39,327
edits
Meta Casting: Difference between revisions
m
update links
m (update links) |
m (update links) |
||
Line 2:
Actors are prone to having their own personality... surprise! They may be gifted in being able to portray someone else, but often that baggage of their own distinct personality can cross over into the minds of the general public. There is also past roles they they will [[Typecasting|be eternally known for.]]
The use of Meta Casting is taking an actor and crafting a role that utilizes their known history to create a resonance between the performance and the audience that makes the whole thing far more dynamic than it could have been in any other way. As an example, take an actor who is famous for having altercations with obnoxious tabloid reporters. Take that same actor and cast them in a role of a famous businessman who kills a reporter for harassing him constantly. In some cases the actual role is almost an [[Expy]] of themselves, as in they're playing an ''actor'' with a suspiciously similar history.
This can come in multiple ways:
Line 13:
In many cases this can be [[And the Fandom Rejoiced]]; the fans latch on to that resonance and appreciate it.
Compare [[Casting Gag]] (where the actor has a past history with the franchise or other actors), [[Actor Allusion]] (a nod to other roles they played), [[Ink Suit Actor]], [[Celebrity Paradox]], [[Reality Subtext]] and [[Enforced Method Acting]].
{{examples|Examples- }}
== [[Film]] ==
* [[Robert Downey, Jr.]]. was cast as ''[[Iron Man (film)|Iron Man]]'' not only because he is a good actor, but has had problems in the past with drug abuse. That added extra weight to a man who is struggling to redeem himself for past mistakes; a man who is also known for having problems with alcohol.
** Robert Downey Jr. IS Tony Stark for most practical purposes.
** [[Samuel L. Jackson]] was cast as Nick Fury because Ultimate Nick Fury's character design was based on him anyway, and as part of using his likeness he got the role in a live action film using the character.
** Downey did it again in ''[[Sherlock Holmes (film)|Sherlock Holmes]]'', playing the titular ace detective with drug and adjustment problems.
*** In fact, this seems to happen to Downey a lot. In ''[[Charlie Bartlett]]'' he plays a high school principal with an alcohol problem.
Line 25:
*** ''[[A Scanner Darkly]]'', natch
** Stephen Fry has just been announced as Mycroft Holmes (Sherlock's older, cleverer brother) in the Sherlock Holmes sequel. QI as a show reel perchance?
* [[Bruce Willis]] in ''[[Unbreakable]]'' as a man who is struggling with the idea that he might be [[Made of Iron]] and no one else is. Thinking about John McClane while watching the movie makes it that much [[Deconstruction|more thoughtful.]]
** Subverted for great effect in ''[[The Sixth Sense]]'' - the audience expects a Bruce Willis character to [[Just a Flesh Wound|shrug off being shot]], so when [[The Reveal]] comes around, it's a big shock ([[It Was His Sled|if you manage to not be spoiled, anyway]]).
* [[John Wayne]] in ''The Shootist'' playing an aging gunfighter dying of cancer in a world where he realises he's an anachronism. What's more is that most everyone expected this to be his last film, and it was.
* [[Keanu Reeves]] as a drug addicted cop in ''[[A Scanner Darkly]]''. He's just [[Dull Surprise]]'d enough to seem plausible as a guy whose mind is slowly deteriorating from substance D.
** EVERYONE in ''[[A Scanner Darkly]]''. Not only does it have the aforementioned Reeves and [[Robert Downey, Jr.]], but also Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder, Rory Cochrane. What a cast to play a bunch of stoners!
* [[Lizzie McGuire|Hilary Duff]] in ''War, Inc'' where she plays a [[Idol Singer|pop star]] who is overly saturated as a sex symbol, which while not exactly descriptive of Duff's life and career it does come fairly close to use this trope.
** Perhaps it is a [[Casting Gag]] [[Take That]] to [[Madonna|some]] [[Britney Spears|of]] [[Jessica Simpson|her]] [[Janet Jackson|raunchier]] [[Christina Aguilera|predecessors]].
* Christopher Reeve in the ''[[Rear Window]]'' remake.
* Audie Murphy. Enlisted in the US Army at 16 by falsifying his birth records, and proceeded to win more medals than he had places to put them in WWII. This included every single medal awarded by the US at the time, several more than once, along with medals from the French and Belgian governments. He then came home and starred in several war movies as a young recruit who performed heroic deeds on the battlefield, including ''[[The Red Badge of Courage]]'' and a movie based on his own war experiences.
* ''[[School of Rock]]'' cast several child musicians, rather than child actors to play the young musician characters. [[Jack Black]] himself is part of [[Tenacious D]].
** Bonus points for the fact that the kid who played Larry (the pianist) had to go through the same classical-to-rock transition that the character did.
* ''Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star'' had the main character go for a role in a Rob Reiner film and he was considered perfect for the role in every regard except that he never had a normal childhood. So he goes off to quickly get a normal childhood. Essentially he is working to invoke this trope [[In-Universe]] to get a role.
* Ben Stein as a high school economics teacher in ''[[Ferris Bueller's Day Off|Ferris Buellers Day Off]]''.
* ''[[The Wrestler]]'' casts Mickey Rourke, a down-on-his-luck actor looking for a comeback, as a down-on-his-luck wrestler looking for a comeback.
* [[Jesse Ventura]] in ''[[The Running Man (film)|The Running Man]]''. Retired hunter turns play by play commentator.
** And that's to say nothing of Richard Dawson playing an established game show host who was loved by the fans but was a real jerk when it came to backstage politics.
