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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Aug 6, 2019 23:07:37 GMT
I'm not talking about cases where the performance is flat out bad or unconvincing, but instances where an actor or actress is merely "fine" or serviceable in a really great role that affords a bolder approach, and that a better actor would knock out of the park by digging deeper into.
What are some examples, and who would you pick to play those roles instead?
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Post by Viced on Aug 6, 2019 23:15:25 GMT
Liam Neeson in Silence.
Still can't believe how blah is performance was there.
The originally cast DDL certainly would have been better...
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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 6, 2019 23:26:38 GMT
Great thread topic.
I think Dustin Hoffman is an example here in Billy Bathgate - he's just ok and there are big showy actor-ish scenes too. I use it as an example of where he was starting to slip - he had played criminal types before and they were some of his best roles - Midnight Cowboy, Straight Time and he had done it by conceiving the roles as ways that matched a conception he had with the script - feral in Midnight Cowboy and trapped by circumstance with nothing to lose in Straight Time. Those 2 roles are spectacularly thought out.
But Billy Bathgate where you would have thought he had a greater and already drawn angle into it - a real life person of great fame and power to study his specific psychosis- he instead stopped thinking entirely and just comes off to me as uninteresting which Dutch Schulz was not. Plus it was directed by the guy who directed his first Oscar too (Robert Benton).
I'd have cast Tommy Lee Jones who had shown some mercurial acting smarts of this kind in The Executioner's Song as Gary Gilmore - that's a different thing but I think he might have come at it from a different, better angle.
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Post by stephen on Aug 6, 2019 23:45:38 GMT
I don't know if I'd call him "boring," per se . . . but I always thought Jaimz Woolvett really undersells what could've been a truly great role as the Schofield Kid in Unforgiven. He's not ruinous or anything, but I wonder what could've been with a River Phoenix type in that part.
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Post by getclutch on Aug 7, 2019 3:59:05 GMT
I admired both biography films on Steve Prefontaine. However, Donald Sutherland as Bill Bowerman just did nothing for me in Without Limits. R. Lee Ermey was far better as Bowerman in Prefontaine imo. Who would I pick in the role instead? No idea. Originally, film director Robert Towne, tried to purse Tommy Lee Jones/Harrison Ford for that role. Oh yeah, I would have preferred either of those two.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 7, 2019 12:17:30 GMT
Amy Adams in The Master.
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thomasjerome
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Post by thomasjerome on Aug 7, 2019 16:23:25 GMT
Bruce Willis in "Pulp Fiction". Always thought Butch could have been a more iconic character if Mickey Rourke or Matt Dillon would take the part.
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Post by Archie on Aug 7, 2019 16:25:51 GMT
Ben Affleck in The Town.
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Post by TerryMontana on Aug 7, 2019 17:01:47 GMT
Ben Affleck in everything!! (Sorry, I couldn't help it...)
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Aug 7, 2019 18:06:04 GMT
Nastassja Kinski in Tess. I like Kinski and she came to show in later films that she actually is charismatic and extremely talented, but I thought she was pretty flat and awkward here. To be fair no one in this cast was memorable or had much to do and the whole movie leaves something to be desired. Gorgeous to look at but stiff and bland. Polanski was off his game here.
Not sure how much a better lead would have improved the project since Polanski's adaptation was so scattershot, but Elizabeth McGovern would have brought so much more charisma to the role, preferably nailing a British accent (also missing from Kinski's performance).
You know what, even better. Anne-Louise Lambert.
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Post by countjohn on Aug 8, 2019 21:25:38 GMT
Ben Affleck in everything!! (Sorry, I couldn't help it...) Well, except when he doesn't get great roles. I liked Gone Girl but you've got to think of how much better it could have been with an actual good actor playing the lead.
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Post by TerryMontana on Aug 8, 2019 21:29:24 GMT
Ben Affleck in everything!! (Sorry, I couldn't help it...) Well, except when he doesn't get great roles. I liked Gone Girl but you've got to think of how much better it could have been with an actual good actor playing the lead. I like it too. It's just that I can't stand the guy.
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Post by countjohn on Aug 8, 2019 21:36:50 GMT
Well, except when he doesn't get great roles. I liked Gone Girl but you've got to think of how much better it could have been with an actual good actor playing the lead. I like it too. It's just that I can't stand the guy. I think that might have been part of why Fincher cast him (forget if this was after the nanny scandal). Aside from Affleck's acting ability, I would have wanted to cast somebody with a nice guy image like Matt Damon or Tom Hanks (although he might have been a little old at the time).
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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2019 21:48:04 GMT
Yeah, the film is fantastic but there're a good number of actresses I think could've done way more with the role. Adams is fine, but nothing more than serviceable. 1,000% second Neeson in Silence. Day-Lewis there, damn, what could've been. I'll add one that most on here probably wouldn't expect me to given my passion for Twin Peaks/The Return, but Chrysta Bell as Tamara Preston...eh. Preston could've been a really fascinating, entertaining character and instead we're left with someone who's just kinda there. You fucked up with that one, David.
