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One white man playing an Asian character that was creepily convincing was Christopher Lee as 'Fun Manchu' back in the 60s. Maybe it's because his last name could also be Asian, haha.
Couldn't find any youtube clips unfortunately.
That is true, I have another one that had me fooled initially: Remo Williams: Adventure Begins (1985), Joel Grey playing the Korean Martial Arts Master...which proved to me that sometimes, finding the right actor who can play the part and pull it off with some make-up is just as good. After all, they are called actors not look-a-likers. Still, there are bunch of movies where the characters neither looked the part nor was able pull it off that good. Couple of them comes to mind: Timothy Olyphant as the main character in the movie Hitman and Thomas Jane as The Punisher.
Has there ever been a role Meryl has not done a wonderful job at? That woman has got to be the best actress who has ever lived. She was equally believable as Julia Child and as Margaret Thatcher.
This is not totally in line with the topic but is tangentially related. Has anyone ever seen that TV show that was on the Discovery Channel called A Haunting? Reruns now play on some other cable network. Anyhoo, it's about real people who supposedly experience ghostly phenomenon and they recount it to the camera while actors recreate the occurrences. Ninety percent of the time the real-life people were butt-ugly but the actors playing them were always extremely attractive!
You see this on the true-crime shows. They have renactments with actors playing the parts of the murderers and victims, but in the end you often see pictures of the real people, and they rarely look anything like the actors.
If they would change this, there could open up a whole new realm of work possibilities for good-but-homely actors!
Leonardo Dicaprio as Howard Hughes in The Aviator, not even close, Howard is gawky with a big nose. Leo would be perfect to play Orson Welles however
I had to revive this thread because I just watched "The Aviator" last night and was struck by how much this just did not fit. I'm not a "picky" film person at all, but I know all about Howard Hughes and his life story, etc. The MOMENT I heard DiCaprio's high-pitched voice (even before I saw him, in the first scene as a grown man with dyed-black hair on the airfield), I thought, "What was Scorsese thinking?"
Then he turned around. He's short. He has blue eyes and a wide and getting-wider-every-year face, well fit for an "Orson Welles- or Marlon Brando-in-old-age" biopic, as has been suggested. From that very first scene, I couldn't stop thinking about how poorly miscast he was. So I googled it and got hundreds/thousands of hits about how he was miscast for this film.
I think Leonardo DiCaprio is a good actor ("Gilbert Grape" was all I needed to see to confirm that). But I think his director, who has turned him into his protege, has made some grievous mistakes that have cost him Oscars. I think he should ever make a movie with Scorsese again.
I agree that Danny Devito playing George Washington sounds silly, if for no other reason than George was 6'2" tall (very tall for that age).
However, I would like to see Mr. Devito play Jesus. After all, no one knows what Jesus looked like. He may well have been short and dumpy.
I was shocked, after seeing Patton, to see a photo of the real Patton. George C. looked more like Patton than Patton did. My father (who was in Patton's army and heard him speak several times) said that Patton had a very high voice.
I guess I don't demand that the actor look like the historical figure that they are portraying, although it helps.
I will note that every production I have seen of Jane Eyre (a novel by Charlotte Bronte) ends up using a good-looking actress to portray Jane, even though the novel makes it clear that Jane was ugly. I mean, one production had Julie Harris as Jane, and the most recent one had Mia Wasikowska; hardly plain women.
I agree that Ms. Streep tends to make me believe whatever historical woman she is playing. She is that good.
Diana Ross playing Billie Holiday? Please! Queen Latifah would've been more accurate.
Well, that kind of shows the preference of wanting a superstar in a role rather than being concerned with realism of appearance and vocal sound. Also, back in the early 70s, there really weren't as many big African-American female singing stars to choose from, therefore, Diana Ross seemed to be the logical choice.
Also, speaking of African-American stars.....I'm sorry to say, but you're going to always get a 'really?' from me when it comes to Sidney Poitier playing Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. And I understand why Poitier got the role and wanted the role, but I guess I've always been one who preferred realism in biographical movies in as many ways as possible.
Just today watched Naomi Watts playing Princess Diana. Looked nothing like her and acted nothing like her. It was distractingly bad.
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