comment #1

malibugigolo says ...

Wellls:

Rough cut was very good, going to a screening Tues.

comment #2

Silverscreenvideos says ...

Edmund Gwenn as Santa Claus
Robert Englund as Freddie Kruger (completely changed his image as an ah-shucks dimwitted nice guy)
John Houseman as Kingsfield (every other role he played was essentially the same character)
Ruth Gordon as Minnie Castevet (ditto Houseman)

comment #3

Richard_Stone says ...

I thought that was a still from Chaplin with Robert Downey Jr.

comment #4

PerfectTommy says ...

I have a hard time watching Anthony Perkins in romantic comedies he made before Psycho. "Watch out Jane Fonda in Tall Story! You don't know his family history!"

comment #5

ZacharyTF says ...

After Pirates of the Carribbean, I had a hard time watching Johnny Depp in Secret Window, Finding Neverland and Willy Wonka without trying to catch glimpses of Jack Sparrow.

I'm sure if I watched Once Upon a Time in Mexico, The Corpse Bride, Libertine and the upcoming Sweeney Todd, I'll have the same problem.

comment #6

Geoff says ...

Great question Wells:

Andrew Robinson from Dirty Harry. Hands down winner. He even went on to do Hellraiser. He is and always will be that disgusting Scorpio Killer.

Ted Levine also had this problem for a while. But he's proven himself to be a very good actor...but still, every now and then that voice gets to you. Joy Ride capitalized on this. This year he was memorable in Jesse James and even American Gangster.

comment #7

Noah says ...

I would say that I found Bardem to be so remarkable in Before Night Falls as a gay Cuban poet that it would be hard to believe him as a cold-blooded killer in No Country for Old Men.

comment #8

frankbooth says ...

Bela Lugosi as that guy in the cape. Christopher Lee for the same role, at least until LOTR. It only took him 40 years to be associated with a different character.

comment #9

le corbeau says ...

Tom Cruise in roles after he played a Nazi?

This isn't quite the same thing but... years ago a friend of mine read a Premiere piece on Gwyneth Paltrow and went to Emma having it in her head that Gwyneth ended the movie with her head in a box. (That was, needless to say, Seven.) So she's sitting there watching the frothy comedy of manners as Jeremy Northam and Gwyneth realize they love each other and thinking, "My God, how in the hell is this going to end with her head cut off? People are going to throw things at the screen! They're going to burn down the theater!"

comment #10

Andrew says ...

Anthony Hopkins.

comment #11

MichaelC says ...

Paul Giamatti.

Obviously, that's no reflection on his abilities, but I'm starting to wonder if I will ever be able to see him without thinking of Miles.

comment #12

BurmaShave says ...

I would so love to see Leguizamo take a shotgun to the face. Bratt too. I guess it would make for a short movie though.

comment #13

BurmaShave says ...

Also, to address this issue using NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, I have a hard time disassosciating Stephen Root from his role as Milton in OFFICE SPACE. Often he takes me completely out of the movie for a moment, though he fit quite well into NCFOM.

Hopefully Bardem will be justly rewarded for this career role with all the gold critics and his peers have to offer.

comment #14

Josh Massey says ...

It took me awhile to disassociate Ralph Fiennes and Schindler's List. I kept expecting him to put Herb Stempel's brains all over a nearby wall.

comment #15

ScottMendelson says ...

The only difficulty for me is when actors play a character of a different intelligence level than those who they usually play. The most recent example is Chiwetel Ejiofor. He almost always plays characters of a certain intelligence and steely resolve, so watching him play the boneheaded brother of Frank Lucas in American Gangster was slightly distracting. Jodie Foster is always distracting when she plays 'dumb' (Anna And The King, Little Man Tate), because she is obviously 'pretending'.

