Actually, I think I will disagree with nearly everyone else here. I think that the actor has absolutely no bearing on the character itself. While a good actor (like Helena Bonham Carter for Bellatrix Lestrange) can perform a character well, to me the character will always be the character written on the page and not the person who is playing the character for money.
The only way I will really notice a character is when they are a bad fit, either in appearance or in their acting. One example is Narcissa Malfoy's actress, Helen McCrory. She was, I believe, the third or fourth choice for the role (and was initially considered to play Bellatrix Lestrange which would have been a weirder fit) but her physical appearance was so far from what I would have considered Narcissa to be - and from the way she was portrayed in canon - that I did not view her even remotely as Narcissa. One should keep in mind that Narcissa was born in 1955 according to canon and therefore was, at most, a mere forty one years of age during the sixth movie (and only a year older for the final movie). While Helen was around that age, her makeup - including both face and hair - made her look closer to geriatric than that... to the point that I wondered whether the people doing casting had misread Narcissa as Draco's grandmother.
Even that, though, pales in comparison to the age mismatch of the casting of Severus Snape. While it is true that Alan Rickman was able to capture Snape's personality perfectly, his physical appearance was that of an old man who aged from his mid fifties to his mid sixties throughout the casting of the series. Sounds the right age for an irascible professor, right? Enough so that you would forget what was actually written in the page... that Severus was a mere thirty one years of age during Harry's first movie (and 37 at his death)! In other words, canon talks about a Snape who joined the Death Eaters as a teenager and was barely 21 when he started teaching at Hogwarts - which is an entirely different story from someone who had 25 years of adulthood before joining up with Voldemort and didn't become head of Slytherin until he was already middle aged. There, we see how casting - even by actors who can pull off the personality part - can completely change the role/story of a character.
William//Slytherin [414; 237 if you don't count discussion on Snape]
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2013-04-01 03:03 am (UTC)The only way I will really notice a character is when they are a bad fit, either in appearance or in their acting. One example is Narcissa Malfoy's actress, Helen McCrory. She was, I believe, the third or fourth choice for the role (and was initially considered to play Bellatrix Lestrange which would have been a weirder fit) but her physical appearance was so far from what I would have considered Narcissa to be - and from the way she was portrayed in canon - that I did not view her even remotely as Narcissa. One should keep in mind that Narcissa was born in 1955 according to canon and therefore was, at most, a mere forty one years of age during the sixth movie (and only a year older for the final movie). While Helen was around that age, her makeup - including both face and hair - made her look closer to geriatric than that... to the point that I wondered whether the people doing casting had misread Narcissa as Draco's grandmother.
Even that, though, pales in comparison to the age mismatch of the casting of Severus Snape. While it is true that Alan Rickman was able to capture Snape's personality perfectly, his physical appearance was that of an old man who aged from his mid fifties to his mid sixties throughout the casting of the series. Sounds the right age for an irascible professor, right? Enough so that you would forget what was actually written in the page... that Severus was a mere thirty one years of age during Harry's first movie (and 37 at his death)! In other words, canon talks about a Snape who joined the Death Eaters as a teenager and was barely 21 when he started teaching at Hogwarts - which is an entirely different story from someone who had 25 years of adulthood before joining up with Voldemort and didn't become head of Slytherin until he was already middle aged. There, we see how casting - even by actors who can pull off the personality part - can completely change the role/story of a character.
William//Slytherin [414; 237 if you don't count discussion on Snape]