Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film
One of the responses to the relative freedom brought
about by the end of the studio system was an increase
in the frequency of ‘‘off-casting’’ or ‘‘casting against
type.’’ As studio contracts expired and were not renewed,
stars found themselves free to play a broader range of
roles. Many of the roles taken by Humphrey Bogart
(1899–1957) and James Stewart after 1949 typify successful off-casting. Bogart, whose tough cynicism was
transformed into heroism in the films of his Warner
Bros. star years, was drawn to roles like the grizzled sot
in The African Queen (1951), a part originally intended
for Charles Laughton (1899–1962); the urbane screenwriter with uncontrollable violent tendencies in In a
Lonely Place (1950); and the paranoid Captain Queeg
in The Caine Mutiny (1954). For James Stewart, playing
driven, neurotic, possibly disturbed loners in the films of
director Anthony Mann (1907–1967), such as The
Naked Spur (1953) and The Man from Laramie (1955),
moved the fortyish actor away from his ‘‘boyish’’ image
and helped him deepen his emotional range. This change
readied Stewart for the great roles Alfred Hitchcock
(1899–1980) would offer him in Rear Window (1954)
and Vertigo (1958).
For women as well, freedom from studio contracts
meant new opportunities, but these were often traps, or
perhaps respites from the traps in which actresses were
usually caught. Susan Hayward escaped the insipid love
interests she played in her Twentieth Century Fox contract movies (David and Bathsheba, 1951; Demetrius and
the Gladiators, 1954), taking challenging and realistic
roles in biopics like I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1955) and I
Want to Live!. Doris Day (b. 1924), severely typecast at
Warner Bros. as the girl next door in nostalgic musicals, in her first role as a freelancer, played Ruth Etting
(1897–1978) in the melodramatic musical biopic, Love
Me or Leave Me (1955). The film brought her acclaim,
but also letters from fans deeply offended at seeing Day
as an alcoholic trapped in an abusive marriage; she never
accepted such a role again. Less surprisingly, when wholesome actresses like Donna Reed (1922–1986) and Shirley
Jones (b. 1934) played prostitutes, they won Oscars.
These did not keep Reed and Jones from receding later
into TV sitcoms (The Donna Reed Show, 1958–1966,
and The Partridge Family, 1970–1974), where their
sunny personas were permanently etched.
Moreover, the rise of Method acting, as seen especially in the wide and lasting influence of Marlon Brando
(1924–2004), encouraged versatility in acting and the
assumption that a good actor should be able to play
anything. This led to more adventurous casting but also
to a good deal of miscasting; even Brando was capable of
appearing ridiculous in the wrong role, as in Desire ´e
(1954), in which he played a bored-looking Napoleon,
and The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956), in which he
impersonated a Japanese interpreter.
Off-casting works when it illuminates character by
revealing aspects of an actor’s talent that had been previously undiscovered, as Hitchcock knew when he cast
boys-next-door Robert Walker (1918–1951) and
Anthony Perkins (1932–1992) in Strangers on a Train
(1951) and Psycho (1960), respectively. Perkins’s case
provides a cautionary tale, however, about how good
off-casting can turn into typecasting if producers thereafter are unable to picture the actor in any other kind of
role. Conversely, actors typecast as heavies have turned
their careers around by playing a nice character or two.
Ernest Borgnine (b. 1917) was known for brutal bullies
in From Here to Eternity (1953) and Bad Day at Black
Rock (1955) when he took the role of Marty Piletti, the
good-hearted lonely butcher in Marty (1955). Borgnine
projected ordinary humanity and decency and won the
Academy Award for Best Actor. This was off-casting
that played as perfect casting.
The line between off-casting and miscasting can be
thin. Gregory Peck (1916–2003) was so convincing playing earnest heroes of high moral rectitude that no one,
including Peck, seemed to realize that he did not have the
range to play much else. His attempts at ferocious characters like Captain Ahab in Moby Dick (1956) and evil
villains like the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele in The Boys
from Brazil (1978) are infamous embarrassments. These
are cases in which the actor miscast himself, and the
producer, the director, the studio, and Peck’s fellow
actors went along, hoping the gamble would work. Like
other miscast calamities—from Oprah Winfrey (b. 1954)
in Beloved (1998), whose rusty acting skills were not up
to the demands of a very difficult role, to a fifty-year-old
Roberto Benigni (b. 1952) as Pinocchio (2001)—these
were the follies of a well-meaning, powerful star to whom
no one wanted to say no.
Broadly speaking, most miscasting has occurred
when a major star has been put in a role for which he
or she is clearly unsuited in order to increase the film’s
box-office appeal. There is virtually a miscasting hall of fame: John Wayne as Genghis Khan in The Conquerer
(1956), Elizabeth Taylor (b. 1932) in Cleopatra (1963),
Cybill Shepherd (b. 1950) in Daisy Miller (1974), Demi
Moore (b. 1962) as Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter
(1995), Tom Cruise (b. 1962) in Interview with the
Vampire (1994), Anthony Hopkins (b. 1937) and
Nicole Kidman (b. 1967) in The Human Stain (2003).
As these examples indicate, literary adaptations and historical films are the most difficult to cast because critics
and audiences bring a preconceived concept of the characters, one that can clash with the personae of wellknown actors.