MovieChat Forums > Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) Discussion > Jesse Plemons should have stayed the lea...

Jesse Plemons should have stayed the lead


Leo is overrated

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I will always think of him as Tod.

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I totally agree and have posted this elsewhere. Plimmons would have been perfect in the role.
in Many ways it is very similar to Todd in BB, the extremely well mannered and charming, but slightly off, simpleton psychopath, who does whatever his uncle tells him to.

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This is an interesting discussion.

No actors can promote this movie(the Actors Strike is still on as I post this) so Scorsese is doing the heavy lifting and telling us that Leo was originally set for the FBI man but asked to "switch" to the more villainous and yet conflicted role. So Plemmons got the FBI guy.

But I don't think Plemmons was cast one way or the other when Leo asked for the villain role. Unless..maybe he WAS. And Plemmons would have been fine as Ernest, wouldn't he? More in his wheelhouse, more like Todd.

Anyway you cut it, Jesse Plemmons has gotten one of the interesting character careers of the early 21st century. His face is distinctly plain, mottled, and a bit ugly (by movie star standards) and yet -- we watch him on screen with interest. Its his voice and his presence. Still, who didn't love seeing his end on BB?

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Hmmm, this version of events sounds strange. I had read that the original script followed the book more closely in that the main character was the FBI agent and not the Indian woman’s husband, and that it was later changed to avoid making a “white saviour” movie. The main character became a secondary character, and of course Leonardo di Caprio the big star switched roles.

If the script was always meant to be the version that we got, it would have made very little sense to propose the role of the FBI agent (a minor character that only appears two hours into the movie) to Leonardo di Caprio.

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And let's not forget that he and Kirsten Dunst together make a sensational pair:-

https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Jesse-Plemons-Kirsten-Dunst.jpg?w=700&quality=86&strip=all

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Lucky guy....see why some so-so looking guys become actors? (See also: James Woods when he was young.)

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Just call him Meth Damon.

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My understanding is that Plemons was never meant to be the lead. DiCaprio was originally supposed to play Tom White.

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movie went downhill when he came in

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My understanding is that Plemons was never meant to be the lead. DiCaprio was originally supposed to play Tom White.

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That is correct -- and Tom White WAS the lead. But Leo wanted the more villainous role because he felt it had more "dramatic meat" to it.

Surely if Leo had KEPT the FBI role, the agent would have entered the story a lot sooner and probably had more interrogations of the DeNiro character and of whoever played Ernest (how about....Jesse Plemons?)

Leo and DeNiro can't promote this movie right now because of the actor's strike but evidently Leo managed to slip an interview out back during a movie festival and he said something very important(I'm paraphasing): "In the original script, there was just this one short, tiny scene between Ernest and his wife Mollie, but it was so emotional and powerful to me that I felt we should shift the story over to them." So evidently the re-writes WERE extensive.

Leo playing Ernest instead of the FBI man allowed Leo to play an even more villainous version of the real-life guy he played in Scorsese's "Wolf of Wall Street" where the FBI guy(handsome Kyle Chander in that one) ALSO enters the movie late. Evidently, Leo likes playing "the dark side."

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