MovieChat Forums > Down to Earth (2001) Discussion > An old white guy that looks like a young...

An old white guy that looks like a young black man.

posted 10 years ago by oldmaddog
1 reply | jump to latest

He's supposed to look black to himself, and white to everyone else.
If they had the old white guy play the role, except when he looked in the mirror, it would have been a lot easier to visualize him as white! Funnier too.
Why hasn't anyone else commented on that?
Personally I think it would have been MUCH better if they had shown us what we were supposed to be seeing.
I thought Chris Rock did a fine job with the role given him, but it shouldn't have LOOKED like him! He just doesn't look like an old white guy, at least not to me....
The few scenes when he looked like he was supposed to, were the funny ones.

[–] IMDB_Vits 9 years ago

1) The same thing happened in HEAVEN CAN WAIT, and nobody complained.
2) Chris always planned to star in the movie before writing the script.
3) It's like asking why super-heroes take their masks off so often in movies: Not showing the star as often as possible reduces the box office grosses.
4) Even if WELLINGTON had been played by a famous actor, we would've seen him making a Chris Rock impersonation. That's hard because of Chris' unique delivery. Also, it would've been lame.