(no subject)

[tellshannon815]

Who was the worst-cast actor in a show or movie? (Not necessarily a bad actor - just wrong for the role.).

In the situation I'm thinking of, I'm not sure I can say it's a case of bad casting in the moment, more a case of not knowing how the storyline was going to pan out/writers making it up as they go along without a real plan (something this show is always getting accused of!) The real issue is the age of the character versus the age of the actor.

I am referring to Ethan Rom from Lost.

William Mapother was born in 1965, making him 39 at the time he started filming that role in 2004. At the time when the character first appeared, that was a non-issue - Ethan's age hadn't come up as a plot point in season 1, so I guess if anyone thought about it at all, it would have been assumed that the character was somewhere in that age range. So far, so no big deal. Flashbacks are shown with him in 2004 and 2001, his age still not an issue. Then in season 5, canon confirms his birthdate as July 1977, making him 27 when he dies. So we have an actor who is clearly much older than his character, can't easily pass for 27.

At the time of casting, I honestly don't think it mattered how old the character was; I suspect they hadn't planned at that point to go back to DHARMA era and to have Juliet (who also didn't exist as a character at the time) be present at the birth of someone she had known. And the fact is, there wasn't a prominent Other of the right age for anyone else to have taken that role; Tom, Goodwin, Danny, Colleen, Mikhail, Bea and Richard were all also too old, Karl too young, the circumstances of Alex's birth already known. There were some random Others who didn't appear that much who would have worked in terms of age, but wouldn't have worked in terms of fan reaction - while Juliet, who had known them, might have reacted to the name when Amy said it if such a character had been chosen, to a lot of fans it would have been a case of "Who's So and so again?" So I think the writers were kind of stuck, had to pick *someone* the fans would know, but then found themselves with a character too young for the actor.

On a similar note, something I've been thinking about recently is the issue of child actors ageing. For something like Once Upon a Time, where the seasons spanned several months, the character Henry was ageing at the same rate as the actor, so it was a non issue, but there have been other examples of the actor ageing out of the role.

Avoiding spoilers, but some of you will know who I mean:

Show A: Character was written out by having him escape, did make some appearances where he was shot at odd angles to try and disguise his height, appearance in a flash forward scene.

Show B: Character killed off. It wasn't feasible in this case to have this character move away anywhere. With a clearly confirmed time of characters being stranded and no confirmed time of shooting even without the strike, there was always the likelihood of this actor ageing out of the role. I don't actually think killing the character was always the plan - when the extremely persistent and annoying "Character A from the present is really Character B from the past!" was doing the rounds, the producers admitted they had considered it, then gave a different reason for scrapping it, so I'm not sure they thought of it initially. However, if they had decided to pursue that, there was:

Option C: Recast with a younger actor.

Just curious, what do people think is the best way of handling that issue: to recast, or write out the character?

(I'm seriously already wondering how From will handle this with Ethan Matthews.)

Comments

[senmut]

I do prefer recasting, but I had Bewitched as my prime example of switching actors midstream, granted with an adult character, to inform my tastes. And all the soap operas on Day Time TV.

Worst casting of an actor to a role is harder for me to pinpoint. I mean, the actor that was playing Mat in Wheel of Time didn't seem to be forming the right chemistry with the rest of the cast, but for whatever reasons, he was replaced for the upcoming season. I don't do the books, so I can't say if it was poor casting to the role, or just actor differences throwing me that vibe.

I've got some actors I never gel to no matter the role, but I honestly cannot think of a role where I feel like a different actor would have made much of a difference.

[tellshannon815]

Wheel of Time is on my list to watch, so ask me again about this Mat person after I've seen it! As for doing the books and poor casting to a role, I know I've heard Mum several times on TV adaptations of police series books saying things like "So and so is not Character X!"

[ilyena_sylph]

On the topic of age...

I love him in the role, but Tom Welling as Clark Kent in Smallville.

I was supposed to believe that that 24-year-old gentleman was a 14-year-old boy? Are you kidding me, casting? Like, just, what.

