Casting What-Ifs
Gary Oldman was to play Melvin Belli but was judged not heavy enough; Jennifer Aniston recommended Mark Ruffalo to Fincher; Andrew Garfield as a later Graysmith; Anthony Hopkins as Arthur Leigh Allen
In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:47:18Read transcript
- The only casting what-if with any internet leftovers is Melvin Belli: Gary Oldman was supposed to play the role, and Fincher passed because he lacked the girth to play Belli, which lands oddly now that Oldman is playing Winston Churchill in all his girth in Darkest Hour; the hosts ask why a director who can add blood splatter could not add a few pounds, doubt anyone cares whether Belli weighed 250 or 175, and joke that human body fat is as sacred to Fincher as oak trees.
- Ruffalo was recommended to Fincher by Jennifer Aniston, and Fincher had liked him in Collateral.
- A side question asks whether Andrew Garfield, a little more of a boy scout, would have been a better Graysmith had the film been made five years later; Eisenberg is floated and rejected, and Gyllenhaal is called alarmingly handsome despite the wide-eyed look, as is Garfield.
- Asked whether the film still works with a huge star like Anthony Hopkins as Arthur, the answer is not as well: it has to be a face whose physical presence unsettles because you feel you could have seen him without knowing why, since viewers bring previous films into the room and would read a famous actor as an important part, and the only place to remember Lynch is Fargo, where Norm is a completely different, friendly disposition.