Top 10 Miscast Movie Roles

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When an actor and a character gel, there is magic on the screen. Unfortunately, some casting decisions leave us scratching our heads in wonder. It’s not necessarily a question of bad acting, although this is the case sometimes. Here is a list of roles that were too much of a stretch.

10. Geronimo

At 6’ 5’’, Chuck Connors had a physical presence and an athletic build. Audiences knew him from a number of roles in TV westerns. This time, he was the Apache leader, Geronimo, who tries to keep his people free and out of the reservation. He has the toughness of a warrior but rubbing something on his face and letting him loose in the dress up box fails to make him an Apache. He just looks like a longhaired quarterback about to make a touchdown. He leads with his jaw but he still has piercing blue eyes and he’s still from Brooklyn. Photo: rOmerO.com

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9. Days of Thunder

Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise fell in love on the set of this homage to the exciting world of NASCAR. Cruise plays a headstrong driver and Kidman is his love interest, who just happens to be a leading brain surgeon. This begs the question, doesn’t she look a little young to be a leading anything, never mind a medical professional? There’s supposed to be the brain of a neurosurgeon under the appalling 1980s perm. She looks like she’s thinking about boys or shoes or earrings or something equally frivolous, and it’s hard to take her seriously. Would she really be able to save our Tom if he crashed and his brain fell out and she had to operate in an emergency? Also, she rides a motorcycle without a helmet, surely a faux pas for a brain surgeon?

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8. Comanche Blanco

Shatner took a hiatus from being Captain Kirk to play dual roles in this low budget western, filmed in Spain. Johnny Moon is a cowboy and Notah is his Indian half brother. They are bitter enemies and Shatner has to fight himself (he also has to do this in the Star Trek episode Whom Gods Destroy). The dialogue is poor and badly dubbed. As Johnny, Shatner is perfectly fine, but the Indian with short, blond hair and a bit of war paint is not so convincing. Notah is like an over the top version of The Shat. He rides around shirtless and says deep things like the dead will find theirplace. Chewing too much peyote could be a contributing factor to this philosophizing. Thankfully, Shatner tied up his horse and returned to the Enterprise. It’s still not as cringe worthy as his cover of Dylan’s Mr. Tambourine Man, because nothing is.

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7. The Conqueror

We are used to seeing the Duke as a cowboy taking care of the bad guys or as a soldier single-handedly winning the war. However, this story charts the rise of Tem Ujin, who became Genghis Khan, founder of the Mongol Empire. Tem Ujin must do battle and try to win his beloved’s heart. The dialogue is stilted but the epic battle scenes are well executed. William Conrad (Jake and the Fatman) played Wayne’s brother. Wayne said that he played Khan like another gunfighter and the movie was really a western. Let’s face it; Wayne played everything like it was a western. That was part of his charm, but when you cast him as a Mongolian warrior, he still looks and sounds like Wayne and he maintains his distinctive drawl. There was a slight attempt to make Wayne look Asian in that they altered his eyes slightly. They also gave him a sword and a funny helmet but he’s a Mongol by way of Iowa.

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6. The Greatest Story Ever Told

Max von Sydow took the role of Christ in this biblical epic. In an ensemble cast that included Charlton Heston as John the Baptist and Telly Savalas as Pontius Pilate, the appearance of Wayne as a centurion in the crucifixion scene is jarring, to say the least. As Christ suffers on the cross, what should have been a moving scene descends into farce, as the Duke drawls his line, ‘truly, this man was the son of Gaaard’.