This happens all the time, but the most recent example is Julia Garner being cast as Caroline Ellison in the SBF movie. Now everyone is talking about it being a fumbled casting because she’s pretty and Caroline Ellison isn’t, posting pictures of Bella Ramsey saying the producers fumbled it, etc.
The core goal of casting is not to just find the actor that looks the most like someone! And I think you are being kind of stupid and/or fundamentally don’t understand the point of acting if you think it is.
Actors are supposed to bring something to a role emotionally, to help convey a story, themes, etc. It is not just a 1:1 substitute for mimicry.
A lot of people clearly want the casting of real people, or characters in an adaptation, to just be an exercise in figuring out whose physical features best match the individual/character. This take flattens out acting as an art form and treats every performance as perfectly fungible. It’s not! Acting is a skill that is more than simply “looks like someone and effectively copies their voice.”
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I don’t hate it necessarily.
The little Mermaid was pretty and could swim. That’s good enough, tbh.
But Snow white was hard to look at
I haven’t seen The last of us so i don’t have my own opinion yet, but from what i’ve heard, the thing about bella isn’t as much her appearance as her acting of ellie. People just focus on that aspect and make jokes of it.
In general, though, i agree. Its how the writers, producers, and actors of the show or movie go about it that counts
I generally agree.
The latest one that I cant give two shits about is the new James Bond role and how there is this fury of people who insist it must be a white man, because thats who James Bond is. And when I think of James Bond, I think of a cool, confident, person who can handle situations with both communication, cunning and occasionally some action.
None of that requires them to be white. But the focus on him being white because thats the original character, is so non-important to the story.
The only part I do agree with is that they are British, as James Bond is MI6. Team Idris Elba here if that wasnt obvious.
The last of us fans would like to have a word with you… lol
This is why I also hate the “Adam Driver was right there” arguments for the Snape casting in the HBO Harry Potter show. Has anyone considered that maybe Adam driver didn’t want to do it?
IMO a lot of it depends on whether the characters’ physical appearance plays into their characterization. It doesn’t have to be 1:1 but sometimes it can matter. The most extreme example is how Elphaba in Wicked wouldn’t work if her skin wasn’t green (I know there are no green skinned actors just giving an example of a character who’s appearance is integral to the story).
I agree that capturing the essence and vibe of the person is more important than just trying to match their physical appearance. But there is a threshold where they look so different that it’s distracting. If you’re making a movie about Elvis, and you cast a short, fat Asian actor, even if they totally nail the voice and affectations and general essence of Elvis, it’s just not going to land.
Uh oh. Here come the gaming bros to protect their precious ‘last of us’ video game.
Well since movies and tv are a visual medium, I think it’s essential for a resemblance to be there. If it was music, changing the appearance of a character would be like changing the genre of a song, but keeping the same message. It would be extremely hard to do and would be seen as unnecessary most of the time.
I don’t think pure physical alikeness is the only thing people care about. The fact is, your image is a part of your identity.
If we changed all the Weasleys in Harry Potter to be black, it doesn’t matter if the actors/actresses performed well—the whole dynamic is different.
What if in the movie Precious, they changed the family to Asian or white, even if they did well acting out people in that situation? Could you honestly tell me the story would hit the same, even if every line (or most) were kept the same in delivery?
Physical looks isn’t the most important thing, but it god damn matters…
I don’t think Bella Ramsey was good in season 2.
Worst thing is when we saw the photos of Pedro Pascal with Kaitlyn Dever, they look so much like Joel and Ellie. That’s awkward as hell lol
Sometimes it works and works well. Take The Assets and Mindhunters. Both of those shows cast actors that looked very much like their real life counterparts and both shows were phenomenal.
Edit: autocorrect messed up a word
For some characters the appearance matters. It’s be weird if a white/pale guy was a sudanese or nigerian soldier. Or if scrooge from a Christmas carol looked too young.
If you think appearance isn’t a part of playing a character, idk what to tell you. It doesn’t have to be 1:1, but appearance is part of the reason why people like characters, so audiences do prefer it. It isn’t stupid. It should be a combination of both.
Pedro Pascal obviously doesn’t look like a white Georgian, but he fits the Joel look pretty well. And he can act. Bella Ramsey doesn’t fit the look, but the worst part is that she doesn’t fit how Ellie acts as a character either. Even without the looks aspect, she just can’t seem to handle the role that well.
Unpopular and true. Fan castings are awful.
I don’t know how casting directors do it. I look at fan casts and invariably say “no, not them*, but I can’t figure out how to do it better.
It depends.
Rocket man is one of my favorite biopics. While taron egerton does have a decent resemblance to Elton John, his performance is what makes that movie.
