The 10 most miscast movie characters of the 1980s
The casting process in the 1980s was different from what it is today.
It’s a tough profession for anyone who is pursuing acting, and breaking into the business might have been even more challenging in the ‘80s than it is today.
While today’s aspiring actors have the benefit of using Internet content to create clip reels and showcase their body of work, actors in the ‘80s had to rely on their past credits and whatever they were able to showcase in their ambitions.
Considering that there were a number of great performances in the ‘70s from actors who continued to work in the next decade, the odds of breaking in became even slimmer. There are also some films that seemed like they would be disasters from the start, ensuring that there was very little room for the performances to redeem them.
There are certainly cases in which a film was never going to have great performances, regardless of who was starring in it; audiences don’t go to see a Friday the 13th sequel or a Burt Reynolds vehicle for great acting, so it’s hard to say that any of the co-stars in those films are “miscast”.
However, there are parts that may have worked much better had they been given to someone who was better-suited for the specific character in mind. Something that has not changed in today’s cinematic marketplace is that studios are often keen to cast the biggest star that they can, rather than choosing who is actually the best for the part.
The 10 most miscast movie characters of the 1980s
Mark Pillow as Nuclear Man – ‘Superman IV: The Quest for Peace’
The Superman franchise is running into problems now, but it is a series that has always been cursed.
The original run of films starring Christopher Reeve declined in quality with each entry, and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace had its budget cut down when it was produced by Cannon Films. The sequel needed a villain who posed a physical threat to Superman, similar to General Zod (Terrence Stamp) in Superman II or the “Evil Superman” in Superman III.
Although Mark Pillow might have been physically imposing, he had little experience as an actor and didn’t look convincing in the fight scenes with Reeve. It resulted in a disastrous action finale where audiences laughed at how unbelievable the brawl between Superman and Pillow’s character “Nuclear Man” looked, and the film bombed so hard that it took 19 years for Superman to return to the big screen.
Lea Thompson as Beverly Switzler – ‘Howard the Duck’
Marvel couldn’t have picked a worse character to use for their first film adaptation.
Even if the technology at the time might have made it challenging to make a truly great Iron Man, Spider-Man, Hulk, or X-Men film, Howard the Duck was reliant on a satirical sense of humour that only worked if other superhero entities existed. Of all the issues with the film’s script, the blatantly romantic (and perhaps sexual) relationship between Howard and Lea Thompson’s Beverly Switzler is by far the most problematic.
Thompson was seen as a major heartthrob at the time, and the film would have worked better if they had cast a comedy star who could play into the ridiculousness of the material. Unfortunately, being so miscast as Bevererly ended up essentially destroying Thompson’s career, as the opportunities offered to her began to dry up in the next decade.
Jim Carrey as Johnny Squares- ‘The Dead Pool’
Jim Carrey had his first role in a major film when he briefly appeared in the Francis Ford Coppola classic Peggy Sue Got Married, but he was bizarrely cast to play the rock star Johnny Squares in The Dead Pool, which was the fifth effort in the Dirty Harry franchise.
Although the films had gotten a bit goofier with each instalment, The Dead Pool was a borderline parody of the more serious tone of the predecessors because it was about a serial killer who was targeting celebrities.
What’s strangest about Carrey’s scenes is that, prior to his character getting killed off, he lip-syncs in a music video to ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ by Guns N’ Roses. This makes it even more confusing when, later on, there is a funeral for Squares, in which the real members of Guns N’ Roses are in attendance.
Brigitte Nielsen as Ludmilla Vobet Drago – ‘Rocky IV’
Rocky had gotten completely ridiculous as a franchise by the time Sylvester Stallone directed Rocky IV, which saw Rocky Balboa headed to the Soviet Union after the Russian boxer Ivan Drago killed his mentor Apollo Creed in an exhibition match.
While the film is able to riff on actual Cold War tension in a silly way, Stallone made the mistake of casting his wife at the time, Brigette Nielsen, as the wife of Lundgren’s character.
Nielsen’s Russian accent is terrible, and she has absolutely no chemistry with Lundgren, who at least seemed to understand that the film was intended to be silly. It was yet another example of Stallone trying to assert his control as a director by casting his family in a Rocky film; this would be an even bigger problem in 1990 when he cast his real son to be in Rocky V.
Andrew McCarthy as Larry Wilson – ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’
Of all the young actors who were associated with ‘The Brat Pack‘ label in the 1980s, Andrew McCarthy has had the least successful career.