I'm curious to see Lions For Lambs to see how convincing Cruise is at espousing a political viewpoint that is obviously not his own. That's something that doesn't happen all too often. For example, in the final seasons of The West Wing, Alan Arkin may have been the Republican candidate, but he was a moderate, reasonable man who was likely the 'ideal' Republican from a Democratic viewpoint. Also, those on his staff were actors who were known conservatives (Stephen Root, Patricia Richardson). It's seemingly rare for an actor to play the opposite politics of himself, unless he's playing the out-and-out villain of the film (ie - Gary Oldman in The Contender).

Scott Mendelson

comment #16

Josh Massey says ...

Gary Oldman is actually quite conservative, which is why he was reportedly unhappy with the final cut of that film.

comment #17

ScottMendelson says ...

I did not know that, Massey. That answers I question I always had, which was why he objected to the humanizing scenes with the congressman and his wife (where she says that his pursuit will turn him into a second-rate McCarthy). Those were my favorite bits in the film as they were the only ones that allowed shades of grey. Thanks for the correction.

Scott Mendelson

comment #18

rocco says ...

Jackie Earle Haley...not sure I'll ever be able to see him in a movie again and not think of his character in 'Little Children'

comment #19

AJW says ...

I watch every Tom Hanks movie believing he's retarded. I thought it was clear that his numerologist in The Da Vinci Code was just Rain Man rip off.

comment #20

berg says ...

PLEASE STEP AWAY FROM THE CAR SIR ... if I ever hear a cop say that I a running fast and furious like Chris Farley being attacked by bees ... okay, at the end of NCFOM before Tommy Lee walks into the motel room we see a shot of Chugrah holding a gun, presumably in the same room ... what happened, was he just a ghost ... and which body is floating in the pool, the woman with the beer? I have to see it a third time ... also Flesh and Bone and Fandango were also partially lensed in Marfa, along with NCFOM and TWBB

comment #21

frankbooth says ...

Berg,

There are a couple dozen threads on imdb about that motel room scene, and even so the result is that nobody can agree with any certainty.

comment #22

televisiontears says ...

As brilliantly as he blends into every role, it still requires some effort for me to disassociate Christian Bale from Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. The scene in Batman Begins in which he runs into Katie Holmes outside the restaurant, I swear I heard him say, "I'd love to stay and chat, but I have to return some videotapes."

comment #23

Rich S. says ...

Mine would be Laura Linney after The Truman Show. She's always had that kind of plastic, middle-American housewife beauty, and they used that to perfect effect in that film. She's a good actress, but in every movie of hers I've seen after that, I keep expecting her to pick up some kitchen shears and do a blatant product placement.

comment #24

Dave Polands Gut says ...

Bardem is an actor with good heavens actual talent. He'll be fine.

comment #25

christian says ...

"Christopher Lee for the same role, at least until LOTR. It only took him 40 years to be associated with a different character."

Actually, he broke the mold with MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN and then after his successful SNL guest host gig (uh, on video please?) he launched himself into THW WICKER MAN, 1941, SERIAL (as a gay biker!), AIRPORT 77, etc. But certainly LOTR and SW pushed him into the realm of the iconic.

comment #26

115thDreamer says ...

SPOILER ALERT....

Berg - yes, the dead girl in the pool at the end is the girl who was flirting with Moss when he arrived at the motel. In the book the character is a teenage runaway hitchhiker that he picks up and actually spends a day or two with (no funny business or anything). The Coens just compressed everything for the movie of course - in the book, the bodies are already gone when Sheriff Bell arrives at the motel - he has to get a recap of what happened from the local sheriff, and then he goes to the morgue to see Moss' body.

And I wondered the same thing about the scene where Tommy Lee Jones is about to enter the room and we see Chigurh right on the other side of the door. After he comes into the room, he does eventually look over and see the A/C grille on the floor with the dime next to it, so Chigurh WAS there, but was he really in the room when Bell entered? My guess is we were seeing what Bell was imagining...ties in with the idea of Chigurh being a "ghost" that Bell can never quite glimpse, track or catch. Damn, I'm going to have to see it again, too...