* In-universe use: In ''Mr. Saturday Night'' there was a part in a film based on Buddy Young Jr. (the protagonist), but he didn't get the role because the writer/director thought he was dead so he cast Walter Matthau(?) instead. Buddy auditions for another part, but stops and says "this isn't me."
* ''[[Rocky Balboa]]'' cast a real life boxer to play Mason Dixon because according to Stallone it is easier to teach a boxer how to act than teach an actor how to box.
** Same also applies to the casting of Tommy Morrison as Tommy "Machine" Gunn in ''Rocky V''. That one didn't really work out so well though.
** Not to mention Mr. T and Hulk Hogan in ''Rocky III''.
*** Yeah and we got Scandinavian double black belt [[Dolph Lundgren]] as Drago in ''IV''. ''Rocky'' LOVES this trope.
* [[R. Lee Ermey]] started as a consultant for ''[[Full Metal Jacket]]'' and was eventually cast in the role of [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]]. He was a <s>former</s> Marine, after all.
* ''[[Tropic Thunder]]'' works almost entirely because it plays with the actual personalities of the actors portraying fictional actors. Robert Downey Jr plays an obsessive method actor who goes to extremes to play a role, to the detriment of his peers. Jack Black plays a comic who ''only'' plays obnoxious buffoons in [[Toilet Humor]] movies. In fact, some people expressed disappointment that [[Ben Stiller]] wasn't an [[Expy]] of himself (A [[The Woobie|sympathetic]] [[The Everyman|everyman]] who is a [[Cosmic Plaything]]) instead of the Stallone-like action hero he was in the movie. Jay Baruchel plays the little-known actor who isn't even mentioned on the poster, which is often what he is in real life.
* Donald Sutherland's right hand man in ''Outbreak'', Dale Dye, was a captain in the Marine Corps. He has made a secondary career out of playing military officers.
** His tertiary career is teaching actors how to play military officers.
** In his spare time, he also acts as a military advisor for first-person shooters. ''[[Medal of Honor]]'' names its [[Harder Than Hard]] modes after him.
* Paris Hilton in ''[[Repo! The Genetic Opera]]'' appears to be this ? she plays a bitchy, slutty, egotistical heiress, which matches at least her public image perfectly ? but she was initially not even allowed to audition and had to fight to win the part. Still a case of [[
* The holographic operator of the Decepticon vehicles in [[Transformers (film)|Transformers]], "Moustache Man", is an actual pilot for the US military who was qualified to fly the various vehicles he appeared in. He even delayed his wedding to play [[Corrupt Cop|Barricade's]] Moustache Man at the request of Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg.
* [[Peter Sellers]] took this trope into his own hands and put a twist on it. He often commented in interviews that he had no real personality and was nothing beyond the [[The Goon Show|many]] [[The Pink Panther|colorful]] [[Doctor Strangelove|characters]] he played. After he read ''[[Being There]]'', he contacted author Jerzy Kosinski about getting a film adaptation made because he saw in it the role he was meant to play all along. That would be Chance the Gardener, a mentally-challenged man whose personality is so underdeveloped that he can only reflect other people's assumptions and desires, which makes each one of them see him as everything he or she ever wanted -- a passionate-yet-discreet lover, a brilliant thinker, etc. The resultant performance is regarded as one of the greatest, if not ''the'' greatest, of his career, even though it is worlds removed from most of his other work tonally.
Line 70:
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* Christopher Reeve in his role in ''[[Smallville]]'' as Virgil Swann. The past Superman is telling the current Superman where he came from and who he is. Often considered the [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] for the show.
* In the third season of ''[[Slings and Arrows]]'', William Hutt's character is enticed out of retirement to play at the New Burbage theater festival while dying of cancer. Hutt himself had several "retirements" from the Stratford Festival (on which New Burbage is based) and died of leukemia shortly after ''Slings And Arrows'' was filmed.
* ''[[Undeclared]]'' inverted this trope where the characters' personalities, and even their home city/country, were based on the actors they hired. The [[DVD Commentary]] would frequently point out that a recurring actor really did have that kind of slightly-off personality.
* Everyone's favorite goth girl, ''[[NCIS]]'' lab tech Abby Sciuto, has a lot in common with her actress, Pauley Perrette. Not just the tattoos, but the story Abby tells Kate in the first episode, about poking around in an old junkyard being the start of her forensics path, is actually straight out of Perette's life.
** In another example from the same show, Michael Weatherly plays Tony DiNozzo, who comes from a rich family but has been cut off. This is actually true of Weatherly's own family, as his own father cut him off when he dropped out of college and became an actor. Various other bits of his real life history have been used as gags (including how his family made their money and that he was once engaged to Jessica Alba) and Tony's movie references became a character element after a few too many of his ad-libs were movie-based.
** Sean Murry is also almost as much of a geek as McGee.
* Dennis Farina usually plays cops and mobsters, which maybe isn't surprising considering he was a Chicago police officer for almost 20 years before taking up acting. His ''[[Law and Order]]'' character is even mentioned as previously being a Chicago cop.
Line 81:
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* [[Adam West]] (but of course) in ''[[Batman: The Animated Series]]'' as a washed-up actor who is frustrated that nobody can think of him as anything but his most famous role. Other actors might have been able to portray it better, but no one else could have given it that added level of irony. And then producer Bruce Timm playing the crazy fan in the episode (complete as an [[Ink Suit Actor]]) really hits it home.
** This has become such a thing for Mr. West that [[Adam Westing|he has his own page about it.]]
** Along those same lines, [[Neil Patrick Harris]] played a washed-up child actor in ''[[Static Shock]]''. Given his career path after ''[[Doogie Howser, M.D.]]'' (before his comeback role in ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]''), this was likely intentional.
| |||