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 !

ABoozedMoose, I agree about Olympia Dukakis as Anna Madrigal. I also think Laura Linney is perfect as Mary Anne Singleton.

@Disfordarkchocolate totally agree. None of the later Miss Marilee were a patch on Joan Hickson. They tried to hard to seem a bit airy fairy. JH does it perfectly abs was who Agatha Christie wanted to play her.
Also agree about Harriet Walter as Harriet Vane.

Suchet as Poirot, Brett and Hardwicke as Holmes and Watson, Fry and Laurie as Jeeves and Wooster, Joan Hickson as Miss Marple

Warren Clarke as Dalziel in Dalziel and Pascoe. If every an actor was tailor-made for a part, he was for this one.

Both Anthony Hopkins as Stevens and Emma Thompson as Miss Kenton in The Remains of the Day. I don’t think a more perfect film adaptation of a book exists.

Although, saying that about Hickson, she was 100% the Jane Marple of the later books, who was "fluffier". Although not popular at the time, Angela Lansbury's Miss Marple in the movie version of The Mirror Crack'd is spot on for the Jane Marple of the earlier books (Murder at the Vicarage, Body in the Library) who is described quite differently and is much more "Edwardian".

I think I'm one of the few people that doesn't think Ken Stott is Rebus. He's close to how I see Rebus in my head than John Hannah, but still not quite him. The thing is I don't know which actor is Rebus in my mind! So, I don't watch the TV adaptations and just read the books

Timothy Dalton as James Bond (not great movies but he was brilliant).
I love Redmayne as Scamander but he’s not exactly from the books - the writer of Fantastic Beasts doesn’t really have a sketched out personality.

Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser in Outlander

Definitely agree re Robin Ellis playing Ross Poldark! Aidan Turner was nothing like Ross.

A couple that are very definitely wrong - Douglas Henshall playing Jimmy Perez in Shetland. Jimmy Perez (as his name would suggest) is of Spanish origin, and is supposed to be olive-skinned and dark-haired!

The other one is Tom Cruise playing Jack Reacher. Completely and utterly wrong!

@TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross

Yes I thought Sharpe in the books had an Essex-y accent and dark hair?! Though Sean Bean was amazing but not as described.

I though Maggie Smith was great in HP but I did imagine her younger... she wasn't what I thought reading the books.

I like Kate Winslet in Sense and Sensibility but again I thought the character should be younger.

I promise I'm not ageist at all!!

Julie Walters is bang on as Mrs Weasley!

Yes Utred is good I agree - loved those books.

And Aragon is LOTR is brilliant and Galadriel too

Angelica Houston as the Grand High Witch

I'm still too scared to watch this film!! 🙈 traumatised from my childhood she is so bloody scary

Got to be Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser in Outlander. Had Read the books. Wasn’t sure about the programme watched first episode and his way of saying sassenach was just perfect.

Lily James as Natasha Rostova in War & Peace.

Brenda Blethyn as Mrs Bennet in the 2005 film version of P&P.

Samantha Morton as Morvern Callar.

temporary thanks for the warning about the DLS sequels! I will avoid.

The attitudes are certainly from a different age, but the novels draw me back again and again. Sayers had a screwed up life in so many ways, but she certainly hits the spot with her writing.

Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser 😍😍😍😍 he is just so gorgeous

Loved the Inspector Montalbano series, the characters were pretty much as I had pictured them

I loved the casting though it confuses me that in the books Mimi is considerably younger than both Salvo and Fazio and that isn't the case in the series. That said I still can't imagine anyone other than Cesare Bocci as Mimi. He embodies him so perfectly.

HATED Geraldine McEwan as Marple - Joan Hickson was perfect, and Julia McKenzie was also good.

Jonny Lee Miller surprised me by being perfect as Knightley in the BBC Emma remake.

Rosalind Pike was exactly as I thought Jane would be in P&P, much as I loved Susannah Harker.

Charlie Cox as Tristan Thorne in Stardust.

The entire cast of The Princess Bride.

Agree with most of the Potter and Discworld ones and would add Marc Warren as Jonathan Teatime in Hogfather.
And the voices of both Ian Richardson and Christopher Lee as Death, in the Discworld adaptations.
Christopher Lee should have played Merriman Lyon in that excrescence of an adaptation they did for the Dark is Rising... but then they should have made it properly with a British cast and set in the English countryside.
Apologies to Johnny Depp, but I think Gene Wilder was the epitome of Willy Wonka.

Yes to Tom Cruise as Lestat - he was an absolute revelation!

Nicholas Lyndhurst as Uriah Heep in David Copperfield.

Yes, definitely Tom Cruise as Lestat.

@Giggorata In my head, Great Uncle Merry is very much Tom Baker. And they’re too old now, but at the appropriate age, Simon was Thomas Brodie Sangster and Jane was Lucy Boynton.

Sherlock Holmes = 💙Jeremy Brett

Joan Hickson as Miss Marple

David Suchet as Poirot

David Jason as Frost

George Baker as Wexford and Christopher Ravenscroft as Mike Burden seemed to have walked straight out of the pages of Rendell's books