He'd make the perfect Sirius Black

Well... First, I don't think they will remake those films anytime soon.

And second, I don't think he would make a good Sirius, no. Because Sirius is explicitly described as someone who USED to be very beautiful, but whose beauty and youth have been tarnished by his imprisonment.

Ben can hardly be described in those terms, he is over 30 but still looks very young. Too young to be Sirius.
And also, I don't think Ben is really made to portray those super-dark, brooding characters. People tend to typecast him in those roles, because he's tall, dark and handsome, but Ben is not really "dark", in my opinion, he is rather the "radiant" type...

I know they likely won't remake the films soon, it's just some wishful thinking. I've noticed a big part of fandom fancies the idea of Ben as Sirius and I thought I'd also share it on this board to read comments.

Because Sirius is explicitly described as someone who USED to be very beautiful, but whose beauty and youth have been tarnished by his imprisonment.

But this is only in the third book. When Sirius escapes and Harry meets him in books 4 and 5, he states that Sirius looks younger and very similar to the way he used to look in his early 20s, so I don't think it would be impossible for Ben to portray him.

I don't think Ben is really made to portray those super-dark, brooding characters.

I see your point, but as an actor he should be able to pull of a variety of roles, right? Personally I'd enjoy watching him as someone darker, but I also don't really think of Sirius that way. We only have that image at the beginning but once we get to know him I think it changes drastically.

Thanks for your opinion :)

Not a Harry Potter follower here, although I've watched and enjoyed a handful of the movies, and the Sirius Black character. As an objective observer, I'd agree with you. Also you and about a million others in the HP fandom -- on Tumblr at least -- seem to think BB should play this character! Perhaps that counts for something if fans have spoken.

I'm sure he could easily look the part. Come on; makeup/wardrobe/movie magic. I thought he looked a hot mess in Killing Bono, and loved it. Doubt requiring diminished looks is such a huge issue.

As for dark and brooding, I don't see why he couldn't pull it off. He's an actor; uh, that's his job. He's about as goody two-shoes as it gets in real life (perception-wise anyway; what do we really know?...) and he played the hell out of street thug in By The Gun and badass in Sons of Liberty, both entirely against character. And frankly, those were two of his BEST and most enjoyable portrayals and performances. He really sank his teeth into those. He's done the earnest good guy thing to death; seen it, got it. So why not dark and brooding?

From what he said about the film Nightcrawler, I think he'd really like to play someone who is a little unstable. lol

What did he say?

The thing is, I don't think Sons of Liberty is one of his best performances, at all.
I haven't seen By The Gun (yet) but I'm not really convinced by the trailer.

To me, his best performances were probably in Dorian Gray (precisely because he can play on his "angelic" side in it) and Killing Bono (in which he is more "dorky").

Of course you can always say an actor should, in theory, be able to portray anything. But that is just not true. ALL the best actors in the world have to find a kind of "niche", if you really look at their careers, they don't actually play ANYTHING, they find their "acting personality".

It's true even of geniuses who are super-versatile, like Daniel Day-Lewis, or Sean Penn. Sometimes, they will play a role that's really against their usual character, but most of the time, you can find similarities between their roles, and you can also realize that there are lots of roles they probably wouldn't have fitted.

For instance, I didn't think Ben was really suited to the kind of political firebrand they cast him as in Sons of Liberty (actually, my main complaint about his character in Sons of Liberty comes from the script: Sam is very poorly written, and terribly under-developed, in my opinion).
I just don't buy him as a political leader. And that doesn't mean he's a bad actor.
Viggo Mortensen, for instance, is a very good actor, but he's the soft-spoken type, not the "roaring" type (like Daniel Day-Lewis, for instance). I wouldn't buy him as a political leader, either. Except if he's playing the kind of reluctant leader that he is in the Lord of the Rings (in this case, you can buy Aragorn but clearly making big speeches is a little out of character for him).

I think that because of his dark looks, Ben is running the risk of being typecast into these "tall, dark and handsome" roles, and I don't think they suit him that well.
I think he would even be better suited to the kind of "quirky" roles à la Johnny Depp in his early years. Or roles like Takeshi Kaneshiro's when he was younger (Kaneshiro, to me, is very similar to Ben : an actor with a very "pure" and naive quality, an angelic face, very expressive dark eyes, breathtaking beauty... who sometimes had to struggle to be taken seriously because he was so beautiful it was distracting, but he still found his style and has been in a lot of very good movies).