[shadowkat]

Except, with few exceptions, most of the teens in these shows are in their 20s. It has to do with child labor laws. Very few of the actors playing teens, if any, are actual teens. No one in Smallville was a teenager, they were all in their 20s. In Buffy? Only teens in that show - were well Buffy (Gellar was 17 or 18 at the beginning - playing 15/16, Dusku was 17, and Trachenberg 14 but everyone else was over 24). Beverly Hills 90210? Luke Perry was playing a teen at the age of 30.

Vampire Diaries? They were all in their twenties when they were in high school - it's why they pushed them out so fast.

Very few teen shows actually have teens cast in them.

[ilyena_sylph]

Yeah, I know, but Tom was very, very adult even in the first season. He stayed young-looking through the show, which is amazing, but it's just... wow.

[shadowkat]

It may have been deliberate though? They may have wanted him to come across as more adult, bigger, etc than the others?

[svgurl]

Yeah, all those high school shows especially set around the 2000s had actors who were older. I've always thought that part of the reason was that these shows had all these teenagers having sex and they felt better about them looking older.

As far as Smallville goes, I believe Allison Mack, Kristin Kreuk and Sam Jones (who played Pete) were all 18 when the show started but that's as young as it got.

[ilyena_sylph]

Yeah, that makes sense.

I have a personal theory that the explosion of shows that cast adults as teens is responsible for a shitton of body-image-fuckery/trauma/disorder in teenagers today, but that's a bit off the topic.

Yeeah, which did not help with having Clark look so very... Off.

[svgurl]

I agree with you regarding the body image issues. A lot of teens were probably disappointed/frustrated at not looking like these characters not realizing that no, teens are not supposed to look like that in the first place. Out of curiosity, I wanted to see how old John Travolta was in Grease (because he is someone who also stands out as not looking the right age) and apparently he was also 24 (probably 23 when filming) so it has been an issue for a long time.

I think they had an episode with Lana in her underwear in s1? That would not fly if the actress was under 18. And Clark was shirtless a lot too.

Even as recent as "Never Have I Ever", I believe one of the actors was in his late twenties playing a high schooler. He ended the show in his first year of college but I think he was already in his early 30s at that point.

[shadowkat]

Not just in teens today. The teen shows in pretty much most of the 1980s-1990s had twenty-thirty-somethings. I'd gotten used to it. And also people did get screwed up by it. The movies were just as bad. We had twenty-something actors playing teenagers in the films. Ferris Bueller's Day Off? The leads were in their late 20s, early 30s. Breakfast Club? Everyone was in their 20s. They weren't child actors.

This was also true for much of the films in the 70s and far earlier.

Judy Garland was in her 20s when she played Dorothy Gale in Wizard of OZ (who is supposed to be 14 years of age).

[shadowkat]

It had nothing to do with the sex - although that could be a factor, it's just cheaper to have eighteen and above play the parts. Everyone under 18 has to have a parent or guardian on set with them, time off for school or a paid tutor on set, and can't work more than a specific number of hours daily. Kids are expensive, tough to work around, and its really hard to find good professional child actors.

Remember they had 22 episodes and it was broadcast network television. Now? They have maybe 6-10 episodes, and it's on streaming. It's easier to high teens for streaming shows.

On Smallville, I looked it up, you're correct Mack and Kruek were about 18 and 19, Welling was 24 and Luther was 29, but he was supposed to be older. It's kind of similar to what they did with Buffy - when the show premiered and they were all in high school?

[tellshannon815]

The other classic one there is Riverdale. I remember when it first started, to me Cole Sprouse was "Ben from Friends" and it seemed strange to me to think of him being in his twenties - that was in 2017, and by that point I was so used to teens in shows being played by 20 something actors that I pretty much rolled with it. Then came the decision to send all the characters back to 1950s high school for the final season, so the show ended up with 16 year olds played by a bunch of 30 somethings.

[ilyena_sylph]

OH yiiiiiiiiiiiiikes.

[shadowkat]

They had 30 somethings playing teens in the final season? Oh that's hilarious. Also so 90210. In the 20th century - teen shows were mainly made up of 20 somethings and often thirty-somethings. (Charmed, 90210, Dawson's Creek, One Tree Hill, etc.)

