Lame Characters Made Interesting By Casting Choice

I have to mention Johnny Depp as Capt. Jack Sparrow.

A Disney attraction about pirates being made into a summer blockbuster had trainwreck written all over it.  But, Depp created a fascinating character out of what I'm sure was nothing special on the page.  Depp was so good, in fact, that he relegated the typical hero in these kinds of stories, Will Turner, to a boring plot point.  They even flirted with ditching the original Will/Elizabeth pairing for Jack and Elizabeth.  And I love the story that suits at Disney were terrified because they thought Depp was playing the character as either gay, a drunk, or a coward.

The crew in Ocean's 11, especially Andy Garcia as Benedict and Clooney as Ocean. I like the remake of Ocean's 11, but I never felt the actors infused their characters with enough, uhh, character. I actually liked Norton's villain(Norton reportedly wasn't even trying and the character is described with no imagination or emotions, so he sort of came off as this sociopath that would shoot his own mother), but he and Charlie never felt connected like Ocean and Benedict, where there seemed to be a very real antagonism and even a little bit of respect. As for the rest of the characters, the actors infused them with enough personality and quirks that it felt like theyhad lives after the credits rolled

Another Clooney role that Clooney made much better was Michael Clayton.

Well while we're talking about Nolan's Batman movies... While I don't think she completely redeemed her, Maggie Gyllenhaal certainly made the character of Rachel Dawes much more amiable.

As much as I like Begins, I've always seen Dawes as a very problematic character. While she's meant to be Bruce Wayne's moral compass, Katie Holmes plays her like a fickle Prom Queen who leads poor Bruce around by his knob while chastising him for everything he does. While the writing of the character is partly at fault - their closeness is mainly stated but never shown, with Rachel droning on and on at Bruce about his responsibilities while always presenting herself as unattainable until he shapes up - Holmes lacks the range and gravitas to make the character work, simply coming across as smug.

Cue TDK, and a much better actress (Gyllenhaal) and suddenly Dawes becomes a lot more relatable. OK, she's still Catalyst on Legs and... Well let's put this nicely, romantically inconsistent ("I'm marrying Dent! No, I'm shacking up with Wayne! Nope, Dent!") but Gyllenhaal's maturity and charm makes Dawes' much-vaunted nobility a lot easier to buy.

To me, the difference between Holmes and Gyllenhaal is a great example of how the right casting can make even a poorly written character shine, and conversely how the wrong casting can just highlight all their flaws. 

I think Maggie G is the better and more nuanced actress, but I'm not sure the character (amidst everything else that was going on) got much more to do in TDK (conscience, damsel). Like Cheadles' Rhodey in IRON MAN 2, they relied a bit too much on the relationship established in part 1 (which was done way better in IRON MAN 1 than in BB). When you switch actors, I believe you can't coast on previous entries, you need to re-establish that bond somehow. I never really felt that Stark and Rhodes had been pals prior to IM2, based on what little "chemistry" there was between them (and compared to RDJ and Howard).

I'd be interested in Hader's King, even though I don't think it's great casting. But it's certainly weird enough. Mostly, I just hope it's not in the movie, and I can't imagine it would be.

Claudette in The Shield is a pretty stock character, and I'd be hard pressed to name a single personality trait that didn't come directly from the gravitas of CCH Pounder. She became the conscience of the show by being great.

I generally think Peter Saarsgard elevates most of the roles he gets. I'm probably alone on this, but I think he's strikingly great in Skeleton Key.

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Originally Posted by Arjen Rudd 

 

 

I generally think Peter Saarsgard elevates most of the roles he gets. I'm probably alone on this, but I think he's strikingly great in Skeleton Key.

Saarsgard in general is good. I wish I could back you up on this one, but I've managed to scrub almost every memory of that awful movie from my head.

Agreed about Jack Sparrow/Johnny Depp. Without taking anything away from the writers and directors for managing to expand the ride into an interesting premise, it was Depp that made the film(s) worth watching.

Along these lines: I'd nominate Brendan Fraser in 1999's THE MUMMY. He managed to take an Indiana Jones knockoff character and make him likable, charismatic and worthy of the lead role. (I know DEEP RISING gets a lot of love in these parts, but I still maintain THE MUMMY is Sommers hitting on all cylinders...something he hasn't done since, though GI JOE came close.) O'Connell's pretty much a Frankenstein of cliches and stock parts on paper, but Fraser breathes a lot of life into the character.
 

Agreed on Fraiser but he works so well because he has Hannah and Weiss to work with. All three of them take those very stock charaters to the next level.

A TV example but Paul Rudd's playing Phobee's Boyfriend in the last series of friends makes the charater a lot more fun than he should have been.

Olivia Wilde in Tron: Legacy. She takes a character that's very literally a walking McGuffin and even if she doesn't save the film, she manages to give just about the only charismatic performance there. Because damn, on paper, Quorra is a stick figure. She's a Chosen One, but even more nebulous and ill-defined than Anakin in the Star Wars prequels. And yet, Wilde manages to give her a preternatural quality without being annoyingly 'wonderful'.

I love Maggie Gyllenhall as an actress, but she is grating as Rachel Dawes in the Dark Knight. She's a far more layered character, but it means that due to her lack of screentime she kind of comes across as really arrogant and bitchy. I love the moment when she assumes that the police are going to save her rather than Harvey Dent and she's just consoling him. Once again I think it's a combination of the writing really not being there and Gyllenhall adding a lot of shading to a character that can't support it.

Actually I think she assumes Batman will save her and the police will try and get to Dent.