Your post was really enjoyable to read and it resonated with how I feel about Ben. I'm disappointed to hear that his performance as Sam Adams maybe wasn't as great as some others claimed. The History Channel in my country didn't show Sons of Liberty so I can't really have a valid opinion, but it's interesting to hear another perspective like yours.

I think Ben has been typecast. A good portion of his major roles have now been in the fantasy genre. And perhaps it's safe to say that he likely gets more fantasy offers than anything else. I didn't watch Seventh Son (not a fantasy fan to begin with anyway) and I hope the commercial performance of the film will convince him to move away from the genre. What set Ben apart from most actors (to me) was his looks; not many of his peers have that Prince-like quality. I'm still unsure as to whether that has worked for him or against him.

Ben played the reluctant leader pretty well in Prince Caspian. He did well as a real leader in Voyage of the Dawn Treader too, but I guess he wasn't the major focus of the story there. Do you think he should do more period films? Or indie films?

P.S. Despite the fact that his role in The Words was small, I think he did quite well there. I enjoyed his performance.

Thank you for your kind comments. I cannot speak for everyone, but to me, Sons of Liberty was definitely a let-down. Both as a mini-series about the Revolution, and as a Ben Barnes fan.

I don't think it was all that good (I've seen a couple of reviews that compared it to TURN, well, TURN has its flaws but I still find it a lot more appealing, if only for JJ Feild as Major André). The mini-series format was probably too short, that's probably the main problem.
Ben's character seemed to be the main character at first, but then, it was as if they'd forgotten about him and didn't know what to do with him. It started out quite well, but the more it went on, the more disappointed I was.
(Actually, I wrote a LONG post on the board of Sons of Liberty, which I am repeating in this one, a little ^^)

I didn't want to see the Seventh Son, either. I don't normally like to pre-judge, but lately, most of the fantasy blockbusters I've seen have been dreadful, and from the trailer, this one seemed really like a very, very bad film. The reviews (both professional and from the audience) seemed to confirm that I would probably have disliked every minute of it and felt embarrassed that Ben was in this, so I didn't go.

I'm not so sure he has been typecast in fantasy movies, actually. I suppose he has been receiving tons of proposals for fantasy movies, after Narnia, and I am happy that he chose to turn them down (I was surprised that he had even accepted Seventh Son, because from what he'd said in interviews, he seemed determined not to accept that kind of stuff... maybe he thought the film would be really good, I don't know).
Mostly, he has been trying to diversify a little by accepting roles in smaller films, which is probably the right thing to do.

On the whole, I think he has had quite a variety of roles, but he simply hasn't been fortunate enough to be in really good films. I mean, in most of the movies I've seen him, he was good, sometimes very good, but I cannot say that ANY of these movies were REALLY good.
I've just watched "Dorian Gray" again, and I think it came close to being a really good film. But still, it was spoilt by a couple of stupid ideas (the moving and groaning painting... what were they thinking?) and it got smashed by reviewers. Ben's performance in it was, in my opinion, very good, but because of the other flaws in the movie, the critics also criticized him, which I think was very unfair.

I don't really know what type of role he could do that would suit him best (otherwise I'd be his agent lol!) He probably simply needs to be lucky enough to get involved in a project that will end up being a really good film. Or meet a director who will know how to use him well.
And stay clear from other bad fantasy movies, or the vampire movies that all the teenage girls want him to do...
I was talking of Kaneshiro and Depp earlier, I think the type of films they did when they were younger would also suit someone like Ben. The kind of slightly quirky romantic roles... Or maybe roles in period pieces, but in a supporting role (a real one, not like King Caspian who was more of a background role...), that might be interesting. Even recently, I thought Kaneshiro brought a wonderful touch of sweetness, elegance and sophistication to the epic Red Cliff movies, as the brilliant and legendary strategist Zughe-Liang. Ben is probably a little young for that still, but I could see him in that kind of role.