendous as Dogberry.

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Kevin Costner as almost anyone in just about any movie.

To that i'd add Mel Gibson as William Wallace, which topped his previously, seemingly "un-toppably" inappropriate casting as Fletcher Christian in Bounty.

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Jennifer Lopez in anything.

Sly Stallone in anything besides Rocky (and in the most recent Rocky trying to portray a boxer at his age is a joke.)

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everybody in all the star wars prequels, but especially hayden christensen, lets face it the scripts were awful, but the acting was atrocious

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@joefromchicago,

Back in 1967, at first Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate (orig), met with a lot of movie industry and consumer resistance. That got blown away by the perfomance of the decades, IMHO. someone back then could have considered that miscast by that day's standards. He was not the typical or an "appropriate" leading man based on movies of that timeframe. Thank heavens Mike Nichols blazed a cinematic trail in so many ways.

But more on the point of this topic, though ...I think Nicolas Cage in the current movie "Bangkok Dangerous". YIKES he's badly cast and the movie is bad, too.

Madonna - cast in ANY movie - is badly cast.

1 Reply

@djjd62,

djjd62 wrote:

everybody in all the star wars prequels, but especially hayden christensen, lets face it the scripts were awful, but the acting was atrocious

+5, he was horrible

Cycloptichorn

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Kevin Costner as almost anyone in just about any movie.

I think Costner and Keanu Reeves have the same range as actors: they can play only one character -- themselves. It should be added, thought, that they play that character extremely well. Sometimes that works (Costner in Bull Durham, Reeves in B&T's EA). Mostly, it doesn't.

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Dick van Dyke as the cockney chimney sweep in Mary Poppins

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Kevin Costner as almost anyone in just about any movie.

To that i'd add Mel Gibson as William Wallace, which topped his previously, seemingly "un-toppably" inappropriate casting as Fletcher Christian in Bounty.

I know a lot of people felt Mel Gibson was unconvincing as a Scotsman. But look at him now - an alcoholic racist...

1 Reply

I have to disagree about Jennifer Lopez. Her acting for me is always a pleasant surprise. She was adorable and funny in The Wedding Planner, the same for Maid in Manhattan. And I never saw the movie with her and George Clooney but I can recall the fine reviews she received. She's no Madonna. And that's a good thing.

As far as Kevin Costner, I will agree that there isn't a whole lot of range but did anyone see Three Thousand Miles to Graceland?

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@lmur,

Yeah, but that's reality, that's not a role he's playing.

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Willem Dafoe as Jesus in "The Last Temptation of Christ."

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@joefromchicago,

Quote:

I think Costner and Keanu Reeves have the same range as actors: they can play only one character -- themselves.

I hadn't thought of Reeves in that respect, mostly because i wouldn't know him if he came up to me and bit me in the ass. I've long thought exactly that about Costner, however. I loved the line in Robin Hood: Men in Tights in which Cary Elwes says: "Because, unlike some other Robin Hoods, I can speak with an English accent."

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Dick Van Dyck as a cockney in Mary Poppins. There's a Christian film in which Cliff Richards plays a cynical drug dealer.
Bedtime for Bonzo: the Americans elected the stupid one as president

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

I hadn't thought of Reeves in that respect, mostly because i wouldn't know him if he came up to me and bit me in the ass.

I'm sure, however, you'd remember him from that point forward.

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@Fountofwisdom,

Fountofwisdom wrote:

Bedtime for Bonzo: the Americans elected the stupid one as president

Although he starred in Bedtime for Bonzo, Reagan, to his credit, refused to appear in the sequel, Bonzo Goes to College. He reportedly found the notion of a chimp attending college just too implausible. He obviously never knew George W. Bush during his Yale years.

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The only person who is worse than playing anything than kevin cosner is Harrison Ford in anything.

My God, the only role I every saw Ford in that captured him was "Regarding Henry". You know, the one where he survives being shot in the head but has brain damage?

He did what he does in every movie....stands there with his mouth half open and a blank look on his face. I always expect him to start drooling any second.

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What is the Worst Casting in Movie History?

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