Sometimes movie studios make bad casting decisions. This
seems to be even truer with biopics, where casting directors need to be able to
find the perfect actor to play the celebrity or historic figure without fans or
historians getting up in arms about the portrayal. Take the show ‘Urban Myths’
for example, who has been in the news lately for its casting of Joseph Fiennes
(a white man) as Michael Jackson (a black man) in an episode called “Elizabeth,
Michael and Marlon.” There was enough outrage surrounding his portrayal,
including from Jackson’s daughter, that Sky Arts, the show’s production studio,
pulled the episode from airing.
Fiennes’ casting on ‘Urban Myths’ is not the only missed
mark in biopic history. There have been many controversial and poor decisions
made about who gets cast in these films. Vinyl Bay 777, Long Island’s top music
outlet, has done its research and now presents to you seven of the worst music biopic
casting choices ever made. Sometimes it is based on skin color (like Fiennes),
other times the actor playing the main or supporting characters just look
nothing like who they are trying to play.
1.
‘Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B’: There was a
lot of trepidation from fans about the making of this film, just because
Aaliyah was one of the most beloved young singers of the 1990s. But this
Lifetime movie also caught the ire of the late singer’s collaborators Timbaland
and Missy Elliott. Timbaland was especially vocal about it, saying it was
poorly cast, not just with Aaliyah portrayer and newcomer Alexamdra Shipp, but
with the actors playing himself and Missy Elliott too. Outcry on these actors
was that they were too light skinned and too skinny.
2.
‘Nina’: The main problem people had with the
casting of Zoe Saldana as singer Nina Simone was that Saldana wasn’t “dark
enough” for the role. A big part of Simone’s identity was her skin color, so it
doesn’t make sense to hire a light-skinned woman to play her. Simone’s daughter
was also against Saldana’s casting for the same reason, saying to the New York
Times “My mother was raised at a time when she was told her nose was too wide,
her skin was too dark. Appearance-wise this is not the best choice.” Acting-wise,
the film got panned too.
3.
‘Britney’: Lifetime released photos from their
upcoming Britney Spears biopic last month and to say that the actors don’t look
like the celebrities they are meant to portray is an understatement. The
actress playing Spears looks a little like Tara Reid while the group of guys
playing *NSYNC looks more like a random group of guys with their hair cut and
colored to look like a late-1990s boy band (which one I’m still not sure).
4.
‘Man in the Mirror: The Michael Jackson Story’:
Apparently ‘Urban Myths’ wasn’t the first time a biopic got Michael Jackson
very wrong. Not only did fans dislike how Flex Alexander looked in the part,
but they felt that he didn’t do a good job showcasing the charms and talents of
the man he was trying to portray.
5.
‘Beyond The Sea’: In this 2004 biopic about
crooner Bobby Darin, Kevin Spacey plays the titular character, and while the
film wasn’t panned too badly, critics didn’t really like it either. As Spacey
was too old for the role, some critics called the film a bit self-indulgent,
with Roger Ebert coming out and bluntly saying that the film was just “as much about
Spacey” playing the role as it was about “Darin himself.”
6.
‘Phil Spector’: Although this television film
was met with many high-profile award nominations, some people, including the
murder victim’s representative and Spector’s wife, feel the movie missed the
mark. Rachelle Short, Spector’s wife, said of the film that it wrongly depicted
her husband “as a foul-mouthed megalomaniac.”It’s also hard to miss the unnatural-looking
wigs on both Al Pacino and Helen Mirren.
7.
‘Madonna: Innocence Lost’: While there is
another Madonna biopic on the way, one with a much better reputation proceeding
it, there was a television film made by Fox in 1994 about the singer’s early
career. The film fell flat with fans and critics, as it sits with a 33% rating
on Rotten Tomatoes. And aside from the massive 80s jewelry, Terumi Matthews
only looks slightly like the Material Girl.
Casting a biopic is a really hard task. Fans of the people
being portrayed are often critical of that person’s story being muddied up by
the wrong actor, or worse by an actor that looks nothing like who they are
portraying. These films show that between looks, acting and writing, casting
doesn’t always get it right.
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