Films that should have had someone else in the lead role

[SecondClassReturnToDottinghamPlease]

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 always thought the younger boy in My Family would have made a brilliant Harry Potter, but he might have been a little old to cast as an 11 yr old.
Tom Felton/Draco was the best child in the whole thing throughout. He developed in a way that DR, RG and EW never did.

Yes, I was thinking earlier how Tom Felton was the best of all the child actors in the Harry Potter franchise, and he matured quite well too.

He is the wrong age for it, but Asa Butterfield aged 11 would have knocked the role of Harry right out of the park, and would have been able to carry it on into maturity too.

I came on to say Rosamund Pike in this! She was just not convincing as a character who could provoke obsessive love, or even embody the "cool girl" of the book. Apparently Reese Witherspoon could have had the role but thought she was wrong for it... I think she'd have been really interesting in it.

I thought Ben Affleck was pretty well cast though!

Not the lead, but I think Rupert Grint was the wrong Ron! I found him extremely goofy and irritating. I like Rupert Grint but not as Ron

The whole cast of Moulin Rouge! Terrible.

To be fair it is a terrible terrible film. Ewan and Nicole screeching through Come what may is just a noise that makes your ear bleed. I hate that film so much !

The Da Vinci Code: Robert Langdon shouldn't have been played by Tom Hanks.

I always thought Robert Sean Leonard would have been rather good.

Yes, it’s pretty horrible. Plus the camera jigging about makes me seasick. I mean, show me stuff, and if you don’t think it’s interesting enough, don’t try to distract me with fancy camera moves?

Distraction so you don't realise how awful it is !

I've never seen moulin rouge, sounds like it (along with some others) are more a case of 'actors who should have been in different films'.

Absolutely!

Moulin Rouge is worth is just for Jim Broadbent singing Like A Virgin.

The last duel. If anyone doesn't know it's set in medieval France.
Lead roles are Jodie Comer who is outstanding, naturally and acts the rest of the cast off the screen.
Adam driver who is ok but not quite believable in the role as a medieval knight but admittedly can act, and tones down his American accent.
Then we come to 'hinge and bracket' better known as Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. I can only imagine they are in the film because they are had a hand in production, got pissed one night and cast themselves. Affleck has bleached blond hair a terrible accent and can't act, and Damon is wooden with a not much better accent. They are both very uncomfortable to watch.
It's such a shame as the setting and story are good, and there are some good support actors. It could have been brilliant with different actors in the lead.

Daniel Craig had no business playing Lord Asriel. McAvoy was also all wrong for his character. Tbh in my head he looked like my secondary school English teacher and nobody else would do!

That reminds me I'm not a fan of the girl who plays Lyra in the TV Series, she's a great actress but she just isn't Lyra to me. The movie wasn't great but the actress nailed it completely and was exactly how I imagined her.

😁😅thanks for sharing @BeguilingEyes!

Agree with @Catsmere about Julie Andrews in MFL. Her singing in that role could not be beat.

@pastypirate I don't know, I thought Tilda Swinton was brilliant in that one.

@SecondClassReturnToDottinghamPlease Kate Winslet was perfect as Rose. The quintessential idealised hourglass figured Edwardian lady. I think she and LDC had brilliant chemistry too.

@SurvivingCPTSD no credit to me, that was another poster- I mentioned Rex Harrison.

Gambon as Dumbledore. Too shouty.

Emma Thompson as Trelawny. Feel like they shoe-horned her in, like they had no other decent parts for her as a great actress.

I was watching Goblet of Fire last night with DS, and Emma Watson’s bizarre vocal over-emphasis never ceases to amaze me.

Emma Watson’s diction bears the hallmarks of old-fashioned ‘elocution’ lessons or pre-1980s speech therapy. It used to be, before the age of easily available microphones, that you were encouraged to over-enunciate slightly so that you could get your words heard clearly from the back of the room. Stage acting also requires larger gestures and broader choreography than film acting.

To me, this says that Emma has never got out of junior stage school, never been taught how to act properly, and likely by now will not be receptive to the humility and hard graft required to learn it.

Fifty shades of grey, As much as I love Jamie Dornan from the minute I read the books I imagined ian Somerhalder as Christian grey, and for a while he was in contention…

@NumberFortyNorhamGardens in Alan Rickman's brilliant diaries he said that during Prisoner of Azkaban she sounded "Albanian."

@Lansonmaid I am shocked by that comment! I thought Sean Bean and Darragh O'Malley were brilliant. I know they had originally lined up Paul McGann, and had to replace him last-minute when he had an accident. Apparently Bernard Cornwell liked the portrayal so much that he wrote a backstory into the later novels to make him more SB-like.

I was disappointed that SB had to put on a posh accent in Goldeneye - that wasn't very successful.

I came on to mention Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings. Just dire.

(And I thought George Clooney was perfect in the Oceans films)

We shall have to agree to disagree ! It has spoiled the later Sharpe books in my humble opinion to have Sharpe talking like a Yorkshireman, but hey ho

Xanadu should definitely have had a different leading man.

Michael Beck couldn't sing and couldn't dance which is a pretty big failing for a leading man in a dance/musical film!