Trivial things you don't understand/mildly annoy you

[Bob's Orange]

Even at £14.45, I think you've been had son.

Assuming the Peroni is £5.45 and the large glass of wine was £9. That's kind of par in a pub/bar these days I think?

[Sippo]

The peroni will be over £6 for sure.

[Audrey]

The Peroni was £6.80 2 weeks ago

[Jimmy Quinn]

Fuel prices sneaking up again......why🤔

[Bob's Orange]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-66526446

This topic has come up before about Cillian Murphy playing Oppenheimer and I'd be interested to get people's thoughts about it. The argument here is that these true life films are about prominent Jewish people and they say that the actors should be Jewish.

I personally am not sure I agree. A good actor, should be able to pull off the role, and often spend meticulous hours over weeks if not months 'becoming' that person. Of course they can never really truly know what it's like to be Jewish and so I get the argument but I don't think someone of a specific faith or nationality necessarily has to be cast. (I think Michael Sheen mentioned that a Welsh person should play a Welsh character) Personally the best person for the role should be cast, hence all the top British talent that often play American characters.

[McGurk's Missus]

The Peroni was £6.80 2 weeks ago

Can understand the wine being towards the nine quid mark but £6.80 for a Peroni seems overpriced. That's getting into the craft ale kind of range of pricing. If it had been something like Mittel Pils then I would say poss...even then a bit on the pricey side. Pretty sure I saw Mittel priced at under a fiver a pint recently...

You'll have to find out when Happy Hour is Aud.

[McGurk's Missus]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-66526446

This topic has come up before about Cillian Murphy playing Oppenheimer and I'd be interested to get people's thoughts about it. The argument here is that these true life films are about prominent Jewish people and they say that the actors should be Jewish.

I personally am not sure I agree. A good actor, should be able to pull off the role, and often spend meticulous hours over weeks if not months 'becoming' that person. Of course they can never really truly know what it's like to be Jewish and so I get the argument but I don't think someone of a specific faith or nationality necessarily has to be cast. (I think Michael Sheen mentioned that a Welsh person should play a Welsh character) Personally the best person for the role should be cast, hence all the top British talent that often play American characters.

Yep, I agree with this one but it can be a bit of a minefield. Of course if there is an inherent need for a certain representation then this should be followed but the whole point of acting or the art of such is that actor researching their character and/or a script being so fantastically written that we immediately believe and are compelled to buy into the performance - convincingly as it is.

I do get in some circumstances this can be different. For example [and I totally agreed with it] when Russell T Davies put out casting for It's A Sin, he cast gay actors in all gay roles. We might say that a straight actor could equally have put out a convincingly strong performance [such was the strength of Davies writing] and would also have relished the challenge of becoming that particular character. In this case Davies wanted representation matched/aligned with his characters and when it took him thirty years to write it, I'm completely fine with that.

The main trouble is, if we start to disregard the possible talent level of all actors for several roles then we could end up reducing it as such. It could lead to scenarios where if this application became the norm for every role, we could see something like;

A 15yr old school boy only being played by a 15yr old school boy
A pensioner only being played by anyone over 65 or 66
A Doctor only being played by a Doctor...

and if we get into stereotyping...

A Nurse only played by a Nurse
A Racist only open to people who have membership of the NF
A Criminal/Rapist only played by those types

And so on...where things would seem silly in casting is where a specific storyline is about a certain culture, like an Africa tribe...there is still opportunity to have people who match the brief in terms of look but obviously a white man/woman wouldn't be the obvious choice for the leader of the Maasai. Tom Hanks taking on the lead role in Apocalypto, even if he knowingly could take on the role you would have a tough time convincing the public that Tom Hanks was a Mayan - but Apocalypto has its own issues within the writing and accuracy before thinking about adding someone like Hanks into the mix [this isn't discrediting Hanks, he's a great actor but we just wouldn't go there with that kind of role].

