33 thoughts on “SNARK WEEK: Unlikely Frock Flick Actors

  1. Cher can do anything! Well, except age, apparently. Deal with the Devil or plastic surgeon fidelity card? Same thing, most probably.

    And Cruise can act, sometimes. This to say I was pleasantly surprised at his Lestat, I thought he really captured the character flamboyance… Don’t get me started on Pitt & Banderas in the same movie, though. shudder

    1. His Lestat was just, I’m not really sure how to put it, maybe, “fiendlishly enthusiastic”? Not how I saw Lestat at all, really, but he put his all into it. When I was watching Versailles recently, I thought how wonderful Chevalier would be as Lestat and Phillipe as Louis.

  2. On the DVD extras of “The Last Samurai,” there’s a “history versus Hollywood” feature. It features Cruise, the director and the guy in charge of weapons gushing over how accurate the movie is. Cruise makes a point of saying Westerners are actually the good guys, bringing modern ideas to the country. On the same token, he says that Japan was so awful before Commodore Perry, case in point, Japanese women couldn’t vote.

    Then there’s the movie itself. Bring throat drops to protect from the screaming. Shoes on tatami mats are just the beginning.

  3. Every time I thought I’d thought of someone, I realized that the main reason I knew them was because of a Frock Flick.
    So, since you brought up 1/4 of the Hollywood Chris Quartet, I will say that I think Evans and Hemsworth ought to get in the Frock Flick game more thoroughly, and Pratt should stay faaaaaaar away.
    As for ladies? Well, I get the sneaking feeling that poor Sophie Turner is going to end up in a PFG-Starz collaboration, but if she were in a GOOD production with literally any other team, I’d be here for that.

    1. Maisie Williams was already in the Mary Shelley biopic last year, so yep, Sophie is up next for some frock flicks. Of the Chrises, I dunno, I’m not a fan of any of ’em so they can stay in their low-effort comic-booky things ;)

    2. I think you could ease Evans in via 20th century… he seems to like to explore some interesting ideas in the smaller projects he picks. Not that I ever want them to do a remake of The Natural, but I could see him playing a role like the lead in that, and then maybe work back from there. Not sure about anything super old/where he’d have to have an English accent though. I haven’t seen Hemsworth in much else, but I’d buy that he could do frock flicks.

      Pratt I think could do something like an O Brother Where Art Thou/30s regular folk era something. But otherwise I think he’s likely to come off like an Affleck—does not belong there, period.

  4. You missed as Cynthia Nixon Frock Flick role. In the Shlocky Western, Young Riders, she played the 2 part role Annie. A mail order bride who falls for Travis Fine’s character before finally marrying the man who abandoned her at the rail station.

  5. Both Wynona Rider and Michelle Pfeiffer should do more frock flicks. I loved both in Age of Innocence (Gabriella Pescucci) and Michelle in Cheri (costumes by Consolata Boyle).

    Another actress is Helen Mirren (I’m adding HBO for her Catherine II miniseries when it airs).

    Actors well I agree Tom Hanks should avoid frock flicks but Chadwick Boseman and Sam Heughan should do more.

    1. Jeremy Northam is THE BEST KNIGHTLEY. Full stop. And I will always love Sophie Thompson as Miss Bates.

      1. While I like Mark Strong’s Mr. Knightley, I do try and imagine a movie where Jeremy Northam was Mr. Knightley to Kate Beckinsale’s Emma…

  6. I will always love Kim Cattrall in the Downton Abbey spoofs for BBC Comic Relief. And I had a friend once met her on the set of Sex and the City and said she was absolutely kind and lovely.

  7. If you want Neil Patrick Harris in whackadoodle and occasionally historical outfits, try A Series of Unfortunate Events on Netflix.

  8. Orlando Bloom should stay far far away from any frock flicks. Terrible in Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, and all those Pirates films.

    1. Yes! His problem seems to be that he gets upstaged by other actors:
      Troy – upstaged by Brad Pitt
      Kingdom of Heaven – Pretty much everyone
      Pirates – Johnny Depp
      He’s supposed to the the star of all these movies, but he fades into the background. :)

  9. I thought I was the only one who hated Billie Piper! She is a horrible actress and there is something about her face I hate. I almost didn’t watch Penny Dreadful just because she was in it. Rose Tyler is the only role she ever did that was even tolerable and I hate Rose, too.

  10. Hmm, I found Tom Cruise surprisingly attractive in that Rock of Ages movie, so if they used the same sort of long hair and whatever worked then, and didn’t have him emote much, or have opinions, that would be nice to see–just saying.

  11. As a fantastic post I think came from twitter says, “Ben Affleck should not be in period pieces, his face looks like it knows what phones are.”

  12. Oh lord, I hated Billie Piper as Fanny Price so much that my psyche had entirely erased the memory, and now I am LIVID because this post has brought it all back to me. Why. Why does that film have to even exist. There are so few movies that are unwatchable to me, but that was definitely one.

  13. Why do we need yet another version of Witness for the Prosecution. I thought the recent version with Andrea Riseborough and Toby Jones was fine. Agatha Christie wrote like a zillion books but people insist on making movies out of the same 5 books.

  14. Keira Knightley should just stick with modern films. She is a decent actress, but her face and mannerisms are all very 20th-21st century: I just cannot associate her square jaw, skinny figure and lack of boobs with, say, 18th century standards of female beauty. Not not mention the annoying habit of wrinkling her nose when she smiles – it is cute generally, but feels very out of place in a costume flick. BTW, her Lizzy Bennet in 2005 Pride&Prejudice is my most hated movie.

  15. Unpopular opinion, but i didn’t totally hate Gwyneth Paltrow’s Emma. Probably because it was at least better than Kiera Knightley’s Lizzie Bennet. That being said, i’ve never seen a version of Emma in which i liked all of the leads. I liked Anya Taylor Joy as Emma (bonus points for Mia Goth and Bill Nighy), but hated Johnny Flynn’s Mr. Knightley with the passion of a thousand suns. Jeremy Northam was probably the best Mr. Nightley, but Gwyneth Paltrow was just okay. I thought that version had the best chemistry between the two leads, though. And i love Toni Colette in everything she’s in. Kate Beckinsale was a decent Emma, but Mark Strong is the last person alive who should be cast as Mr. Knightly, and there was zero chemistry between them. And Everybody else in that version was so forgettable, i don’t even remember who they are.

  16. I hate Emma no matter who plays her…and have a strong aversion to Billie Piper. There are certain actors who will keep me from watching movies. Hilary Swank is one, and also one who does not have a costume drama vibe to me. I still can’t bring myself to watch Affair of the Necklace, though I really want to…find myself watching The Eustace Diamonds again every time I almost give in. Yeah I know, no connection but still.

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