Best Vs Worst
Casting can make or break a film before a single frame is shot. Some directors found exactly the right person for the role. Others got it spectacularly wrong, and audiences never let them forget it.
Heath Ledger As The Joker: The Dark Knight (2008)
Almost nobody—not the studio, not the co-writer, not the fans—believed Heath Ledger could pull off the Joker. When Warner Bros officially announced his casting on July 31, 2006, the internet erupted. Ledger was known for Brokeback Mountain and teen rom-coms, and producer Charles Roven recalled the boardroom reaction bluntly.
Screenshot from The Dark Knight, Warner Bros. Pictures (2008)
Heath Ledger As The Joker (Cont.)
"What? Heath Ledger? As The Joker? Are you kidding me?" Even Jonathan Nolan, who co-wrote the script, admitted he didn't get it. Christopher Nolan got it. He cast Ledger before the script was even finished, giving him months to prepare, and prepare he did.
Marlon Brando As Vito Corleone: The Godfather (1972)
The story of how Brando even got the role is almost as legendary as the performance itself. By the time 1970 rolled around, he'd burned through his Hollywood goodwill. One producer at paramount went as far as to say "As long as I'm president of this studio, Marlon Brando will not be in this picture, and I will no longer allow you to discuss it."
Coppola got him to relent, but only if Brando did a screen test, something the infamously egotistical actor would never do.
NBC Television, Wikimedia Commons
Marlon Brando As Vito Corleone (Cont.)
Francis Ford Coppola knew Brando would never audition, so he instead told him to do a "makeup test." He went to Brando's own home and watched as Brando, with some shoe polish in his hair and kleenex in his cheeks, became the only choice possible for Vito Corleone.
Studio Harcourt., Wikimedia Commons
Robert Downey Jr As Tony Stark: Iron Man (2008)
When Marvel Studios was deciding between Robert Downey Jr and Timothy Olyphant for Tony Stark, Downey was still carrying the public image of a convicted drug addict who had served time in the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison, Corcoran in 1999. He had been arrested in both 1996 and later in 2001.
Screenshot from Iron Man, Paramount Pictures (2008)
Robert Downey Jr As Tony Stark (Cont.)
Insurance companies refused to cover him for films. It was only because Mel Gibson personally paid his insurance bond for The Singing Detective (2003) that his comeback began at all. Marvel Studios president David Maisel had to personally fight to get the execs approval, but he, Kevin Feige, and Jon Favreau all knew Downey Jr. was the only option. Then the four of them took over the world.
Gage Skidmore, Wikimedia Commons
Cate Blanchett As Queen Elizabeth I: Elizabeth (1998)
The first thing to know about this casting is that Cate Blanchett almost didn't get the role. Director Shekhar Kapur's original choice was Emily Watson, who turned it down. It was only after Kapur happened to see a trailer for Oscar and Lucinda that he became convinced Blanchett was the right person.
Screenshot from Elizabeth, Universal Pictures (1998)
Cate Blanchett As Queen Elizabeth I (Cont.)
The studio disagreed loudly. Kapur has recounted publicly that his agent warned him the studio wanted a "star," and that insisting on an unknown could cost him the job. He held firm, and what followed was one of the most critically celebrated debut lead performances in modern film history.
Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, Wikimedia Commons
Daniel Craig As James Bond: Casino Royale (2006)
The backlash started immediately. When Bond producers announced Daniel Craig as the sixth 007 in October 2005, British tabloids coined the phrase "Blond Bond," and it became, as Yahoo Entertainment later noted, one of the internet's first major outrage overloads.
Screenshot from Casino Royale, Columbia Pictures (2006)
Daniel Craig As James Bond (Cont.)
Every Bond before Craig, be it Connery, Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, or Brosnan, had dark hair. Craig was blue-eyed, blond, and widely perceived as too stocky and rough-featured for a role historically associated with sleek sophistication.
Montclair Film, Wikimedia Commons
Gal Gadot As Wonder Woman: Wonder Woman (2017)
The numbers are the most convincing argument here, but the skepticism before them was real. Critics questioned her acting experience, her physique (comic fans felt she wasn't physically imposing enough for an Amazonian warrior), and the fact that her biggest prior role was a supporting part in the Fast & Furious franchise.
Screenshot from Wonder Woman, Warner Bros. Pictures (2017)
Gal Gadot As Wonder Woman (Cont.)
What followed made those complaints look almost comical in hindsight. Wonder Woman (2017), directed by Patty Jenkins, became a cultural event. It was the first female-led superhero film from a major studio in the modern era to be both a critical and commercial success.
