Atlas Shrugged Dream Cast, Revisited
Posted by Temlakos 9 years, 7 months ago to Entertainment
Here I return to an earlier theme: what actors, among the greatest anyone could name, would make the best Atlas Shrugged cast? And by the way: price no object.
So here are my suggestions:
Dagny Taggart: Tilda Swinton. (She'd need a lot of make-up to look as young as she did in "The Chronicles of Narnia," but she could manage it.)
Henry Rearden: Daniel Craig (Or if we had done it a lot earlier, Laurence Harvey)
John Galt: Pierce Brosnan
Francisco d'Anconia: Antonio Banderas
Ragnar Danneskjöld: Dolph Lundgren (or perhaps Arnold Schwarzenegger)
Lillian Rearden: Christina Ricci
Mother Rearden: Angela Lansbury
Hugh Akston: Patrick Stewart
Midas Mulligan: Bruce Greenwood
Robert Stadler: Kurtwood Smith
Floyd Ferris: Peter Weller
Jim Taggart: Danny DeVito
Any other ideas?
So here are my suggestions:
Dagny Taggart: Tilda Swinton. (She'd need a lot of make-up to look as young as she did in "The Chronicles of Narnia," but she could manage it.)
Henry Rearden: Daniel Craig (Or if we had done it a lot earlier, Laurence Harvey)
John Galt: Pierce Brosnan
Francisco d'Anconia: Antonio Banderas
Ragnar Danneskjöld: Dolph Lundgren (or perhaps Arnold Schwarzenegger)
Lillian Rearden: Christina Ricci
Mother Rearden: Angela Lansbury
Hugh Akston: Patrick Stewart
Midas Mulligan: Bruce Greenwood
Robert Stadler: Kurtwood Smith
Floyd Ferris: Peter Weller
Jim Taggart: Danny DeVito
Any other ideas?
Dagny Taggart: Morena Baccarin or Natalie Portman
Henry Rearden: Robert Downey Jr
John Galt: Kristoffer Polaha
Francisco d'Anconia: Esai Morales
Ragnar Danneskjöld: Adam Baldwin
Lillian Rearden: Angelina Jolie
Mother Rearden: Sigourney Weaver
Hugh Akston: Patrick Stewart
Midas Mulligan: Christian Bale
Robert Stadler: Robert Picardo or Donald Sutherland
Floyd Ferris: Kevin Spacey or Larry Cedar
Jim Taggart:Will Ferrell
I liked your list so much that I scrapped mine. My only comment is forget Sutherland and keep Picardo.
Kiefer has become typecast as hawkish beyond all reason. I would never pick him for AS unless he's some kind of alarmist TV newsman.
Of course, I'll grant you he was more gangster than wannabe military dictator.
Part of the problem was that, except maybe for Floyd Ferris, John Galt never had any worthy adversaries. So I can't really name a villain whom Kiefer Sutherland would be suitable to play.
I'd almost cast him as Ragnar, except I'd be afraid he'd overplay him.
As to Robert Stadler, why not a different Sutherland: Kiefer Sutherland?
But if you remember him from a different project...!
Jim Caviezel as John Galt.
Tom Hiddleston as Floyd Ferris
Hank Rearden: Charlton Heston
Ellis Wyatt: Clint Eastwood
Francisco: Ricardo Montalban
Floyd Ferris: Jonathan Harris
Harris might not be familiar to most of you. He played Dr. Zachary Smith on the series "Lost in Space". A more weaselly character has never graced the TV screen, and Harris played him to perfection.
But I had another, much more oily man in mind to portray Floyd Ferris: Peter Cushing.
Benedict Cumberbatch as John Galt--or as Ragnar Danneskjöld
Anthony Hopkins as Hugh Akston
Tinky Holloway.
Or how about Mister Thompson himself?
