Welcome all to another edition of The 8 Ball! This week I’m here to talk about casting, specifically fantasy casting for video game roles. This is my “in an ideal world”, these are the people I would get for these roles, and I specifically did four men and four women. Also, I didn’t want to just cast the actual, in certain cases, actors who portrayed the characters in the games. We can all agree that Ilkka Villi is great as Alan Wake but he’s not liable to get cast in some Hollywood adaptation of the material, sadly. Let’s begin:
#8: Evan Peters (Alan Wake)
Typically, Evan Peters has skewed a bit younger in his roles. The man is currently 38 but could pass for a college student, if the role required it. Alan Wake, at least in the first game, is actually only about 33 years old, which Peters could easily pass as. Also, in the first game, he’s a bit of a hot-head/sarcastic character, and Peters could do that well also. He doesn’t look like how Alan Wake does in Alan Wake 2, but he is a decent enough approximation for the first game, and he could do well in the role.
#7: Thomasin McKenzie (Cate Archer)
I actually kind of flipped and flopped on this, between McKenzie and Sydney Sweeney. Sweeney is actually the correct age as Archer, but she is a bit smaller in height than Archer and I’m not entirely sure how well she could pull off a British accent. McKenzie, on the other hand, has done British accents in at least two or three other jobs. Plus, one of the big points about Archer is that she doesn’t look like a spy/is constantly undervalued for her work, and I could see McKenzie eating that up a lot. Another pick here would be Ella Purnell, but with her as the main character in Fallout, that wouldn’t work well.
#6: Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Ezio Auditore da Firense)
I tend to use age as a metric for this stuff, but I think Aaron could fake it a bit. When you first meet Ezio in AC2 he is 17, but over the course of the game, he ends up at being 30. Taylor-Johnson is 34, so that’s not too far off. Really, I think its his characterization of Quicksilver in Avengers: Age of Ultron that does it for me. He played Quicksilver as this overly cocky guy, who did eventually do the right thing and got killed because of it. While that wouldn’t happen in an AC movie, I could see him playing Ezio with the same level of bravado but then having to have it go away once his family is killed and he has to “grow up”, as it were.
#5: Hayley Atwell (Lara Croft)
The bummer here is that, sadly, Atwell is getting a bit too old for the role. But you could always just age Lara up a bit, I’m kind of tired of the “daddy issues” take on Lara Croft the past movie/games have taken. Even if Lara was like 30, which Atwell could play handily, that’s a more mature take on the character. I think Daisy Ridley would also be a good physical fit for Lara, but I don’t entirely buy her in a sarcastic/badass role, and, aside from Star Wars, Ridley is box office poison at this point, so that’s another strike against her.
#4: Alan Ritchson (Sam Fisher)
The only strike against Ritchson now is that he’s a victim of his own success. He’s so widely recognized as Jack Reacher, that casting him as Sam Fisher which is, essentially, the same type of character, only with more spy gadgets. But hey, if it works, who cares? They dye his hair brown, have him slim down just a tad, and have him kill various terrorists and stop their plots from going on. I think Ritchson is actually a fairly underrated actor, so even him Fisher & Reacher are similar characters, he could differentiate them with different body movements, fighting styles, humor, etc.
#3: Gwendolyn Christie (Samus Aran)
This is a similar problem where Christie might just be a tad too old to play the traditional Samus, like with Atwell/Lara. Still, if she played a more seasoned/embittered version of the character, it could be great. She actually is the same height as Samus, without the Power Suit, and could portray the character when not having to wear it. Then when she does, they get the usual stunt performers to do it, like with The Mandalorian. Plus, I think Christie is just a good actress in general, and if they did faithful exploration of the character, it could give her something meaty to run with. I’m actually curious about the Samus/Metroid world, so having her dealing with other people, aside from scientists/military types, could be a neat twist with the character.
#2: Dan Stevens (Solid Snake)
“Yes”, there actually has been a Metal Gear Solid movie in development, for over a decade now. It was to be directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts and Oscar Issac, and well, it never happened. And, well, it never will actually happen, and because this is fan-casting, I can suggest who I want. Anyone who has seen “The Guest” knows that Stevens can do action stuff well. Plus, dude is good actor as well. The real reason he’d be a good Solid Snake though is for the obvious reason: Liquid Snake. The reveal that Master Miller is Liquid Snake, who is Snake’s genetic twin, could be great in Stevens hands. He obviously could do Liquid’s British accent, at least. The man would be a truly great Solid Snake.
#1: Anya Taylor-Joy (Aya Brea)
This is kind of the reason for this column. When I wrote the last one, talking about Aya, I immediately thought that Taylor-Joy would make for a killer Aya. She’s around the same age as the character, could wear some blue contacts and that be it. The only real issue is that she is actually a bit taller than Aya’s general height, ATJ is 5’8 and Aya is supposed to be around 5’2, but that can be easily worked around. I love Taylor-Joy in almost everything, save for New Mutants, and her take on Aya could be really brilliant. This would be the one project that would actually get me to sign up for a streaming service, so that says a lot right there.
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For comments, list your own fantasy casting for video game adaptations and why.
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