When Casting Nailed It... Examples?

spurious

I think the woman who plays Debbie Dingle in Emmerdale really looks like she could be the daughter of the actors who play her parents, Charity and Cain.

Don't know their real names, sorry.

Mehaffey1

Robert Carlisle as Begby in Trainspotting
Alan Rickman as Severus Snape in Harry Potter
Gary Oldman as Stanfield in Leon The Professional
Robert de Niro as Don Corleone in The Godfather.

Aoife2017

Nancy Marchand as Livia Soprano.

Hobosan

Mehaffey1 wrote: »

Robert Carlisle as Begby in Trainspotting
Alan Rickman as Severus Snape in Harry Potter
Gary Oldman as Stanfield in Leon The Professional
Robert de Niro as Don Corleone in The Godfather.

If you haven't seen Oldman in The Firm then I'd recommend it. Honestly, there are times when his co-actors look genuinely terrified of him.

martyos121

Hugh Dancy as Will Graham - Hannibal
Especially the first two seasons covering the

encephalitis story arc and him being locked away in a mental institution for crimes he didn’t commit

. Really good chemistry with Mads too, but Hugh was the standout for me.

Cameron Britton as Ed Kemper - Mindhunter
Genius casting, he was completely unknown and ended up with an Emmy nomination which was thoroughly deserved. Didn’t get an awful lot of screen time given his role, but that wasn’t a bad thing as the quality of his scenes were the best in the series.

William H. Macy as Frank Gallagher - Shameless (US version)
Impossible to imagine another actor in his place, it’s hugely surpassed the original UK version for me at this point, even though they’re very different shows.

There are so many more I could list, but a lot of them have been mentioned already so I went for three that are relatively fresh in my mind. Currently rewatching every Game of Thrones episode before the final season premieres, and that show alone has a wealth of perfect casting, wouldn’t be fair to name just one.

Sam Hain

Television- Leonard Rossiter as Rigsby in Rising Damp
Film- Richard Harris as the Bull McCabe In The Field

letsgo2018

Christopher Reeve as Superman

Sorry about that

Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" Warren, played by Uzo Aduba in OITNB. Perfection.

Agent Coulson

Ginger Rogers on Jamie Farr wearing one of her dresses on M*A*S*H

"I saw the show where you wore my outfit and, I have to tell ya, it looked a helluva lot better on you than it did on me."

finglashoop

James spader as raymond reddington in the blacklist

Hank Voight del boy also for me

_Kaiser_

OK, if we're doing movies as well....

- Alan Rickman as Hans in Die Hard. Bruce Willis nailed it as well though

- Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street

- Someone already mentioned Ray Liotta in Goodfellas, but Joe Pesci as Tommy (and again as Nicky in Casino)

- Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile

- Robert Redford and James Gandolfini in The Last Castle

endacl

Jerry Seinfeld.

Capt'n Midnight

Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy.


Michael Dorn as Worf

wezzopalooza

JK Simmons as Vern Schillinger in Oz, an absolute monster and someone you definitely wouldn't want to share a prison cell with. His feud with Beecher on the show is one of my favourite tv rivalries.

secondrowgal

Kathy Bates in Misery
Louise Fletcher in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (the whole cast is a slam dunk but she absolutely steals every scene)
Tom Hardy in The Revenant
Mel Gibson in Mad Max
Carrie Fisher in Star Wars

Tom Mann Centuria

From Longmire
Robert Taylor as Walt Longmire
Lou Diamond Philips as Henry Standing Bear

From Justified, pretty well everyone cast.

Joelle Carter as Ava brilliant as well as the previously mentioned Raylan and Boyd.

jefferson73

Ed O'neill - Al Bundy

Itssoeasy

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Wasn’t David Jason a late call up to play Del Boy? Forget who was supposed to get the role but totally inconceivable seeing anybody else in it.

It was Jim broadbent who turned it down(he played slater in later episodes) and yeah they got it spot on with David Jason as Del Boy.

Itssoeasy

Also I think Linda Hamilton was perfect for Sarah connors in the terminator films. And while Emilia Clarke didn't do a bad job playing her in the last terminator movie she isn't Linda Hamilton so it wasn't the same.

Itssoeasy

Sam Hain wrote: »

Television- Leonard Rossiter as Rigsby in Rising Damp
Film- Richard Harris as the Bull McCabe In The Field

I'd agree with both but apparently Leonard rossiter was a bollocks behind the scenes. Richard Harris should have won the oscar for it.

charolais0153

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

Who else was in the running?

Bob odenkirk was one.

divillybit

Jon Voight as Mickey Donovan in the series Ray Donovan.. No actor does sleazy like Jon Voight...


Al Pacino as the cop and Robert de Niro as the robber in Heat was great casting...

Robert Carlyle as Begbie in Trainspotting..