Lauren Bacall as Dagny Taggart
Humphrey Bogart as Henry Rearden
Fred MacMurray as Jim Taggart
Shirley MacLaine as Cherryl Brooks Taggart
Robert Mitchum as Cuffy Meigs
Otto Krueger as Robert Stadler
Ray Collins as Hugh Akston
Burt Lancaster as Ragnar Danneskjöld
Kirk Douglas as John Galt
Ricardo Montalbán as Francisco d'Anconia
I liked Esai Morales, but I didn't get to see him do part 3, so I can't say if I'd go there.
Seriously I'd cast him as a character with no lines who died before the book starts. In other words, he doesn't belong in AS at all. OTOH, he'd be an improvement on Poo-hah-hah as Galt.
As for Lillian...Christina Ricci would be difficult because I can't imagine a man EVER turning her down, for anything...
Jolie as Dagny
Both have real world issues but not on screen
John Galt - Leonardo DiCaprio
Francisco d'anconia - Christian Bale
Ragnar Danneskjold - Brat Pitt/James Franco
Hank Rearden - Daniel Day Lewis
Hugh Akston - Robert D Neiro/Clint Eastwood
Eddie Willers - Chris Evans/Liam Hemsworth
Dagny Taggart - Jessica beil/ Amy Adams
Middas Mulligan - Robert Downey Jr
Well by phrasing the words suggest actors from any period are fair game. The issue is that putting a Humphrey Bogart,Harrison Ford and
Spencer Tracy as three different characters combines three wonderful actors who could of course never be pictured together. Nevertheless, I find myself speculating wildly...
My problem is: I don't watch many movies any more. So frankly I couldn't tell you who the best actors or actresses would be--today. All I know is, only a few of the actors who portrayed these characters (and never the same actor twice!) in the Atlas Productions trilogy, would really make the grade. I could as easily say that I could give a better impression of Hank Rearden. But what can that possibly mean to anybody? We'd have to Skype with working webcams to speculate in that direction.
The Atlas Productions producers literally cut that scene out and suggested that the Galt's Gulch Air and Land Militia (Ragnar Danneskjöld, commanding) laid on a special rescue mission for him, in addition to their rescue of John Galt.
I had a better idea: Eddie leaves for San Francisco, all right--planning all along to leave the Comet in Phoenix, Arizona, and seek out Dan Conway, former head of the Phoenix-Durango Railroad. When the Comet breaks down out of Flagstaff, he suggests to the wagon-train captain to ride for Phoenix. On their way they meet a helicopter posse, led by Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, who has declared his own independent State immediately after the Taggart Bridge collapse caused the federal rats to jump ship.
I'd like to see Katharine Hepburn, appropriately made up and costumes, as Mother Rearden.
I'm kind of pondering Sean Connery as Ragnar - he shows that ruthless brilliance that it takes.l
John, Ragnar and Francisco were college friends with two majors - Physics and Philosophy. It would be difficult to figure which of the two majors Dolph would choose as his favorite. If he were giving a lecture, which would come across as the most convincing - rocket science or epistemology? Or, have you mistakenly cast him in the Danny DeVito part or vice versa?
Who said anything about tongue-in-cheek? If you're thinking that's the way so many of the James Bond movies seemed to play, take heart. Daniel Craig plays James Bond deadly serious. In fact, of all the men who played Commander James Bond, CMG, RNVR, Daniel Craig gave the most hard-nosed honest-to-God serious portrait of the lot. That's why I picked him. (And Dame Judi Dench DBE never had a better death scene than she did in Skyfall, as Dame Barbara Mawdsley DCMG, a/k/a "M.")
I do have to put in ONE, I promise only 1, kudo for Timothy Dalton as Bond - near the end of License to Kill, when he flicked the lighter on - that was perfection.
As a contribution to this thread, I'd like to say that Kate Blanchette would make an excellent Dagny.
From the roles I've seen her in so far, she can play any female lead.
Blanchette would be great as Dagney.How about Sean Penn as Jim Taggert! Jeff Bridges as Ellis Wyatt?
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