But not every casting risk pays off. They often backfire horribly.
Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, Wikimedia Commons
John Wayne As Genghis Khan: The Conqueror (1956)
John Wayne wanted this role. That's the part history doesn't always lead with. After reading the script, Wayne pushed producer Howard Hughes for the lead, and director Powell, intimidated by Wayne's star power, caved with the now-infamous line.
Screenshot from The Conqueror, RKO Radio Pictures (1956)
John Wayne As Genghis Khan (Cont.)
"Who am I to turn down John Wayne?" The role had originally been written for Marlon Brando. The film holds an IMDb rating of 3.7, was named one of the Fifty Worst Films of All Time in 1978. But even worse, filming took place downwind of nuclear testing sites and nearly half the cast and crew later developed cancer, John Wayne included.
A Pentagon scientist was quoted as saying: "Please, God, don't let us have killed John Wayne.”
Photo by Ned Scott, Wikimedia Commons
Mickey Rooney As Mr Yunioshi: Breakfast At Tiffany's (1961)
The film Breakfast at Tiffany's is regarded as a timeless classic—a US National Film Registry entry, one of Audrey Hepburn's most iconic roles, and home to one of cinema's most beloved songs. But it is permanently shadowed by a single character.
Screenshot from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Paramount Pictures (1961)
Mickey Rooney As Mr Yunioshi (Cont.)
Screenwriter George Axelrod actively expanded Mr Yunioshi's role beyond what Truman Capote had written in the original novella, specifically because to use Rooney as “comic relief” in the movie.
What resulted was a white actor with taped eyelids, prosthetic buckteeth, exaggerated mannerisms, and a caricature accent playing a Japanese photographer.
Studio publicity still, Wikimedia Commons
Sofia Coppola As Mary Corleone: The Godfather Part III (1990)
The story behind this casting is one of the most chaotic last-minute crises in Hollywood history. Winona Ryder had been formally cast as Mary Corleone. She flew to Rome to begin production, but her doctor found her suffering from a nervous collapse after filming two back-to-back projects.
Screenshot from The Godfather Part III, Paramount Pictures (1990)
Sofia Coppola As Mary Corleone (Cont.)
Sofia Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola's 18-year-old daughter, happened to be visiting the Rome set on a college break. She had no formal acting training, no time to prepare, and later admitted she never wanted to act at all, she only did it to help her father out of a crisis.
The result was one of the most infamously bad performances in movie history.
Harald Krichel, Wikimedia Commons
Russell Crowe As Inspector Javert: Les Miserables (2012)
Director Tom Hooper made one specific and very public justification for casting Russell Crowe as Javert: “In Wolverine versus Gladiator, I'd probably put my bet on Gladiator,” ie that Crowe would believably win out over Hugh Jackman's Jean Valjean.
Screenshot from Les Misérables, Universal Pictures (2012)
Russell Crowe As Inspector Javert (Cont.)
The film's unusually ambitious approach meant there was no margin for a weak vocal instrument. Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway could carry that format. Crowe, as it turned out, could not. Critics and audiences were united in their verdict.
Jesse Eisenberg As Lex Luthor: Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
Jesse Eisenberg knew something was wrong. He just didn't know how publicly wrong until it was over. Appearing on the Armchair Expert podcast in 2024, the Oscar-nominated actor became the rare Hollywood star to openly admit that a single role had materially damaged his career.
Screenshot from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Warner Bros. Pictures (2016)
Jesse Eisenberg As Lex Luthor (Cont.)
"I've never said this before, and it's kind of embarrassing to admit," he said, "but I genuinely think it actually hurt my career in a real way, because I was poorly received in something so public”. The problem wasn't simply that Eisenberg was miscast, but the specific gap between expectation and delivery.
Harald Krichel, Wikimedia Commons
Jared Leto As The Joker: Suicide Squad (2016)
What makes this entry genuinely strange is that the controversy preceded the film by months. When Leto was confirmed as the Joker, he immediately began an extreme method acting campaign that generated more coverage than the movie itself. He sent horrifying "gifts" to his castmates to inhabit the character's psychology.
Screenshot from Suicide Squad, Warner Bros. Pictures (2016)
Jared Leto As The Joker (Cont.)
Margot Robbie received a live rat, and Adam Beach was sent a dead pig to a rehearsal. Viola Davis told Vanity Fair she feared Leto might actually be crazy. Will Smith, who worked on the same film for months, said he was fortunate enough that he “never actually met Jared Leto”.
The movie ended up being a box office smash, but it was critically lampooned, with Leto's Joker a particular sore spot.
Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, Wikimedia Commons