Heath ledger as the Joker in Batman

Duane Dibbley

All casting in Margin Call

Poochie05

Natalie Portman in Leon

Ursus Horribilis

Michael McKean as Chuck McGill in Better Call Saul. Bob Odenkirk and Jonathan Banks are excellent too - one or both have already got a mention on this thread I think. I thought McKean did a terrific job playing such a complex, flawed character.

Mark Hamill

Tatiana Maslany - Orphan Black (several times over)
/thread


But to add another recent one,
Aiden Gallagher - Umbrella Academy (Number 5)

valoren

Jason Alexander as George Costanza.
Ardal O'Hanlon as Dougal Maguire.

marklazarcovic

Ron pearlman as hellboy

B_ecke_r

Clay Morrow

rubadub

John Lithgow -Dick Solomon (3rd rock from the sun), I could watch that on mute and just laugh at the facial expressions.

Jim Parsons - Sheldon Cooper.

valoren

Remember The Treaty? An RTE production from 1991.
To cast Michael Collins required someone who could play inhabit the role with the charming humour of a burly bully.

Brendan Gleeson was perfectly cast.

Duggie2012

Tracy Jordan > Tracy Morgan

HalloweenJack

HBO seem to be pretty good at casting, in general, to whatever extent they influence that. I think the Wire and Sopranos are two shows which have some of the most quality all round casts.

Frasier, as a whole, was great too.

Rothko

rubadub wrote: »

John Lithgow -Dick Solomon (3rd rock from the sun), I could watch that on mute and just laugh at the facial expressions.

He was great in Dexter too.

JP Liz V1

rubadub wrote: »

John Lithgow -Dick Solomon (3rd rock from the sun), I could watch that on mute and just laugh at the facial expressions.

Jim Parsons - Sheldon Cooper.

The young fellow who plays Sheldon in Young Sheldon, excellent casting

KevinCavan

Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct

blade1

Clint Eastwood as the man with no name.

w/s/p/c/

Television: Courtney B Vance as Johnnie Cochran in the People Vs OJ Simpson. From watching the live court footage each day as I came in from school in the 90's, I think the performance was spot on by Vance and he deserved the accolades received.

Film: Robert Downey Junior as Tony Stark/Iron Man (to think Tom Cruise was linked to the role for years, ugh). I read there was a huge risk with giving RDJ the role with his chequered past, but the risk paid off.

mistersifter

John Travolta as Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever.

He had only appeared in 2 films previously (but was famous from tv?). He owned it anyway.


The two actors who play the sociopath gangster Lil Ze in City of God (as a kid and adult). I think these actors were found from the streets?

KevinCavan

Daithi O’ Shea as presenter of the Rose of Tralee.

blade1

Ray Darcy as biggest bollox on TV.

JP Liz V1

Duggie2012 wrote: »

Tracy Jordan > Tracy Morgan

Definitely Alec Baldwin on 30 Rock

brian_t

Andrew Sachs as Manuel in WATERY FOWLS

The Specialist

Michael Chiklis as Vic Mackey in The Shield

weemcd

Lots of good posts in here, I'll add mine, some have already been listed:

Robert DeNiro as Jake Lamotta in Raging Bull
Michael Kenneth Williams as Omar Little in the Wire
Cameron Britton as Edmund Kemper in Mindhunter - honestly, look at the real Edmund Kemper on YouTube then the actor's portrayal, it is uncanny, frightening!
Marlon Brando as Don Corleone - nuff said
Bryan Cranston as Walter White in Breaking Bad

Edit
How could I forget Matthew McConaughey as Rhust Cole in True Detective - superlative performance

DoozerT6

Anthony Head as Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Tituss Burgess as Titus Andromedon in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Very well written character too.

DoozerT6

brian_t wrote: »

Andrew Sachs as Manuel in WATERY FOWLS

Que?

B0jangles

rubadub wrote: »

John Lithgow -Dick Solomon (3rd rock from the sun), I could watch that on mute and just laugh at the facial expressions.

The scene where he's wearing leather trousers is just... perfection

Try watching Cliffhanger and pretend Lithgow is just playing evil Dick, it's much more fun :pac:


To contribute, I've recently watched the whole of the Golden Girls for the first time and the entire main cast is absolutely marvellous.

DoozerT6

B0jangles wrote: »

To contribute, I've recently watched the whole of the Golden Girls for the first time and the entire main cast is absolutely marvellous.

Oh yes, I loved all the Golden Girls! Someone please wrap Betty White in cotton wool and bubble wrap....

B0jangles

DoozerT6 wrote: »

Oh yes, I loved all the Golden Girls! Someone please wrap Betty White in cotton wool and bubble wrap....

Oh yeah, it's going to be a really crappy day when Betty finally leaves