Films where they got exactly the right actor

Movies in which they got the lead actor / actress dead right?

Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.

 

I read that Tom Selleck was the 1st choice. But that he wasn't available because of his Magnum commitments.

 

"Pulp Fiction". John Travolta's portrayal of a 40 year old Vinnie Bobarino turned gangster was brilliant, complete with Saturday Night Fever dance moves.
Credit Quentin Tarantino no doubt.

 

Tommy Lee Jones - The Fugitive
Bill Murray - What About Bob?
Michael J. Fox - Back To The Future
Danny Devito - Renaissance Man
Will Smith - Independence Day
Madeline Kahn - For Pete's Sake
Frank Langella - Dracula
Anthony LaPlagia - Betsy's Wedding
Jack Nicholson - A Few Good Men
Michael Keaton - Beetlejuice
Louis Gossett, Jr. - An Officer And A Gentleman
Leslie Nielsen - Airplane
Bruce Willis - Die Hard
Richard Crenna - The Flamingo Kid
Steve Martin - All Of Me
Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight
Tom Hanks - Big
Frank Sinatra - The Joker Is Wild
Kevin Kline - Dave
Marissa Tomei - My Cousin Vinny
Russell Crowe - A Beautiful Mind

 

Kurt Russell - Escape from New York/L.A.
Clint Eastwood - Dirty Harry
Sissy Spacek - Coal Miner's Daughter
Diane Keaton - Annie Hall
Gene Wilder - Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

 

John Lithgow in Raising Cain.

 

Goodfellas-Joe Pesci

 

Peter Riegert in Chilly Scenes Of Winter.

 

Glenn Ford-The Gazebo

Mel owned it...indeed. Made him a superstar!

 

all excellent choices!

 

How about Christopher Walken? I know he's not ethnically Italian. But he can do off-kilter nutcase with the best of them. He played an Italian-American mobster in True Romance. On the other hand, maybe DeNiro and Walken in the cast would've overshadowed Ray Liotta too much.

 

Well, he was basically playing himself.

 

He was playing himself for the performances, but I think he brought more to the table for the role. In terms of delivery of his lines, he seemed to have been influenced a bit by Brando, and he also had personal experiences with Lester Young and Bud Powell. The character he played was based on both of them.

 

Fine performance by Dexter Gordon. I was bummed out when he died just a few years later.

 

For me, horror is the genre where a perfect personality really sticks out in a way that can't be easily replicated:

Lon Chaney Sr. - The Phantom of the Opera (just the unmasking alone)
Peter Lorre - M (who else could pull off sympathy?)
Boris Karloff - The Body Snatchers (Tell me Tawdy...)
Lon Chaney Jr. - The Wolf Man (he was best at tragic figures)
Bela Lugosi - Son of Frankenstein (I consider his Igor to be his best)
Lionel Atwill - same as above (Parodied perfectly in Young Frankenstein)
Evelyn Ankers - Weird Woman (her playing against "good girl" type)
Vincent Price - Comedy of Terrors (great comedic timing)
Basil Rathbone - same as above (he is one of the great running jokes in horror)
Peter Cushing - Curse of Frankenstein (best as an uptight scoundrel)
Christopher Lee - Horror of Dracula (made for the role)
Barbara Steele - Black Sunday (Tim Burton would forever try to replicate)
Anthony Perkins - Psycho (perfectly awkward)
Candice Hilligoss - Carnival of Souls (made only one other movie, but left an aloof ghostly mark)
Franco Nero - The Fifth Cord (he was a great SOB)
Sissy Spacek - Carrie (so sympathetic and scary)
Alida Valli - Suspiria (perfect evil school marm)
Donald Pleasance - Halloween (obsession and monologues)
Angus Scrimm - Phantasm (all physical presence, minimal lines)
Jack Nicholson - The Shining (yeah, crazy from the get go, but without him this is a long boring film)
Zelda Rubenstein - Poltergeist (can't imagine anyone else)
Bruce Campbell - Evil Dead 1 & 2 (a broad comedic one man show)
Keith Gordon - Christine (perfectly sympathetic)
Robert Englund - A Nightmare on Elm Street (needed that personality)
Roddy McDowell/ Stephen Geoffreys/Chris Sarandon - Fright Night (all so perfect)
Brad Dourif - Child's Play (no other voice would measure up)
Tony Todd - Candyman (already mentioned)
Max Von Sydow - Needful Things (deserved more from the movie)
Anthony Hopkins - Silence of the Lambs (mentioned)

 

Speaking of voices Daniel day Lewis as lincoln

 

Sexy Beast:

Ray Winston as a reformed gangster gone soft in Spain, but becoming a better person overall and wanting to avoid the life as much as possible.

Ben Kingsley of all actors as the volatile psychopath Don, sent to lure Gal back home for another job, refusing to take no for an answer.

Ian McShane as the terrifyingly ice-cold crime lord Teddy, who sent Don in the first place, and whose watchful eyes in the third act with their slight mischievous twinkle can’t quite cover the fact that the guy is a monster toying w/Gal.

 

Willem Dafoe in Paul Schrader’s Light Sleeper, whose character of John LeTour is a Manhattan drug courier going through a midlife crisis, while his boss (Susan Sarandon) attempts one final deal which will allow her to move on from the game.

Dafoe had to make this guy believable as a drug game lifer and also make him likable. Dafoe, despite starting his career playing despicable villains or sinister antiheroes, is actually probably best at playing really decent men. I suspect it’s because he is in real life a really decent guy, it’s a trait that is hard to make seem real and he does it. LeTour is a fundamentally good man and you believe it. It’s not one of those roles where you’re told the hero is a good guy but he just seems like kind of an a-hole.

Actually the entire film is superbly cast, with Sarandon especially deserving all kinds of awards that never came her way. Victor Garber, Jane Adams, Dana Delany, David Clennon…all outstanding. And the margins are populated with terrific small roles by a bunch of pre-stardom actors like Sam Rockwell and David Spade, and a number of charismatic character actors whose names you might not know but who really own the tiny, essential parts.

 

Was Mia Farrow already mentioned in Rosemary's Baby?

 

So true, Mikkelsen IS Hannibal for me, although Hopkins is unforgettable.