[svgurl]

They really wanted him too! Didn't he turn the role down twice? I love him too and he did a good job of making "young" expressions but yeah, he looked way too old for the part.

I do wonder if there would've been more sympathy towards his character had he looked closer to 15 - I feel like people are harsher on his decisions, especially in dealing with Lex because they look so close to the same age when they're not supposed to be.

[tellshannon815]

I just Googled that, and Michael Rosenbaum is apparently five years older than Tom Welling. I can't remember thinking much of it when I binged Smallville about five years ago though.

[svgurl]

Clark and Lex were supposed to be about 6/7 years apart. I knew there was a small age gap between Welling and Rosenbaum too, but I think they were both at the life stage where they didn't look it. Meanwhile, Justin Hartley and Tom Welling are actually the same age - only months apart even, and of course Oliver is supposed to be the same age as Lex.

[ilyena_sylph]

I think you're right, they did, and he did such a good job of making 'young' expressions and convincingly portraying teenaged angst, but. He really did.

I think you're absolutely right that his looking so adult was one of the reasons people were super harsh towards how he handled things when they might not have if he had actually looked younger than.... anyone. At all.

[tellshannon815]

I know it's pretty common to have, say, a 24 year old playing a 17 year old, but when the character's meant to be 14, it's a bit much difference.

[ilyena_sylph]

Yeah it is common and there are fair legal reasons for it, but while I could have bought sixteen (with some effort, I was seventeen in 2001 and Clark did not look at all like anyone around me), I just.

I could not even as a teen believe that he was supposed to be three years younger than me. At all.

[seleneheart]

I think a bullet was dodged when Stuart Townsend was originally cast as Aragorn.

[tellshannon815]

I had totally forgotten about that! I did know he had been cast, but I can't really picture anyone other than Viggo in the role now.

[shadowkat]

I watch daytime soap operas - they recast for every reason under the sun. They recently recast not one but two actresses, who'd been in the show since 2010, much to fan dismay and confusion. Well, one made sense - she drove drunk the wrong way on a major interstate in Southern California.

Also, we SORAS on soaps - which is basically Soap Opera Rapidly Aging Syndrome. They recast a younger actor with a hot older one - so they can do a hot teen storyline.

And I watch Doctor Who - which also recasts on a dime. So I'm used to recasts. It kind of goes with the territory for long running serials...that have been on the air since the 1960s.

That said? It is disruptive and jarring, and even more so for non-soap operas. Prime Time Shows like LOST, I'm not certain it works for?

In soaps, they often recast if they have the wrong actor (but again they do it for just about any reason they can come up with). I have seen prime time shows do it - but usually they will either kill off or write out the character, and bring in a new one. (This happened with a John Ritter sitcom, he died, and they brought in James Garner to play the Grandfather and take over the show.) And I've seen them do it with a lot of police procedurals. Usually doesn't happen with shows that have a lead. But it has - Roseanne is a prime example. They killed off Roseanne (because the actress kept getting herself into all sorts of trouble) and renamed/rebooted the series as The Connors.

Child actors? I've seen all three - in soaps and prime time. What works best is killing off or writing them out, unless the character is central to the plot, then recasting may become necessary.
But it is really hard to recast without jarring an audience, particularly with lead characters. Audiences are more willing to handwave minor character recasts, but not lead or major characters, and the longer an actor is with the series the harder it is to recast.

Example? They'd have had to kill off Buffy - in order to do the show without her. And possibly rename the series. Fans still won't accept another actress playing that role. Same with the other characters in that series. Recasts weren't possible. Now, if they were playing a monster under loads of makeup? Not a problem.

LOST - would have been easier to do recasts, because so many characters plus the sci-fi angle. (It's easier to do with fantasy and sci-fi series). But they just killed off characters or threw them off the island. (I listened to and read a chapter from Burn it All Down - which went into depth on what was happening behind the scenes on Lost. That was a toxic show.)

