Films that should have had someone else in the lead role

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I've got The Beach on in the background, and having read the book before it came out I was never convinced by Leonardo Di Caprio as Richard. I seem to remember Danny Boyle wanted the part to go to Ewan McGregor, who I think would have been much better. But it was felt LDC was a bigger actor who would have made the film more successful. It made me wonder about other films which would have been different if another actor was the lead role. Anyone got any examples?

I agree Renee Zellweger was an awful choice for Bridget Jones. Why on earth would you cast a skinny Texan to play a plump Londoner???? I really hate when Brits are cast as Americans and Americans as Brits. Kate Winslet would've been much better.

Argh totally agree! And Ewan McGregor as Lumière!

Emma was auto tuned so badly, why oh why didn’t they pick an actress who could sing? She’s so wooden and imo too plain to play Belle.

I actually loved Lefou and Gaston though, Josh Gad was perfect. Such a shame. Emma Thompson also butchered the title song.

I read somewhere Clare Danes was up to play Rose in Titanic and I actually think it would have been quite an interesting casting, she and Leo didn’t get along when they made Romeo and Juliet apparently but I think there would have been more of a spark. I adore Kate Winslet and Titanic (makes me sob every time) but she and Leo just didn’t fit as a couple to me.

Agree wholeheartedly

Ryan Gosling slayed as Ken but I also think Zac Efron was born to play that role..

I can see why they picked him, he was perfect for the first film but he just didn't age into the part. I love Daniel Radcliffe though. Rupert Grint was the perfect Ron and while Emma Watson isn't my favourite actress I think she was a good Hermione.

I didn't like the actors who played lupin and Sirius, they should have been younger and Sirius should have been more handsome.

Diane Kruger in troy as well

I think he’s underrated in goofball comedy — I genuinely liked him in O Brother Where Art Thou?

But in other roles, all he seems to bring is a smirk. I just saw Ocean’s 11 recently, and literally all he does throughout is smirk in a suit.

Mel Gibson in.... every film with Mel Gibson in it.

That’s all he needs to do fans self 🥵

ann hathawy in devil wears prada love fim everyone else amazing but she drives me wrong. same in as catwomen in batman films.
agree with Emma Thompson for live beauty and the beast why didn't they ask the original Angela Lansbury ?
sorry disagree about George Clooney he can smirk and walk.about in suits in any film will still watch it 😉 and getting better with age

Jason Statham in anything. He can't act. He always plays the same roles.

I saw a video where Bob Odenkirk auditioned for the part of Michael Scott in the US office. Steve Carrell was perfect and fantastic of course, but I think Bob could’ve played it really well too. Adam Scott auditioned for Jim Halpert and I think he would’ve been a better Jim than John Krasinski. JK was just a touch too tall and handsome to sell the underdog persona.

I thought it should have been the late, great Helen McCrory. She would have been a perfect carry on from Clare Foy.

Well, it’s nice that it works for someone!

For me, George Clooney’s high point as an actor is shouting ‘I’M A DAPPER DAN MAN!’ And wearing a hairnet.

I agree Nicholas Cage isn't a great actor generally, but I really like him in Leaving Las Vegas. That sort of dead-pan, ironic thing he does all the time works well when he's playing an suicidal alcoholic!

Gone Girl. Should have been Reece Witherson

Michelle Williams in the Greatest Showman. Her singing is awful! It’s the weakest song in the film.

Lupin had been changing into a werewolf for 20 odd years every month, and Sirius had been in Askaban for 13 ..... I think they were both perfect, worn down by their experiences

Sirius was plenty handsome HOW RUDE😂

Michael Gambon as Dumbledore. Utterly ruined my favourite character. Richard Harris was better but it should have born played by Ian McKellen without a shadow of a doubt. I believe I once heard he turned it down as he didn't want to play another wizard after Gandalf.

Not a film but a show called The Reunion we watched recently on ITV3.

It had Dervla Kerwan and Rupert Graves as Ioan Gruffudd's parents?! They are so close in age - and look it too - that it was utterly ridiculous, I can't understand why they made that choice.

TV not film but Sean Bean as Sharpe and whoever played Patrick Harper. Just so wrong...Sharpe was supposed to be tall and dark and hail from London.
I haven't seen a decent adaptation of Bernard Cornwells books though.

I think both David Thewlis and Gary Oldman were brilliant. (Plus the producers seem to have ‘aged up’ all the adults of Harry’s parents’ generation, so I suppose they had to ‘match’ them. If you’d cast Alan Rickman as the most important classmate of Lily and James (in that he’s the most sustained character), I suppose they then had to cast the rest of that generation to match?)

I was watching Goblet of Fire last night with DS, and Emma Watson’s bizarre vocal over-emphasis never ceases to amaze me. She’s all strangulated and over-emphatic when the fake Moody asks her to explain why certain curses are ‘unforgivable’, fair enough, but she says ‘Wake up!’ repeatedly in exactly the same ‘high drama’ tone of voice to Ron and Harry at the Burrow, when they’re not escaping mortal danger, or late for Potions, they’re just going to the Quidditch World Cup!

Honestly, it’s as if she’s inhabiting one of those improv workshop exercises where one actor has been told they have to play a comic or ordinary scene as if they alone know the world is about to end, but they’re not allowed to tell the others or change any of the lines… Film Hermione seems to be inhabiting a different universe to most of the other characters, which is a shame as she’s easily the heroine of the entire novel series. Harry would have been dead before the end of the Philosopher’s Stone without her.

He'll always be Doug Ross for me!

The one that boggles me is the idea of the godawful ugly Tarantino being cast as Clooney's brother (Dusk till Dawn).