Historical roles : most important factor?

[billd91]

Y'know, I've never actually seen a John Wayne movie.

Or a James Dean movie, either.

Go rent The Quiet Man. It's my favorite John Wayne movie. Well worth checking out.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Hollywood has a particulary atrocious record of using anything but a Russian to play Russian roles (Arnold Swartzenegger and Dolph Lungren being two famous examples).

Sean Connery, too.

 

[johnsemlak]

Sean Connery, too.

Well, if we're speaking about hte Hunt for Red October, Connery was suppoosed to be Russian-speaking Lithuanian. Sam Neill played his First Officer. There were several scenes where the two spoke Russian together but the Russian was so bad my (Russian) relatives couldn't understand it at all.

Of course, none of this matters to 99.5% of the audience. In my opinion it doesn't prevent it from being a good movie, though it would have been nice if they had made the Russian characters more convincing.

 

[Ranger REG]

Hollywood has a particulary atrocious record of using anything but a Russian to play Russian roles (Arnold Swartzenegger and Dolph Lungren being two famous examples). From a mainstream point of view, I think this is generally only a big deal to nationality in question (Arnie may be passable as a Russian in the US--or maybe the audience just doesn't care--but is completely unbelieveable to Russians).

Yeah, well, it would look kinda ridiculous having Sly Stallone beat the crap out of Yakov Smirnoff in Rocky IV. Though it would be a sweet bonus to shut his braying laugh.

 

[sniffles]

With honorable mention goes to Max Von Sydow and his portrayal of Emperor Ming.

That is not a miscasting!! Von Sydow was wonderful as Ming. And Ming isn't human, so what difference does it make what the nationality of the actor was?

I don't mind if actors are not the nationality/race/ethnicity of their character, or don't resemble them physically, as long as they play the part well. In an ideal world we'd have a talented actor of every race or ethnicity to play every part, but we don't live in an ideal world. And Hollywood of course wants to attract audiences to theatres with big name stars. Although I really doubt the excuse that the producers of Memoirs of a Geisha couldn't find suitably talented Japanese actresses for the roles, I do understand that they couldn't find any Japanese actresses whose names would be recognizable to most American audiences. I'm just relieved that they didn't cast Lucy Liu.

[Edit]

I just think its cool that a whole lot of Maori actors are gonna get more work - Cliff Curtis and Temuera Morrison (aka Jango Fett) and Larence Makoare (aka Lurtz) for a start

I agree. I'd like to see more of Lani Tupu, too.

 

[Ranger REG]

I'm just relieved that they didn't cast Lucy Liu.

That's because Lucy is past her prime.