[tellshannon815]

In the UK, when I was about 18, we very briefly had Days of our Lives showing, and I remember, for example, a character called Philip Kiriakis who was presented as a high school student at that point (this was 2000) - I was trying to make sense of some of the family relationships on that show at the time, and was surprised to find out that he was supposed to have been born in 1995.

What usually happens over here with children in soap operas is that they'll use a child actor much the same age that the character's meant to be initially, and then when the character gets to about age 13, it's quite common to recast with an older actor for the purpose of more mature storylines (the character's still 13, but played by a 17 year old actor). But someone born in 1995 would never be in high school in 2000 on a UK soap opera.

The recasting thing with a new lead for police shows does happen over here as well.

[shadowkat]

They change the birth dates on soaps to fit whatever storyline they want to plug. But as a viewer you realize it is not probable and in some cases so improbable it is laughable. I'm watching a soap now - in which I watched a kid get born on screen around 2003, but they changed his birth date to 1995. Which is impossible, because they parents didn't meet until 1999, (also his mother wasn't even on the show until 1996) and his older brother wasn't born until 1997 (another father - and two years before she met this kid's father).

Long-time soap viewers just handwave ages or laugh at them. I've seen them de-age characters on soaps, a character should be say 45, but with a new actor, they become 35.

Also they often have a situation in which the people playing the parents are say, two-three years older, than the actor playing their son or daughter.

To make matters worse? In this same soap? They changed the ages of all the kids born on screen.

Josslyn was born in 2009 - she's now 20. (LOL!)
Spencer was born in 2006 - he's now 21
Cameron was born in 2004 - he's now 20 (he actually is the only who is the right age)
Molly was born in 2005 and is now being played by a woman who is 39, married and having a kid by a surrogate, also working as an ADA. She's older than all of them.

Logic kind of gets thrown out the window when it comes to soaps.

They start out trying to use a child actor who would be the same age as the kid in the soap, and to the extent possible try to stick with that child actor as long as possible.

[desdemonaspace]

Ethan Rom gave me the creeps. Not sure it's William Mapother's fault, but when I look at him I try to see resemblance to his cousin, Tom Cruise (whom I dislike, and perhaps it rubs off on poor William.)

I thought Diane Keaton was miscast as Kay Corleone in the Godfather movies, especially the first one. In my mind, she's primarily a comedienne, and I expected to see her start mugging in her serious scenes with Michael. Maybe it's just me.

[tellshannon815]

I think what perhaps doesn't help there is that quite a lot was made of the fact that he and Tom Cruise are cousins, and even now so many years on I've seen it sometimes in Lost Faceboook groups where someone will say "Did you know that Ethan is Tom Cruise's cousin?"

[meridian_rose]

It is a problem and along with rules on how long child actors can work compared to adults, might be a reason most 'high school' characters are played by actors in their late teens/20s.
"Locke and Key" had their youngest child visibly growing up over the 3 seasons and since the show did have a few time jumps it just about worked.
I'm partway through 'from' s2 and Ethan already looks much older. Maybe they can handwave it with the mysticism!
I'm not keen on recasting. I can't think of any examples where it worked well off the top of my head. In a sci-fi or fantasy show you might get away with it easier as in Dr Who. Temporary body swaps, odd clones, evil not quite twins, magical mishaps etc. My nephew watched "Worst Witch" for a while and didn't mind they changed one girl (with alleged magic gone wrong) as she looked quite similar and she wasn't his fave but when they changed the main character he got bored with the show and stopped watching, so I think he feels the same!

[tellshannon815]

I know there's been a lot of speculation with From about time travel being involved somewhere - so far it's not been obvious (I'm thinking of the conversation between Marielle and Kristi where Marielle said that Kristi had been missing for six months, and Kristi didn't contradict her, suggesting that time does so far pass at the same rate in the town as outside). Ethan could be handwaved with the mysticism, maybe there will be some kind of time jump there as well.

Do you remember that "comedy" My Hero from ages ago? I never really liked it before Ardal O'Hanlon got replaced but the shite plot devices around explaining the recasting just irritated me.

