To be or not to be cast in iconic roles: Does the role make an actor?
Posted Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 4:36 PM Central
by John Couture
One could argue that the single most defining role in all of movies that also propelled a career the furthest is that of Han Solo in Star Wars. Harrison Ford is synonymous with Galaxy’s most cherished rogue, but the big break could have just as easily gone to Kurt Russell, Sylvester Stallone, Nick Nolte or Christopher Walken.
And if you haven't seen the Kevin Spacey Star Wars casting spoof from SNL, then you need to click on it now and prepare to laugh.
Actually, believe it or not, many of the roles in Hollywood often have more than one actor or actress attached to them. Call it fate or call it happenstance, it's fun to speculate what might have been had say Johhny Depp played the vampire Lestat in Interview with the Vampire or if Ernest Borgnine had made the offer no one could refuse in The Godfather.
The other day I stumbled upon this page and it reminded me of the little known movie trivia concerning Back to the Future. Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty McFly and filmed for about a month, before they decided to go recast the role with Michael J. Fox.
The rest as they say is history.
So all of that got me thinking. And it lead me to this site and eventually the gold mine of sites on this topic. Are certain roles iconic and make the actor, or is it the actor that breathes life into the lifeless character on the page?
I knew that Shrek was conceived and created for Chris Farley and that he had even done some voice work for the part before he died, but I really can't see anyone but Mike Myers voicing the animated green ogre. On the flip side, I think Han Solo was such a classic character that any actor, hamburger flipper or carpenter could have rode that role to future stardom.
That being said, I do think that Harrison Ford would've enjoyed a successful career even had he not been cast in Star Wars.
What are some of your favorite iconic characters? And can you imagine them being played by anyone else? If so, who? Also, what actors would you have cast in roles that deserved better treatment?
We all know Hollywood makes mistakes from time to time. Heck, they even passed on O.J. Simpson as The Terminator because they felt no one would believe he could be a killer. Oh wait, perhaps they were prophetic with that one.