Actors who 100% embodied character from book

[NEtoN10]

I was just thinking today about book to film adaptations and actors who I thought 100% embodied the character as I imagined them.

For me Helena BC as Bellatrix Lestrange, Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort, the whole cast of Matilda!

Who does it for you? Interested to hear !

character who’s always cast wrong in the opposite direction is Harriet Smith from Emma.

Samantha Morton? images.app.goo.gl/R3JoWwBHhRL6g3Tz7

Yes I think it’s key to the characters that Ned and Robert were young men at the time of Robert’s Rebellion, no more than twenty years ago.

J K Simmons as J Jonah Jameson

Stephen Dillane was brilliant but he’s five years older than Mark Addy and looks it

I thought he was miscast . And I’m a big Dillane fan. Even as far as watching Goals and Goals 2

I think he would have made a better Ser Davos . No offence to the lovely Liam Cunningham

Tilda Swinton in Orlando

I really struggled with the idea of Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka, until I saw it and realised he was better than the version he in my head.
I don’t know the name of the actress but the Netflix remake of Anne of Green Gables is amazing, too.

A lot of Potter casting is fantastic, but Lupin IS my old, twinkly chemistry teacher and no actor could ever improve on him.

I agree with @thecatsthecats Gary Oldman wasn't handsome or sexy enough to play Sirius (I was really disappointed Sirius is my favourite HP character).

I also wasn't keen on David Thewlis as Lupin and I don't think Emma Watson was Hermione as she is described in the books. But loved Richard Harris as the original Dumbledore.

Bertie Carvel and Eddie Marsan as Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Absolutely perfect casting. In fact the whole cast were amazingly well chosen.

Oh yes, Carvel & Marsan as Strange and Norrell. And Ariyon Bakare as Stephen Black, and Enzo Cilenti as Childermass

I was in so much trepidation before seeing that... and it was just marvellous!

Brenda BLethyn as Vera, is how I imagine her. Love the books and the series.

Definitely NOT Titus Welliver as Harry Bosch and ABSOLUTELY not Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher ...so sorry - should be on a different thread !

Does the rubbish accent not put you off @0ellenbrody0

^im not 100% sure what it should sound like! So it doesn’t really bother me. 😀

Paul Bettany as Silas in da Vinci code. Mind you I love Paul Bettany and think he is one of the most underrated actors out there

You are very lucky @0ellenbrody0, it's laughably bad but she is a very good actress.

Anton Rodgers as Ukridge (showing my age here).

I think the Harriet Smith casting always suffers the same problem as Pride and Prejudice and Little Women, because there's a sort of unwritten rule that the heroine has to be prettier than the supporting female characters even if the story says otherwise. So it's very unusual to actually see Meg outshine Jo, or Jane look stunning in comparison to Lizzy - at most, they tend to give the "plain" character an edgier sort of beauty which tends to actually be more striking than the conventional prettiness of the beautiful character.

I watched Vera once and i couldn't get past the awful accent, I don't know how inaccurate it is but the way Blethyn kept slipping in and out of it really grated on me. Someone upthread said that Jennifer Ehle is too pretty to play Elizabeth Bennet, Lizzy is described as 'very pretty' in the book.

* So it's very unusual to actually see ...* Jane look stunning in comparison to Lizzy

They managed it with the 2005 P&P, with Rosamund Pike and Kiera Knightly!

Lizzie is meant to be pretty, it's just that Jane is meant to be strikingly beautiful.

And to be fair to Susannah Harker (BBC version), she probably captured the beauty of the day quite well. If anyone's familiar with the Mitford sisters, Diana was the renowned beauty, but by modern standards, some of the other sisters are much more attractive.

Alec Guinness as George Smiley.

Jason Isaacs as Jackson Brodie.
Oh yes definitely.