Benedict Cumberbatch would be perfect in the lead role
I hope the BBC see sense and offer the roel to him.
shareI completely agree! Now you've said that, it will be difficult to accept anyone else in the role...
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I think Benedict would be the choice for ANY lead role! Hahaha. The only thing about Birdsong though, is that Stephen is supposed to be young and naive in the beginning. I forget how old. I don't know if Benedict could have pulled off being really young (he could play naive though).
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I found Eddie Redmayne's performance in Birdsong to be quite uneven. I thought he was great in the war scenes and really flat in the flashbacks. As I've said elsewhere, I think the screenplay and direction may have contributed to the problem, but he still bears responsibility for his performance.
I think you could have put Benedict in the role of Stephen because he's actually the right age for the role. Eddie looked the same age as the actress cast as Isabelle. In the book, Stephen is 20 and nine years younger than Isabelle and four years older than Lisette (the step-daughter). This makes the dynamic with Stephen, Isabelle and Lisette make more sense, because he was actually closer to Lisete's age and in that time, a 20 year old guy and a 16 year old girl would have been considered appropriate.
I don't think you could have given the role of Jack Firebrace to Benedict. For one thing, Mawle carried much of the emotional weight of the movie, and I don't think Benedict could have handled that. IMO, Mawle's performance salvaged Part I. Also, Mawle and Benedict are very different in age, so substituting in Benedict would have changed the dynamic.
I actually think the best casting switch would have been Goode (who played Grey) and Redmayne. In Brideshead Revisited, Goode showed he's great at conveying forbidden/hidden chemistry. And I think Redmayne would have done a great job with Grey because he was so much better at the war scenes. Although Stephen's age wouldn't have been true to the book with this swap, I think Goode would have done the character more emotional justice.
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I don't think you're considering the book in terms of the casting.
Firebrace has an eight year old son. Firebrace is also older than Stephen. Cumberbatch doesn't look old enough to have an eight year old son, nor does he look older than Redmayne. So, no, I don't think you could put Cumberbatch in the role of Firebrace without changing the character and the dynamic with Stephen.
Also, Mawle gave hands-down the best performance of the piece. And that's evidenced by his BAFTA nomination. So I think removing the actor who gave the best performance would ruin the piece.
As far as Redmayne and Poesy in the lead roles and looking "perfect together", this is a big divergence from the book, and IMO, it alters things quite a bit. In the book Stephen was nine years her junior. The age gap was actually fairly important - it's why everyone keeps referring to him as a "boy"; Rene didn't suspect an affair because of Stephen's age and the fact that he wasn't conventionally hot; and one of the reasons she leaves Stephen is because of his youth and her fear about handling her pregnancy.
So Stephen and Isabelle aren't supposed to look "perfect together". There is supposed to be an obvious age difference. IMO, Redmayne and Poesy appear to be the same age, but Cumberatch would have looked younger than her.
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No, I wasn't talking about Rene being hot. In the book, Rene doesn't suspect Stephen and Isabelle of having an affair because (1) Stephen is so young and (2) Stephen is NOT conventionally hot. In the book, Rene actually thinks about this and concludes that Stephen doesn't have the look of a guy who could lure away another man's wife. So IMO, because Redmayne isn't conventionally attractive, he works in the role; but because he doesn't look younger than Poesy, one of them doesn't work.
And I disagree with the suggestion that Redmayne-Poesy work in the roles despite there not being any apparent age difference. Yes, it's true that some people look younger/older than their actual ages. However, in a movie, all one has to go on is the appearance of the actors - and we form our opinions about the relative ages of the characters based on the way they look. So if a movie wants characters to be certain ages relative to one another - they must look to be those ages relative to one another. You cannot have the older brother appearing to be younger than the younger brother - it throws people off. I'll use an example from Birdsong: based on the movie alone, one would conclude that Firebrace was older than Stephen, and that Rene was much older than Stephen. Those are opinions you formed based on the actors' appearances, right? So it wouldn't have worked if the movie asked viewers to accept that Firebrace was younger than Stephen and Rene was only a couple of years older,because that isn't how they looked. Similarly, it wouldn't have worked if Redmayne played Rene because he simply looks too young to have been believable as anyone's much older husband, right? Similarly, it doesn't work to suggest that Isabelle was really nine years older than Stephen because she doesn't look it - they look the same age.
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I'm not suggesting you apologize for anything. I'm just saying that I think the casting of Redmayne and Poesy doesn't work because they look too "right" together. I actually agree with you that they look good together. And that's why I think they don't really work in these particular roles - because the characters in the book aren't written that way.
My problem with the casting wasn't really Redmayne. I thought he did a great job in Part II and I don't have any problem with the actor being a bit older than the original book character. My problem was with Poesy because I don't think she worked if you cast an older Stefan. I thought Redmayne had better chemistry with the actress who played Jeanne and that the actress who played Jeanne better fit the character of Isabelle because she looks older than Redmayne.
I think the pairing of Redmayne and the actress playing Jeanne in the role of Isabelle would have been really amazing because they did have very intense chemistry. And the age difference both with Redmayne and with Lisette would have gotten across on-screen. I also think that actress could have done more to show the emotions that Isabelle was feeling, despite being saddled with a less-than-stellar screenplay.
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"Anyone could tell that she was way to young for Stephen..."
Ah - I think our only points of disagreement are because I'm coming from the perspective of the book. So I look at the characters as they were in the book. My point about Lisette is that in the book she isn't way too young for Stephen - in fact, in the book she was 16, turning 17 and he was 20, so it was actually realistic for Lisette to have a crush on him. And that creates more tension because you had the young woman (Lisette) going after the guy who loved the older woman (Isabelle). I thought that added a layer of complexity to the relationships. In the book, Lisette has a slightly bigger role, and her flirting with Stephan is a bit more important. I thought it was an interesting part of the book, and I thought the actress who played Lisette was really good, so I would have liked to see her role expanded upon. But I understand that stuff gets changed in adaptations, and that's necessary, and Lisette's role was something they could reduce.
"even though I like Ben Cummberbatch for his acting ability but dont find him to be the most good looking actor I have seen"
Yes, I totally agree. I think he's a really great actor. And I think he has an interesting look, but I don't think he's really the most attractive guy around. I do like his look, but I find it a little quirky. I actually feel the same way about Redmayne, which could be why I could see Cumberbatch switching into that role. I like Redmayne's look, and there is something about him I find interesting and intriguing, but I don't think he's totally gorgeous (like Henry Cavill).
"maybe you feel that way about Clemence Poesy that she was an ok actress but you did not like the way she looked? did not find her attractive is that it?"
I thought she was pretty, but not beautiful. I thought Jeanne was prettier. But in the book (sorry, I know I keep doing that), Isabelle wasn't beautiful, so I didn't mind her look. I thought she and Redmayne looked great as a couple, but that they just didn't have great chemistry. And that's not a comment on either of them acting-wise - on-screen chemistry is very elusive and hit-or-miss and sometimes it's just the match-up. For example, I think George Clooney is a really good actor. I think he had surprisingly good chemistry with Jennifer Lopez in that movie where he was a robber and she was a cop. But I think he had surprisingly bad chemistry with Julia Roberts in the Oceans movies, even though I think Julia Roberts is a really good actress. And I thought Jennifer Lopez didn't have great chemistry with Matthew McConaughy in that wedding planner movie, but I thought Matthew M had great chemistry with Jodie Foster in Contact. So sometimes it's just the combination doesn't quite work for me, even though the actors individually are both really good.
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