I cannot bring myself to watch the Hilary Mantel Cromwell on TV. I love Mark Rylance but he looks nothing like Cromwell and I suspect is too refined / aesthetic to play the bullying thug.
Funnily enough, OH and I were only remarking this weekend… that the same group of Actors appear again and again, albeit as different characters, in a very- long-running TV series we’re enjoying on dvd…
We decided it makes no matter… if they are believable in the role… that is the mark of a good Actor.
I think if the character is not fictional and is someone really well known (e.g. Churchill) then it helps believability if there is a resemblance. But Churchill has been played by lots of different actors (Robert Hardy, Timothy West, John Lithgow (!), and even Gary Oldman) - they can use prosthetics of course nowadays to help.
But with fictional or less well-known historical characters I think it matters less - probably most people watching Wolf Hall will not be familiar with Holbein’s portrait of Thomas Cromwell.
I thought Rylance did a good job - he went for an air of quiet menace instead of more obvious thuggery - and we must remember that that characterisation of Cromwell derives from later historians who wanted to paint him in the blackest tones. Henry VIII was the one giving the orders and is arguably the real villain of the piece.
Wolf Hall / Mirror and the Light is an excellent piece of television so worth hiding your Holbein portrait for and giving it a watch.
As for Reacher, yes Tom Cruise was horribly miscast given that the physical description of Reacher is so clear - Alan Ritchson is a much better match!
As for spoiling my enjoyment, I am more bothered by movies where every character is being played by a well-known star.
e.g. I am currently working my way slowly through Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” on BluRay and find the casting (among other things) really annoying in that - Matthew McConoughey always plays himself, and when Matt Damon popped out of a hibernation capsule halfway through I immediately thought of his role in “The Martian”. And then there’s Michael Caine as an elderly scientist.
I haven’t watched the programme (yet) but when I saw photos of the two men before I wondered if he had been chosen because of what I believed to be a similar appearance.
I have voiced my opinion on this subject before regarding the actors chosen to play John Rebus. The first series I bought on DVD had John Hannah playing the role but despite being an actor I like and enjoy watching he just wasn’t right. The second series had Kenn Stott playing Rebus. For me he fitted the part like a glove.
I’ve only wstched Wolf Hall of the Thomas Cromwell trilogy (though I think I have store the others up for a treat). Mark Rylance was fabulous and totally inhabited the character - very subtle perfect for television not overacted. He just “emanated” it. Such good acting overcomes any need for a physical match to the character.
Though the mostly 'dark" lighting of the film drove me nuts. I feel that was a poor decision by the director as it was unnecessary. I put up with it for the acting.
I totally agree about the casting of the - sorry, midget - as Jack Reacher. There was no need for any particularly good acting in that role. So the mismatch between the core ‘hulk’ atrribute of the character and fhe actor that had been chosen for box office reasons was so clearly a mismatch it ruined that film.
I have no problem with Cruise as Reacher - well in the first film anyway the second less so (edit: because it was a terrible film). However I suspect that is because I never read the books so did not have a preconceived mental image of what Reacher is supposed to look like.
Ritchson does an OK job in the TV version and is way closer to the physical description but I think Cruise is the better actor (not that I particularly rate Cruise as an actor).
As the oh so woke virtual signaling Globe theatre, like having women playing Hamlet for instance, (Michelle Terry) gave a very powerful performance so fotgetting her sex and just acting her socks off was very good.
They shot everything with either natural daylight or light sources of the period i.e. candles& firelight. For me that was part of the delight of the production (full disclosure; I’m a former theatre lighting tech/designer) & it made things seem very real.
I have no problem with accepting gender, race or other alternatives but I do have a problem with costume.
Shakespearean characters, particularly women absolutely need to reflect the constraints of the time that women then had put upon them. Much meaning lies in how women presented, how constricted were their movements and all the subtleties. Switching an actor into modern clothes while continuing to use sublimely beautiful original speech is to my mind all too jarring and quite destroys the fantasy. I realise that in Shakespeare’s time the women’s parts were played by men but I’m positive he dressed them well.