In any case, even though Casting Directors and Casting Agents have a brief [sometimes quite stringent, other times not], there is always the flexibility if they just find/want the right actor for a role. When David Morrissey plays George Oldfield in an upcoming ITV drama in September, I doubt too many will be concentrating on the fact Morrissey is from Liverpool and is about 6O whereas Oldfield was from York and was 55; also likely they had/have totally different personal outlooks on relative modern life too. But we'll probably be absorbed by the performance of Morrissey and the compelling story being told...point in case, if you can afford them...you'll always cast the best actor available for the role

[Audrey]

Surely the whole point of acting is to portray something/someone you’re not. Not long ago there was the hoo ha about that black actress portraying Anne Boleyn - which, admittedly, was a bit strange.

[RobertT]

Sean Connery wasn't Russian and a an expert commander of Submarines?

What a farce - the act of acting kind of gives it all away.  People get far too precious about film - it's all fucking made-up, even the stuff that is "true".  It's not a live stream of an unscripted event.

A debate about the number of scripts green lighted to ensure a breadth of representation, fair enough.  A debate about actors of all ilks being given a shot a stardom, fair enough.

[Mooneyraker]

I enjoyed Michael Sheen playing famous Welshmen Tony Blair, Brian Clough, Sigmund Freud, Emperor Nero, HG Wells and Chris Tarrant.

[DV]

Sean Connery wasn't Russian and a an expert commander of Submarines?

What a farce - the act of acting kind of gives it all away.

A debate about the number of scripts green lighted to ensure a breadth of representation, fair enough.  A debate about actors of all ilks being given a shot a stardom, fair enough.

….in which film does Sean Connery use a Scottish accent?



All of them.

[Bob's Orange]

Surely the whole point of acting is to portray something/someone you’re not. Not long ago there was the hoo ha about that black actress portraying Anne Boleyn - which, admittedly, was a bit strange.

I think a lot of what Bamboo said was spot on in my thinking. (I didn't quote it to not put pressure on disk space! ) I also think I'm in agreement with you Audrey. If the film is a true story and about a real person, in your example Anne Boleyn, I think you cast someone that has a reasonable passing resemblance of that person.

Where it gets tricky is when you are casting for a character, like James Bond, or Doctor Who where the actors change over time. I know there are a lot of people that want Bond to remain a middle aged white man to keep true to the books, which I respect, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over Bond being played by Idris Elba for example. (this may be inaccurate) Jack Reacher in the books is a 6ft plus black man, yet Hollywood midget Tom Cruise was cast. I don't remember there being an awful hoo ha about that.

Hollywood, like the rest of society appears to be getting awfully precious.

[horlock07]

If the film is a true story and about a real person, in your example Anne Boleyn, I think you cast someone that has a reasonable passing resemblance of that person.

The one that always jumps out here is when one is casting Jesus, who would not, despite history's best endeavours, not looked like a bloke from the home counties on the hippy trail. You try casting Jesus like a bloke from that neck of the woods would have looked like in that period and you would be pissing a lot of people off.

Anyway, on a similar vein, what is really getting on my tits with modern castings is the plethora of castings of Americans with piss poor accents playing British people and vice versa, is there really not enough actors to go round!

[Broadbents Tackle]

.

[RobertT]

The one that always jumps out here is when one is casting Jesus, who would not, despite history's best endeavours, not looked like a bloke from the home counties on the hippy trail. You try casting Jesus like a bloke from that neck of the woods would have looked like in that period and you would be pissing a lot of people off.

Anyway, on a similar vein, what is really getting on my tits with modern castings is the plethora of castings of Americans with piss poor accents playing British people and vice versa, is there really not enough actors to go round!

You cast whoever you think is going to bring your character to life in the best fashion, so if that means an accent change, so be it.  There would be some very odd WW2 films by the Western Countries film industries for example - I can't imagine the volume of German speaking actors willing to be portrayed as bad guys is sufficient to have sustained the 50's/60's churning out of those films for example.