[meridian_rose]

With a show like From anything is possible!
I don't remember the My Hero recast, I only watched the first couple of seasons I think with O'Hanlon but wiki says " after George lost his body in a bet" and that just sounds weird!

[geeklover80]

Like others, I watch a lot of soaps, so I'm used to recasts - though less often with Primetime shows. I'm also not a huge fan of MCD, so I probably would have preferred if Show B had just recast, though I understand why they went another way. I think if it makes story sense, getting rid of the character is fine.

Stacey

[tellshannon815]

For that particular show, yes it did make some story sense to kill off that character, although I do think recasting him would have been an option. By the end of season 2, his ageing was definitely noticeable, and the producers have a 5 season plan, so assuming that's what gets made, it would have looked out of place by the end, so he would have had to have been recast to be plausible in any way for the age the character was.

[svgurl]

I know recasting can be hit or miss but sometimes, it is the best option. I never watched How I Met Your Mother but they did film the ending right away because the kids would get too old and well, that ended badly for them, from what I've heard. But I think they learned their lesson and are careful not to show them in How I Met Your Father, at least according to my sister who watches.

[tellshannon815]

I've seen very little of How I Met Your Father, so hadn't really thought much of the lack of seeing kids there, but the ending of HIMYM sucked.

[swingandswirl]

Belatedly, I have to go with Alan Rickman as Severus Snape, on two levels. First because the charactwr in the books is in his early 30s if you go by JKR's (admittedly atrocious) math, and there's just no way. Which takes away from the tragedy of Harry's parents dying as young as they did, especially since all the other actors, including Gary Oldman, David Thewlis, and the actors who played James and Lily were all too old as well. But I'm singling out Rickman because casting him made Snape sexy, which has led to some truly atrocious fic (not to mention the Snapewives) over the years. Snape is not supposed to be sexy, people!

[tellshannon815]

I saw the first film before I ever read any of the books, so at that point I'm pretty sure I didn't know how old the character was meant to be and just rolled with it, and was only conscious of it later on, but once I did know, it did bug me.

[rogueslayer452]

The main reason why I haven't watched Good Omens is because the casting off Crowley and Aziraphale is just off to me. I love the book, so perhaps I just have my own vision of what the characters are supposed to look like. I'm usually more lenient when it comes to casting because it's about an actor's portrayal of the character more than their physical appearance. They are good actors, and they may even be good in those respective roles, but I just cannot get over how wrong it is, personally.

Another example are the adults in Harry Potter, as there's been debates among fans about how miscast they were. Clearly the chosen actors are veteran British actors who wanted to be part of the franchise, which is understandable, but they certainly weren't the ages of the characters from the books.

When it comes to child actors, it's quite a tricky situation. It's obviously known that child actors aren't going to remain like that forever, so there needs to be planning ahead of how to handle them as time goes on. To go with the Harry Potter example again, it was smart of them to cast the kids as the actual ages they would've been for the first movie and continued on filming each installment so they kept being around the same age as the characters. Otherwise you're going to have a situation like Stranger Things where there is going to be time skips because these kids are going to be well into young adulthood by the time they reach a certain point.

Just curious, what do people think is the best way of handling that issue: to recast, or write out the character?

Recasting can also be a tricky thing, although sometimes it is necessary if the character is an important factor to the story where killing them off or writing them out ("putting them on the bus") isn't that much of an option. But even then, it can depend on the circumstances involved, so it's really hard to say.

[tellshannon815]

Good Omens is on my list to watch and I haven't read the book, so no preconceived ideas on that specific one, but I know I've often heard Mum say, when watching a TV adaptation of a book series she's already read, "So and so is NOT Character X!"

In the example I was talking about, putting that character on the bus wasn't really an option (the show was Yellowjackets, the characters have been long since confirmed to have been stranded for 19 months, timeline of filming unknown but the ageing of the actor was becoming noticeable already in season 2, so it was a choice of kill off or recast the character). If the producers had gone ahead with one idea for the character's future (a very popular fan theory which they debunked but admitted to having considered), it would have got to the point where he'd have to have been recast - they did give a different reason for not pursuing that story, but I did wonder if the age of the actor had played a role in that.