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Post by cherry68 on Aug 8, 2019 21:48:39 GMT
I like it too. It's just that I can't stand the guy. I think that might have been part of why Fincher cast him (forget if this was after the nanny scandal). Aside from Affleck's acting ability, I would have wanted to cast somebody with a nice guy image like Matt Damon or Tom Hanks (although he might have been a little old at the time). Let's not forget his character had an affair with another girl . The audience didn't have to consider him a nice guy.
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Post by countjohn on Aug 9, 2019 1:06:09 GMT
I think that might have been part of why Fincher cast him (forget if this was after the nanny scandal). Aside from Affleck's acting ability, I would have wanted to cast somebody with a nice guy image like Matt Damon or Tom Hanks (although he might have been a little old at the time). Let's not forget his character had an affair with another girl . The audience didn't have to consider him a nice guy. Well that was my point. I think the dissonance of casting a guy who superficially seems like a wholesome family man would have made it a bigger blow for the audience and a better movie.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 27, 2024 22:11:33 GMT
I know it has its fans but I just rewatched In The Cut - and that movie is totally let down by - Meg Ryan - a not very good actress anyway - who got some prasie for that role but she shouldn't have - and psychologically there's A LOT going on in that character that's untapped and she seems just sort of clueless or flatly dim-witted She (almost) single-handely tanks the movie ........
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Post by franklin on Jan 28, 2024 0:08:10 GMT
Ben Affleck in everything!! (Sorry, I couldn't help it...) Except The Last Duel
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Post by stabcaesar on Jan 28, 2024 5:43:24 GMT
Timothy Bottoms in The Last Picture Show. He's not bad or anything but it's pretty clear that every single person in that cast acted circles around him.
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Post by Allenism on Jan 28, 2024 15:16:23 GMT
Amy Adams in most things, but notably The Master. Laura Dern was right frickin' there...
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Post by stabcaesar on Jan 28, 2024 15:23:34 GMT
Amy Adams in most things, but notably The Master. Laura Dern was right frickin' there... Laura Dern isn't pretty enough for the role tbh. Adams was the perfect choice.
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Post by stephen on Jan 28, 2024 15:46:54 GMT
Amy Adams in most things, but notably The Master. Laura Dern was right frickin' there... Laura Dern isn't pretty enough for the role tbh. Adams was the perfect choice. Laura Dern is gorgeous but that's beside the point here. Adams is the perfect choice for Peggy because she is so unassuming and seems very non-threatening, as the power behind the throne. It's why I feel Rosamund Pike's Amy Dunne doesn't work -- she's so obviously arch and evil that it gives away the ghost at the outset. Adams excels magnificently as the sort of Lady Macbeth-esque hausfrau who is the true manipulator, but who doesn't revel in it. (Also, I have the theory that Dern is playing one of Hoffman's "ex-wives" and is the actual mother of Elizabeth, as Ambyr Childers bears a striking resemblance to Dern.)
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Post by stephen on Jan 28, 2024 15:53:22 GMT
I'd like to throw Christian Bale as Dan Evans into the mix here from 3:10 to Yuma. Dan Evans on paper is a really good role -- a damaged Civil War veteran crippled and desperate for cash to save his family's farm and keep his sick child from dying. And he's squared off against a theatrically charismatic villain like Ben Wade (and his charmingly demonic aide-de-camp/admirer Charlie Prince). Russell Crowe gobbles up the Wade role with relish and Ben Foster's deliciously wicked as Prince, but Bale gives absolutely nothing to the proceedings as Evans. He's not actively bad or anything, but he's so low-energy throughout the whole movie and it frustrates me. There are great actors who could have taken the Evans role and made it work, but Bale was the wrong choice here.
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Post by stabcaesar on Jan 28, 2024 16:27:58 GMT
Laura Dern isn't pretty enough for the role tbh. Adams was the perfect choice. Laura Dern is gorgeous but that's beside the point here. Adams is the perfect choice for Peggy because she is so unassuming and seems very non-threatening, as the power behind the throne. It's why I feel Rosamund Pike's Amy Dunne doesn't work -- she's so obviously arch and evil that it gives away the ghost at the outset. Adams excels magnificently as the sort of Lady Macbeth-esque hausfrau who is the true manipulator, but who doesn't revel in it. (Also, I have the theory that Dern is playing one of Hoffman's "ex-wives" and is the actual mother of Elizabeth, as Ambyr Childers bears a striking resemblance to Dern.) I mean beauty is in the eyes of beholder. Amy Adams is conventionally prettier and more youthful-looking, which I think is what the role needs for the reason you are citing here. Another thing, Peggy is pregnant in the film and Laura Dern was already like 45 back then. Not exactly impossible but generally very very very difficult, especially in the 1950s/60s. She's also like 5'11 and towers both PSH and Phoenix. I'm not sure how that would look on screen.
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Post by stabcaesar on Jan 28, 2024 16:36:55 GMT
On the topic of PTA actors, I thought Katherine Waterston was exceedingly bland in Inherent Vice for what could've been an incredibly haunting performance in better hands. Witherspoon and Hong Chau did more in their brief scenes than Waterston in her far more substantial part.
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