While actors like Rob Lowe and Molly Ringwald were able to do interesting parts in the ‘90s, McCarthy has continuously tried to blame the “Brat Pack” label as being why his career didn’t take off, and even made an entire documentary about it.
The issue is that McCarthy was too bland a star, and a film like Weekend at Bernie’s didn’t work because he wasn’t believable as a somewhat scummy, mischievous employee trying to take advantage of his boss. Weekend at Bernie’s is by no means a classic, but it would be a lot more entertaining if someone like Robert Downey Jr or Emilio Estevez were in the role of Larry Wilson, and not McCarthy.
Tina Turner as Aunty Entity – ‘Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome’
The Mad Max franchise is one of the few cinematic sagas where there isn’t a single bad entry, but Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is by far the weakest because of how uneven it is.
Although the third film in the series opens by introducing ‘The Thunderdome’, one of the most interesting action set pieces that George Miller ever came up with, the film tried to cash in on the popularity of Tina Turner by casting her as the ringleader known as ‘Aunty Entity’.
Even though the world of Mad Max has always been populated by eccentric villains, Turner felt out of place in the post-apocalyptic wasteland and didn’t have the menace needed to feel like a real threat to Max. When Miller returned to the franchise for Mad Max: Fury Road and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, he made the correct choice to simply hire local Australian actors instead of movie stars.
David Mendenhall as Michael Hawk – ‘Over the Top’
Sylvester Stallone is rarely honest about his failings, but he has admitted to regretting making Over the Top, a family-friendly sports dramedy that proved he wasn’t really suited for that type of material.
Stallone plays a long-distance trucker who decides to compete in an arm wrestling competition in order to impress his estranged son, played by David Mendenhall, as his wife is suffering from an illness that forces them to spend time with one another.
There’s truly nothing worse than an obnoxious child performance, and Mendenhall is both incredibly annoying and feels absolutely nothing like Stallone; a film that should have been a cheesy, silly adventure ends up being nearly unwatchable because the central relationship is so unbelievable. Over the Top might never have been a great film, but it might have been more entertaining if there had been a decent child actor cast opposite Stallone.
Hal Holbrook as Ham Johnson – ‘Fletch Lives’
Chevy Chase created one of the funniest and most underrated comedies of the ‘80s with Fletch, which made the disastrous follow-up Fletch Lives one of the biggest disappointments of the decade.
While setting the film in the Deep South and focusing on plantation culture was already a choice that had aged badly, Fletch Lives tried to take itself way too seriously by casting Hal Holbrook in the role of Ham Johnson, a villainous lawyer who becomes Fletch’s enemy.
Holbrook is a brilliant actor, but he’s not well-suited to be trading quips with Chase, who tends to blow away any of his co-stars. It was the failure of Fletch Lives that ended what could have been an entertaining recurring franchise, as it didn’t return until Jon Hamm took over the leading role in the underrated reboot Confess, Fletch, which was more faithful to the novels.
Laurence Luckinbill as Sybok – ‘Star Trek V: The Final Frontier’
The Star Trek franchise was on a pretty successful run up until William Shatner decided to direct the fifth instalment in the series, as he had become jealous of how acclaimed his co-star Leonard Nimoy had been for his work directing the third and fourth entries in the series. Shatner’s bizarre idea for a sequel involved the new villain, Sybok, a religious zealot looking for God, who is revealed to be Spock’s half-brother.
Laurence Luckinbill’s performance as Sybock is incomprehensible, as he doesn’t appear to be iterating off of what a galactic televangelist looks like, nor does he seem anything like Nimoy’s performance as Spock. It was a rare miss for the Star Trek franchise in terms of its villains, as other antagonists had been played successfully by great actors, such as Ricardo Montalban, Christopher Lloyd, Christopher Plummer, and Malcolm McDowell.
Pierce Brosnan as Pommier – ‘Nomads’
Pierce Brosnan was already a popular choice to play James Bond when MGM was preparing to cast a replacement for Roger Moore in The Living Daylights, but he had to turn down the opportunity initially because of his obligations to the television series Remington Steele.
Although Brosnan thankfully got around to becoming Bond nearly a decade later when he was cast in Goldeneye, one of the few star vehicles he was allowed to make was Nomads, a horror mystery directed by John McTiernan.
Casting Brosnan as a French anthropologist was a baffling decision, given that he has one of the most iconic British accents ever. Nomads is such a mess that it’s hard to believe that it was directed by the same man who made Die Hard and Predator, but it might have been slightly more watchable had McTiernan gotten a French actor to play the lead.