So if someone doesn’t look like the person, but their performance is good, I don’t care. If the performance is not good, then I care. Same if they look like the person, but the performance isn’t good.
I know some people wanted debra messing to play Lucille ball based on looks. But I really didn’t. Debra messing just doesn’t move me as an actress. I’d want someone who can be Lucille when lucille is funny, but also the bad ass woman she was in real life.
They still have to fit the description of the character.
Take this for an example.
Nathan drake a guy in his early 30s with a slight stubble and a toned physique,
Who would you imagine playing him? Chris pratt, Ryan Reynolds, Tom cruise?
How about Tom fucking Holland
Sometimes it is important, sometimes it isn’t.
Think about The Princess and the Frog. The story would absolutely not work if Tiana was white because the casual racism culture of the era was a significant part.
But Ariel’s skin color has literally zero impact on the story.
I strongly dislike when an actor’s appearance is altered to match the real life person, but the person’s appearance was relatively unfamiliar to audiences and wasn’t at all a factor in their life or the movie. So we end up with a handsome actor putting on a fake nose and they’re hailed for the transformation. “He looks just like that person I’ve never seen!”
This is how I feel about most “fan castings” too, and more broadly about the obsession with live-action film as the ultimate Final Form of storytelling (“How has this book not been made into a movie yet!”) and also many people’s lack of objection to AI-generated video.
It all seems to tie in to a basic confusion about the differences between an adaptation and a reproduction, and a disregard for both the substance of a story and the creative process of adaptation (which is inherently interpretive and transformative) in favor of literally the most surface-level possible take of “but it looks different…”
If you want the exact experience of the original, then watch/read/play the original.
(Also, a new media adaptation generally doesn’t erase the original. No one’s childhood is actually “ruined” because now there are two versions of a story. “But Disney’s Little Mermaid wasn’t originally black” ok and in the still-readily-available cartoon, she still isn’t. “These new Harry Potter actors totally change the tone and break the immersion for me” well then good thing you have eight films that you can rewatch whenever you want.)
Wait until you figure out there’s people asking for gay/disabled/insert invisible trait here be played by gay/disabled/invisible trait actors.
This is why fan castings are terrible 95% of the time. While there are some physical characteristics that do matter, like a character who is supposed to be a slave in the American South should be played by a black actor, for the most part matching physical appearance is far less important than being able to match the characters personality and energy.
To me, it doesn’t matter much for fictional characters, if their coloring or ethnicity is irrelevant to the story or it makes sense to the time and place. Snape, Ariel, etc. As far as I know, their skin tones didn’t impact the story. But I wouldn’t cast an Apache to play Walter in A Raisin in the Sun. It wouldn’t make sense. But in things like Bridgerton or The Irregulars, it seems like they’re intentionally ignoring how different races were treated in the past.
But for historical characters, it also makes no sense to have an actor of a different color play the part. It’s an unnecessary distraction / gimmick.
Stupid opinion tbh. The character’s appearance is part of them. Matching it as best as possible makes perfect sense. Otherwise you’re just disengaging the audience from the character they know.
Most just find a balance between acting ability and appropriate physical traits. It’s not hard. There are lots of actors out there.
Well said. As long as the story isn’t actually altered by the casting, it shouldn’t matter. Allowances should be made for representing specific real people though; you can’t reskin an actual person, but it’s different for fictional characters.
I fully agree with you. It’s pretty normal for Japanese actors to be playing all the parts in an adaptation of Hamlet in a Japanese theatre.
The US is a racially diverse country, thus it’s normal that it is reflected in the casting of US movies, no matter the source of the story.
Ehhh it depends. It would be a bit weird if a ww2 movie casted an Winston Churchill as an Asian man haha 😂
To me it is very important for an actor to look like the character they are supposed to be, and that they be able to act well. They aren’t mutually exclusive things at all. There’s enough actors out there, it is always possible to find someone with the right looks and who can act well.
Often a character’s attractiveness (or lack thereof) informs the character’s motivations.
For example, Amanda Peet, a thin, pretty actress played Betty Broderick in a movie. Betty had been gorgeous as a young woman, but was a fat, dumpy housewife at the time she killed her ex husband and his new young pretty wife.
Having a thin, pretty actress just didn’t convey the anger and desperation that Betty must have felt. I feel like if this dude cheated on Amanda Peet, she’d have calmly found a way to take him for all he’s worth and move on to a better guy.
I don’t think it’s important to find an actress that passably looks like Caroline (she’s pretty unique looking), but a pretty actress won’t make sense. Like, a pretty girl wouldn’t have put up with this polycule stuff if she didn’t want to, and she definitely wouldn’t be on the outs/the undesirable partner if she was in one.