Cinema Hype

I think we all know the feeling. (Or, well, maybe it’s just me.) You’re sitting in the movie theater, and suddenly it hits you. “I know what’s going on here,” you say to the casting director in your head (just me, again?). “You wanted Brad Pitt for that role, didn’t you? And he turned you down. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?” And there you are, watching, I don’t know, Hayden Christensen instead, and you’re pretty sure you’re not the only one missing Pitt.

It happens all the time–there are only a certain number of truly talented and/or truly famous actors out there, and they can’t all be in all of the movies all of the time. Famous people are busy and expensive, and studio execs like having their schedules and their budgets, and so we get Lara Flynn Boyle instead of Nicole Kidman. It happens.

Sometimes the substitution works out. We’re told that the role of Frank in Little Miss Sunshine, for example, was originally written with Bill Murray in mind. But can we really see Murray plugging along in the back of that van in the first place? Little Miss Sunshine would suddenly have become “that Bill Murray movie” instead of the real ensemble piece it was destined to become. Steve Carell turned out to be a heartbreaking and far less hackneyed choice. Kudos to the scheduling issues!

Much of the time, though, it’s just not the same, even if they try to get us not to notice. We at CH like to call these the Poor Man’s Awards:

Aidan Quinn, poor man’s Gabriel Byrne
Joey Lauren Adams, poor man’s Renee Zellweger*
Ellen Pompeo, poor man’s Renee Zellweger*
Jon Voight, poor man’s Nick Nolte
Jon Voight, poor man’s Christopher Walken
Edward Burns, poor man’s Edward Norton
Monica Potter, poor man’s Julia Roberts
Dermot Mulroney, poor man’s Patrick Dempsey
Eva Mendes, poor man’s Salma Hayek
Kathy Baker, poor man’s Sally Field
Stephen Baldwin, poor man’s Alec Baldwin
Billy Baldwin, poor man’s Stephen Baldwin
Elizabeth Banks, poor man’s Rachel McAdams

Now, we’re not saying that the “poor man’s” side of the list is bad, necessarily. Some of these people are fine actors with fine careers in their own rights (others…really are that bad, and we’re sort of sorry for pointing it out). It’s just that they’re less expensive, less busy, and less recognizable than the “rich man’s” side of the list. And sometimes, well, it shows.

So, readers, let’s hear it: who are your favorite or un-favorite B-list substitutes?

*We see that being Renee Zellweger’s less-expensive stand-in must have its perks, but two of them? Come on, Adams. You’re the Amy they’re Chasing! YOU CAN DO BETTER. Pompeo, well, we’re not so sure.

awards, actors