“Paddington in Peru” is in cinemas across the UK, but viewers will have spotted “something unusual” about the beloved bear’s adopted family, said Michael Hogan in The Guardian. “Mrs Brown has had a full body transplant.”
Sally Hawkins, who played the role for the first two films, has left the cast for the latest instalment, and Emily Mortimer has stepped in. “Happily her ursine adoptee doesn’t seem to have noticed or he might have choked on his marmalade sandwiches,” said Hogan.
Mortimer is a “faultlessly warm” replacement for Hawkins, said Tim Robey in The Telegraph, while Clarisse Loughrey in The Independent agreed the actor was a “worthy and nicely fretful” substitute for the original Mrs Brown.
A ‘poisoned chalice’
But the process isn’t always as straightforward. “Nothing riles up actors or their fans quicker than a controversial bit of recasting,” said Adam White in The Independent. Often it becomes a “poisoned chalice for the film itself” with both stars and critics publicly airing their frustrations.
Warner Bros’ decision to ask Johnny Depp to resign from his role as Gellert Grindelwald in “Fantastic Beasts” after the actor lost his “wife beater” libel case against The Sun, and subsequent replacement by Mads Mikkelsen, “sparked an abundance of Twitter outrage”. Some fans threatened to boycott the entire franchise.
And the hotly anticipated “Chicken Run” sequel hit the headlines in 2020. Julia Sawalha, who voiced Ginger in the original 2000 film, claimed she had been replaced because her voice sounded “too old”. “To say I am devastated and furious would be an understatement. I feel totally powerless”, said Sawalha, 55, in a statement at the time.
Then there was the controversial recasting of Lavender Brown in the “Harry Potter” series. In the early films, she appeared in “small or non-speaking roles”, played by two Black actors, Kathleen Cauley and Jennifer Smith, said Christy Box on Screen Rant. But when the character got a more “prominent story” in “Half-Blood Prince” (2009), a white actor, Jessie Cave, took over the role, triggering a backlash as viewers questioned why Lavender’s race was changed just as she was given more screen time.
More recently, “The Simpsons” star Harry Shearer spoke out when he found out the character Dr Hibbert, whom he had voiced since 1990, would be replaced by Black actor Kevin Michael Richardson, amid calls to recast the show’s non-white characters voiced by white actors. “Folk say the show has become woke in recent years,” he told The Times earlier this year.
‘Uncomfortably disjointed’
While Rachel Weisz won over audiences with her “strong, resourceful and courageous” portrayal of Evie O’Connell in the first two “Mummy” films, the “magic faded” when Maria Bello took over the role in “Tomb of the Dragon Emperor”, said Screen Rant. Bello’s performance failed to “capture the essence of the original character” and her chemistry with Brendan Fraser felt “forced”.
News of recasting is often “sensationalised”, Emmy-nominated casting director Kelly Valentine Hendry told The Guardian, and gets reported as a “spicy, gossipy situation”. But changes are never made lightly; switches could happen for “prosaic” reasons like a scheduling conflict or because of personal issues. “Like any job, things are complicated.”
The frequent chopping and changing of characters in soaps and on big budget TV shows like “The Crown” has made recasting “more palatable” to viewers in recent years. For Hendry, this shift could be seen as a positive. “Historically, performers get away with bad behaviour because – what can you do?… Imagine if that wasn’t the case and viewers just went, ‘Oh, it’s a different actor. That’s OK.’ The public are smarter than we give them credit for.”