Mis-casting: Which actor did you feel did NOT best represent the book character?

[chipmonkey]

Mine are:

Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart
Winona Ryder as Jo from Little Women ( she did a nice job but I wouldn't have cast her!)

Any one that Colin Firth plays.

I have just found this thread in the backlist, I totally disagree with theperson who said everyone in Pride and Prejudice EVER! Colin Firth is just totally Mr Darcy! There will never be anyone better! Keira Knightly however was PANTS as Elizabeth!
Everyone in LOTR was miscast except maybe Elijah, and definately Ian Mckellan. He is a fantastic Gandalf EXCEPT when he keeps saying Morrrrrdorrrrrr! Agree with Antonio Banderas as Armand in IWAV, and Gart Oldman as Sirius Black. My personal favourite miscast, is Lucy in the BBC version of TLTWATW! since when was Lucy short fat and goofy? (and being all of those myself, I am allowed to ask!)

Haven't read this whole thread so apologies if it's already been mentioned, but I suddenly remembered those Inspector Lynley things on the Beeb (OK, I have low tastes!)and feeling at the casting of petite, fine-boned, distinctly lovely-looking Sharon Small as DS Havers - who, in the original novels, is described as having a face like the back end of a bus, to put it politely. WTF was that about? And no, dressing her in shapeless cardis and old parkas wasn't enough to disguise the fact that she was grossly miscast. Why must they do this? Bizarre.

Oh, and here's another vote for Kevin Spacey in 'The Shipping News'. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

Much as I love Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption, he was completely not the Red in my head. For a start, the book character was called Red because he was a Red headed Irish Man!
Agree with Leo de C in The Beach. Awful awful awful.
And whoever mentioned The Time Travellers wife, it was dreadful. Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana Failed to convince me of their one true love. And every time Eric Bana opened his mouth, I heard "Voiceover man"-I expected him to finish every sentence with "coming to a cinema near you...."
Nicole Kidman in Cold Mountain is another one. Yikes. Woefuly miscast. All that slap too, she would have been considered no better than a prostitute with the amount of rouge they had on her.