I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this before. It was not because of 'scheduling' conflicts for the original actor, Xander Berkely. It was probably for the simple reason that the producers figured that Xander at nearly 60 was too old to play the action sequences that were required by the actor. So they got someone younger like Dougray Scott to play it. I hate when producers do this in sequels, but here it does kind of make sense.
shareWhat action sequences required by the actor? Dougray Scott shoots a gun once, and gets on a plane. He doesn't have any physical scenes. Also, thinking Xander is 'too old' at 60 doesn't hold water when their star Liam Neeson is 62.
shareWhat action sequences required by the actor? Dougray Scott shoots a gun once, and gets on a plane. He doesn't have any physical scenes. Also, thinking Xander is 'too old' at 60 doesn't hold water when their star Liam Neeson is 62.
Yeah I saw it yesterday and I have to agree with this.
Yeah, I was surprised while watching the film that Stuart went from Xander Berkely in the first one to the villain from Mission Impossible 2 as Stuart in the 3rd one. I also hate it when they switch to different actors playing the same role from one movie to the next. Was the Stuart character in Taken 2? I can't recall if he was in the 2nd film or not. Dougray Scott is an okay actor, but I actually like Xander better. I wish the filmmaker's had stuck with his original casting, assuming there were no scheduling conflicts or any other reason why Xander didn't reprise his role from the first Taken.
And, as other posters have already pointed out, it can't be due to Xander's age that he wasn't recasted, because Liam Neeson is older than Xander by a couple years. However, Neeson is aging really well and still looks in good shape.
Correction: It says in the trivia Xander was unavailable to reprise his role so Dougray Scott was cast. So there's the explanation.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
shareHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
shareI was actually confused. I was trying to figure out if she had married another guy named Stuart or if another guy was playing Stuart.
What we got here is... failure to communicate! share
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I think we can all agree that we noticed Stuart was different. He stuck in our minds, the more wimpy yet more rich step dad. He played it good the whole "the new husband did it thing" sucked. And why did they have to kill the Wife? Crappy movie. I can't believe they made it. The majic was the international cat and mouse, not an LA dopey movie.
shareThe movie for me was too distracting on the whole re-casting, either they should have had Scott in the beginning or try to work around with Berkeley's scheduling.
OBVIOUSLY
it would have been much better had they kept Berkely.
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i think it would have been too difficult to have the audience have animosity toward the original stuart as we saw him as the soft, rich, yet ultimately supportive new husband of lenore, in a way then, the re-casting was required, but ultimately jarring
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I would like to put my pacifier in Adeles binky box!
This is my guess as well. I'm actually quite annoyed with how drastically they changed the character.
shareMe too. In 1, Lenore was a complete bitch and Stuart was likable. Then they cleaned up Lenore in 2 and 3. I knew Stuart would have a hand in future problems (just because he was wealthy) but I would have preferred that they did not change his character and just made Lenore's death a complication of Stuart's business dealings. Plus, changing the actor was a dead giveaway from the start of the movie that Stuart was now the villain in 3, since the new guy looked a lot sleazier.
shareI don't think it's age. I think the producers saw Xander as a decent character who's good for a supporting role (like in Taken One, he was in the film for 5 minutes max). But now that Stuart was a major character in Part 3 and had a lot of screen time, they needed a marketbale actor and (in the producers' eyes), Xander wasn't a big enough star
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