PillowRock
Regular
Re: Playing Devil\'s Advocate to Test Our Argument
Stage roles are recast much more often than not, and not *only* for because of box office concerns. Stage acting and screen acting are very different things. Some people can do both well. Other people specialize in one or the other. Very often a great stage performance would look like horrendous over-acting on film and a great film performance would look like mumbling non-acting on stage.
I remember hearing a story about the making of Cleopatra. Richard Burton, who had come up as a classically trained stage actor, was complaining vehemently to the director and / or producers about Elizabeth Taylor's complete lack of any performance in the title role. After a while they took him aside and showed him the dailies. Burton was shocked to see that, on screen with close-ups, Taylor looked wonderful and he was the one who like a silly incompetent who was massively overacting. Burton was supremely talented and adjusted quickly. However, wondering whether a given stage actor will be able to make that adjustment quickly enough for your movie is a legitimate concern in some cases.
And actually, what I remember hearing / reading about Mostel and Fiddler was that the issue in that case was exactly the opposite of the wanting-a-bigger-box-office-star syndrome. Mostel was very well known, and had a very specific style. He did big, broad, over-the-top, farcical comedy. That's what he was known for, and it worked terrifically in playing Tevye on stage. The director (Norman Jewison, IIRC) wanted a much more intimately personal and emotional feeling for the movie, which the closeness of movies allows. Even if Mostel toned down his performance for that movie, the audiance's recognition of him as Zero Mostel and their expectaction of his style would compromise their identification with and emotional investment in Tevye, or at least that is what Jewison feared. He was purposely going the other way, to cast a virtual unknown as Tevye so that audiances would see him only as Tevye.
Stage roles are recast much more often than not, and not *only* for because of box office concerns. Stage acting and screen acting are very different things. Some people can do both well. Other people specialize in one or the other. Very often a great stage performance would look like horrendous over-acting on film and a great film performance would look like mumbling non-acting on stage.
I remember hearing a story about the making of Cleopatra. Richard Burton, who had come up as a classically trained stage actor, was complaining vehemently to the director and / or producers about Elizabeth Taylor's complete lack of any performance in the title role. After a while they took him aside and showed him the dailies. Burton was shocked to see that, on screen with close-ups, Taylor looked wonderful and he was the one who like a silly incompetent who was massively overacting. Burton was supremely talented and adjusted quickly. However, wondering whether a given stage actor will be able to make that adjustment quickly enough for your movie is a legitimate concern in some cases.
And actually, what I remember hearing / reading about Mostel and Fiddler was that the issue in that case was exactly the opposite of the wanting-a-bigger-box-office-star syndrome. Mostel was very well known, and had a very specific style. He did big, broad, over-the-top, farcical comedy. That's what he was known for, and it worked terrifically in playing Tevye on stage. The director (Norman Jewison, IIRC) wanted a much more intimately personal and emotional feeling for the movie, which the closeness of movies allows. Even if Mostel toned down his performance for that movie, the audiance's recognition of him as Zero Mostel and their expectaction of his style would compromise their identification with and emotional investment in Tevye, or at least that is what Jewison feared. He was purposely going the other way, to cast a virtual unknown as Tevye so that audiances would see him only as Tevye.
