The Oscars on Sunday celebrated great pairings of actor and role. But what happens when casting goes wrong? We asked readers to vote on memorable mismatches of recent years, and you had thoughts!
A panel of film writers and editors at The Times selected 14 roles we felt were filled by the wrong star, and we asked you to rank our choices by voting them up or down. It quickly became apparent that there were two winners (losers?). That would be Ben Platt in “Dear Evan Hansen,” and, ahem, the panel itself.
More than 41,000 of you agreed with us that Platt’s casting (at age 27) as a high school senior was a clear misstep. Only 3,700 or so readers disagreed. After “Dear Evan Hansen,” readers considered “The Town” and Blake Lively, with her changeable Boston accent, the No. 2 worst pairing on our list. Nearly 35,000 of you agreed with us while fewer than 9,000 disagreed. And at No. 3 was the entire ensemble from “House of Gucci,” each doing their own thing with no regard for the others. A little over 30,000 readers agreed with us, while some 9,100 disagreed.
At No. 4 was Tom Hanks in “Elvis”; No. 5 was Michelle Yeoh in the “Wicked” movies; No. 6, Tom Cruise in “Interview With the Vampire”; No. 7, Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz in “Gangs of New York”; No. 8, Paul Mescal in “Gladiator II”; No. 9, Daisy Edgar-Jones in “Twisters”; and No. 10, Rami Malek in “Nuremberg.”
For those films, the gap between agreeing with us and disagreeing was roughly 10,000 to 20,000 votes. But as readers made their way down the list, that narrowed. At No. 12, about 19,500 readers concurred with us that the pairing of Jack Black and “King Kong” didn’t work, but 15,500 thought it did. The same went for Robert Pattinson in “Die My Love” at No. 13 (some 15,000 vs. a little over 11,300).
Then came controversial No. 14. Readers overwhelmingly disagreed with our choice to include Matthew McConaughey as a NASA pilot turned farmer in “Interstellar.” Our argument was that he seemed lost in the role, but you roasted us in the comments, accusing us of, among other things, slander and blasphemy. Far from miscasting, you said, this was a perfect marriage of actor and part in an all-time great movie. More than 38,000 readers voted the suggestion down; only 15,800 or so agreed with us.
(We probably should have guessed at this outcome because last year “Interstellar,” directed by Christopher Nolan, landed at No. 89 in our experts’ poll of the best films of the 21st century; when readers took the poll, they ranked it No. 5.)
The anti-panel vitriol grew quite heated in the comments (hey, we could take it), but the discussion soon evolved into a wide-ranging one, with more than 1,500 readers namechecking hundreds of examples of miscasting in recent years and throughout cinema history. Just about every star in Hollywood has haters, apparently. The choices broke down into a few categories:
Fan Favorites (in a Bad Way)
Probably commenters’ most disliked casting was Tom Cruise as the titular action hero in “Jack Reacher” (2012). Even at the time, the choice wasn’t considered great because the actor didn’t physically resemble the mountain of a man described in Lee Child’s novels.
Other popular targets of commenters’ ire included Russell Crowe as Inspector Javert in “Les Misérables” (2012), the main critique being his singing voice; Kevin Costner in “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” (1991); Jack Black in “The Holiday” (2006); and Sofia Coppola in “The Godfather Part III” (1990), which is often cited as the most egregious example of miscasting there is.
Established Stars in the Wrong Roles
Tom Hanks as a Wall Street mover and shaker in “Bonfire of the Vanities” (1990) made our commenters very unhappy, but they also had problems with his casting in several other movies, including (shocking to us) “A League of Their Own” (1992).
Similarly, commenters would never have hired Meryl Streep for “Sophie’s Choice” (1982), Diane Keaton for “The Godfather” (1972) or Meg Ryan for “You’ve Got Mail” (1998). While they may have loved McConaughey in “Interstellar,” that was definitely not the case for him in “Contact” (1997). And don’t get them started on Jack Nicholson in “The Departed” (2006) or “The Shining” (no, that wasn’t Stephen King in the comments.)
Breakouts That Didn’t Work
Our commenters didn’t feel kindly toward performers at major turning points, like Jennifer Lawrence in “The Hunger Games” (2012), Gwyneth Paltrow in “Shakespeare in Love” (1998), Robin Williams in “Dead Poets Society” (1989) or Cillian Murphy in “Oppenheimer” (2024).
Ensembles That Didn’t Work
Much like the “House of Gucci” vote, entire films came in for scorn, especially the ensembles for “The Irishman” (2020), “Wicked” (2024) and, again, “The Shining.”
There was also a subset of nominations for duos that didn’t mesh. Commenters had nothing good to say about Streep and Clint Eastwood in “The Bridges of Madison County” (1995), Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard in the recent “Jurassic World” movies, and especially Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi in the new “Wuthering Heights.”
Historic Missteps
Reader memories are long, and several midcentury stars came in for hazing, beginning with a hall-of-famer (if there were one for bad movie decisions): Mickey Rooney as Audrey Hepburn’s Japanese neighbor in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (1961), a what-were-they-thinking choice if ever there was one. Commenters also called out John Wayne as Genghis Khan in “The Conqueror” (1956), with his cowboy cadence unchanged, and Edward G. Robinson as the antagonist Dathan in “The Ten Commandments.” Rest assured, though, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart and Bette Davis all had their detractors.
The post How Readers Voted on Miscast Roles in the Movies appeared first on New York Times.
