How in the hell did the three worst actors in the Harry Potter films get lead roles?

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AnathemicOne said:
The Hobbit would like a word with you.
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I do agree that Hobbit is a lot better written book than LOTR is. As a children's book it wasn't required to delve deeper into characters and had to be short, which stopped Tolkien from going overboard on descriptions like he did in the trilogy.
 
AdrianWerner said:
I don't know. Lords of the Rings characters were so bland the casting didn't matter much.
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AdrianWerner said:
I mean in books. Movies improved on this aspect considerably, but papa Tolkien was just plan bad writer. Rowling is in completely different league.
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2 of the most idiotic posts I've ever read to do with movies on GAF. Well done!
 
Marmaladefire said:
You know how when you watch an old movie that was considered groundbreaking in its time, sometimes you think "What people thought this was great? X recent movie did it so much better" and you realize X recent movie wouldn't exist without that really old movie? It's like that.
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Oh, definitely. I fully aprecieat what Tolkien did to the genre and I've read it before other fantasy novels. Today his world might seem a bit boring, because he created all the elements other copied, but I can still aprecieate how insanely well crafted it is. But even during the period it premiered Tolkien prose was bad.

Hence why I consider Silmarilion to be his best work, as it's just one long string of one delicious lore piece after another, without all requirements of regular novels to get in the way of experiencing what Tolkien did best.
 
AdrianWerner said:
I don't think you should be throwing words like ""idiotic" when you failed to understand I was criticizing books, not their movie adaptations.
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I've read pretty much all of his books. The LOTR books are some of the most cherished books I've ever read. Loved by millions of folks across the planet and turned into 3 of the best films ever made because of the rich characters involved.

You're opinion is simply wrong.
 
No, you're wrong. They start off well and get better as they go along.

I honestly think most people don't actually know what acting is. Any time someone points out bad acting, it seems they confuse that with bad characterization or dialogue.

Please point out to me in any of the movies where any of the main actors seemed like they were reciting memorized lines rather than expressing them and their body language in a believable fashion.
 
TUROK said:
No, you're wrong. They start off well and get better as they go along.

I honestly think most people don't actually know what acting is. Any time someone points out bad acting, it seems they confuse that with bad characterization or dialogue.

Please point out to me in any of the movies where any of the main actors seemed like they were reciting memorized lines rather than expressing them and their body language in a believable fashion.
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It's not just about the lines. Daniel for example has such a poor and unnatural body language that everything he does seems forced and scripted. Like "now my hand has to go like this and I raise my other arm like that". It's pretty obvious if you look for it!

Of course he might have been told to move in certain ways, but it just doesn't look natural at all.
 
Scrow said:
someone should rewrite the books from [Draco's] perspective
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It really would be a more interesting story than HPs. Draco is essentially the heir to a legacy of dark magic, and he constantly struggles with being "bad" enough to appease his father and to impress his peers. He is under just as much pressure as Harry is, and considering that Harry has no parents to pressure him, anytime Harry does anything half noteworthy he is heralded as the "chosen one" and is treated with, in general, a great amount of reverence, and he has 5000 friends at school

When Vmort comes into the fold and Draco actually has to face his legacy and decide if he is going to follow the same path as his father, there is some real drama that develops around the scenario. This is what made The Halfblood Prince such a phenomenal book, and imo, the best film in the series. Draco's just a kid like Harry, but he's being pressured to be bad rather than good, which seems much more interesting to me.

I particularly LOVE the moment where Draco appears in the epilogue, and there's the awesome moment of understanding between himself and Harry - they both survived essentially the same trial, and would pass on the lessons they learned to their children.
 
cyberheater said:
I've read pretty much all of his books. The LOTR books are some of the most cherished books I've ever read. Loved by millions of folks across the planet and turned into 3 of the best films ever made because of the rich characters involved.

You're opinion is simply wrong.
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I've tried to read LOTR a few times, but given up at various stages each time.
Guess I just can't get on with his style of writing, at all.

Films are ok though I guess.
 
Eh, they weren't terribly awful or good, which is reflected in the average work they're doing now (although Watson is finding herself in some pretty cool projects). Ultimately, they fit the roles and it's hard to think of how they could have been cast better. But, yeah, the supporting cast is the best part of the Potter films.
 
Weren't the main actors from narnia going for the lead roles of HP? Yeah ..... I think we shouldn't complain much.
 
Chake said:
Weren't the main actors from narnia going for the lead roles of HP? Yeah ..... I think we shouldn't complain much.
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Which ones? I didn't have any issue with Skandar Keynes and Georgie Henley. Though I didn't have much of an issue with Moseley and Popplewell either, they definitely weren't on the same level.
 
Herne said:
Which ones? I didn't have any issue with Skandar Keynes and Georgie Henley. Though I didn't have much of an issue with Moseley and Popplewell either, they definitely weren't on the same level.
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Anna Popplewell and William Moseley. If i remember correctly, in an interview, they said they were going to take the roles of Harry and Hermione.
 
Didn't Radcliffe become a raging alcoholic at some point? I'm sure that would have an effect on his performance.
 
Emma Watson is a terrible actress. Seriously, terrible. She's not "Hayden Christensen in Star Wars Episode II" bad, but she's close.

