Didn't need two actors.

While I think Dano could have pulled off both time periods (with a little aging make up and such for the later years) I thought Cusack did a good job and also since it's going back and forth in time so much perhaps it would be a bit confusing at times to differentiate 'which Brian Wilson' we are seeing on screen at the time.



I got keys coming from overseas! T.I.P. Syke

I’m skipping the Cusack scenes.

Did so! There was such a massive difference in the Brian Wilson of the sixties and the Brian Wilson of the 80s that I felt two actors who look a lot alike worked.

The thing is, the Brian of the sixties has got to be *young*, he was in his early 20s when the Beach Boys hit the big time and he had his first crackup, incredibly young to be such a successful composer and record producer, young enough to come off as very innocent and vulnerable... and too young to pass as the Brian Wilson of the 80s, when he was old before his time. Hollywood usually casts an actor in his thirties for these sorts of roles, and he acts immature as the young character and dusts his sideburns with white for the character's later years, but I don't think that would have worked here. I think they got it right.

I think the producers could have made Cusack's older Wilson look more authentic. He literally looks like Rob Gordon from High Fidelity at a later stage in life.