Grint is alright.
 
They were cast when they were 10 years old, since they fit the description of the characters from the books. It wasn't because they were amazing actors.

But yeah, their acting's pretty awful.
 
grandjedi6 said:
Radcliffe is smart. He realizes that even if he can't make it big (again), Harry Potter royalties + art films has him set for life. He'll just keep doing small stuff while slowly building his repertoire as an actor.
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He's done pretty well just to keep himself from getting completely typecast and to keep having steady work.
 
PumpkinPie said:
They were kids. Compared to most American films their acting was Oscar worthy.
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Is the acting in American cinema that awful? The Potter kids were average. I don't think comparing them to most American films makes them look that much better. If we're only talking about child actors some of the best happen to be American.
 
Chuck Norris said:
But to answer your question, these three were picked when they were about 8. Actors like Luna were picked in their mid-teens, and had already seperated themselves from the pack in more than just looks
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The actress who plays Luna is straight up NOT acting:)

But I agree with everything else ya.
 
Derwind said:
I thought apart from the first and second movie the series was a convoluted piece of shit.

Books are superior.
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I honestly dont know why people who read the books even bother to watch the movies, they never like them better and then they just complain about it
 
Supermanisdead said:
Emma Watson wasn't even the most stunning transformation, have you seen Neville Longbottom lately? He turned into a young Clive Owen.
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Right?! I actually thought he'd been recast between 3 and 4 because he was actually tiny and chubby in 1/2/3, then he looked really different in 4, then 5 onwards, he became ~a man~. But yeah, Neville from 1 to 7 just looks like a totally different person.

And the three mains, I kind of adore them all. Not the best actors, but they're all adorable, and Daniel Radcliffe always kind of surprises me (Equus, How to Succeed). I think he's great now.
 
The problem with many epics is that the story is drawn out and the plot's massiveness becomes more important than the characters, or anything else for that matter. This is why books like Harry Potter and LOTR have fairly dull one-note characters in them, because the characters exist to serve everything else. They're the constants, despite that being a fairly ridiculous concept.

Also, it's hard for an author to do a character study in a book with 30,40,50 characters. Shit HAS TO get shallow in order for their brains to wrap around their own creation. Any constant is a relief to have. One less integer to calculate in your oversized formula.

Then someone decides to make a movie about the characters and realizes that casting is more about looking the part (and selling that look) than playing the part since playing the part really isn't that difficult despite being on the screen for 6+ hour.
 
This was a gamble as you never know what kind of an an actor a 10 year old will become, and it's really impossible to successfully recast a lead character in a 7 book to movie series.

I agree that Emma was the best of the three at 10 years old and ended up the worst of the 3 by the end because she actually regressed as an actress. It could be franchise fatigue that caused her to "phone it in" though, so I will need to see her in other stuff to be sure.
 
Ghost_Protocol said:
After watching the series again recently, it's become increasing clear to me that Daniel Radcliff, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson are, unequivocally, the worst actors in the Harry Potter film series. How in the fuck did that happen? How did side characters like Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, Ginny Weasley, & Seamus Finnigan eventually all straight up embarrass them in the acting department? (Luna and Neville especially) It's not really fair to compare them to the adult actors, so I'm not going to do that, but man, after 7 films, Ron and Hermione were still painful to watch and listen to on-screen. Harry got a little better, but considering how long it took it's still kind of ridiculous.

How did you feel about their performances throughout the series?
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opinions and stuff... I think Daniel and Emma are great actors they did suck for the first 4 films but were great the last few..... Rupert is passable but never was a fan....
 
lol, Ginny was better? She should have been miscast the moment they read the sixth book. It makes zero sense Harry would go for Miss No Personality when he could fight for Hermione or get Luna.
 
Fey said:
lol, Ginny was better? She should have been miscast the moment they read the sixth book. It makes zero sense Harry would go for Miss No Personality when he could fight for Hermione or get Luna.
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I really hate Ginny in movies, she's so ugly(
 
Radcliffe is a goddamn awful actor who, in my opinion, seems to get worse the older he becomes. :lol

The other two, while not amazing or anything, run circles around Radcliffe. Radcliffe is just a big zero. Let's be honest here though, it doesn't help that more than half of the HP movies were directed by talentless hacks, especially David Yates. Cuarón extracted the best work out of these three in PoA, which as everyone knows is the best HP movie as well.
 
I...actually agree. Fucking terrible. Especially Emma Watson when she's trying to be emotional. I'ts truly cringe-worthy
 
AdrianWerner said:
I mean in books. Movies improved on this aspect considerably, but papa Tolkien was just plan bad writer. Rowling is in completely different league.
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this is tag worthy.

ElTopo said:
You know which book series is also loved by millions of folks across the planet and has spawned successful movies "because of the rich characters involved"*? Twilight.

Success is hardly indicative of the quality of writing. As great as Tolkien was when it came to creating the world, his actual writing is not exactly mindblowing (though far from bad). Then again, I wouldn't rate Rowling near him.

*Not that I can judge it. Never read the books or watched the movies.
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the guy just said Rowling was in a different league from Tolkien and not in the way most would expect.
 
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