Casting Chemistry

I think sometimes the chemistry between the leading actors and actresses...and even the entire cast can make or break a movie for you.

I'd love to know....

• Which actors/actresses do you think have have a good chemistry together?

• Which actors/actresses' chemistry doesn’t work for you and in which movie?


Good Casting Chemistry for me........

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers~
(The Gay Divorcee (1934), [i]Top Hat (1935), [i]Swing Time (1936), Follow the Fleet (1936), Shall We Dance (1937) )
They have great chemistry together in all of their movies along with their entire cast(s). To me it’s one of the elements that helps keep their movies classic. The entire cast always had great timing. And Fred has danced with other women in other movies...but none of them click as well as when he danced and traded barbs with Ginger.

Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant~
(The Philadelphia Story (1940), Bringing Up Baby (1938) and Holiday (1938)
I love Katharine and Cary together. Eventhough Holiday wasn’t as good as their other two movies Kate and Cary made it work and enjoyable to watch.

Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks~
( Sleepless in Seattle (1993), You've Got Mail (1998) )
For me, Meg and Tom are just adorable together. Eventhough they didn’t have alot of screen time together in Sleepless...everything and everyone still clicked for me. I loved the casts’ for both films.

I loved the cast in The Parent Trap (1998)
Lindsay Lohan (Hallie Parker/Annie James), Dennis Quaid (Nicholas Parker), Natasha Richardson (Elizabeth James), Elaine Hendrix (Meredith Blake), Lisa Ann Walter (Chessy), Simon Kunz (Martin, the James' Butler). I know..it’s just a family movie...but everyone meshed together so well. I love this movie...because of the cast.


Also....I’d like to see these actors and actresses together again...

Robert Redford and Brad Pit...I loved them in Spy Game. I think they make a good team again.

Robin Williams and Christine Baranski....I think they had great chemistry in The Bird Cage. I think they’d be a hoot together in another film.

Steve Martin and Jean Smart.....she was so under used in Bringning down the House. What little time they did have together I think they had alot chemistry. I’d love to see them together in another movie.

Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson...they were just so darn cute together in Parent Trap.



Casting Chemistry that didn't work for me........

View From the Top (2003)
Gwyneth Paltrow (Donna), Christina Applegate (Christine), Mark Ruffalo (Ted). To me Gwyneth and Mark were just flat. She needs someone more dynamic playing a romance with her...and...I dunno about Christina...she was fine in her role, but they just didn’t mesh for me.

What a good idea for a thread Annie let me contribute to it.

I see more lack of chemistry in television shows than I do movies. Of course there are just plain old bad movies where the chemistry, or lack thereof, is hardly the issue. Actually, I’m having a hard time thinking of films that had bad chemistry, mainly because if I don’t like a movie, I quickly forget all about it. Yet, coming up with great combinations is easy though.

Abbot & Costello

Laurel & Hardy

Two of the greatest teams in comedy history, and completely unforgettable. I still get so much enjoyment from watching their movies and shorts. I really don’t think it possible for me to ever outgrow them, and will probably adore their comedic styles forever. Many have tried to compare, but it is almost impossible.

Humphrey Bogart & Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca

Harrison Ford & Carrie Fisher in the Star Wars Trilogy

Richard Gere and Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman

These three pairings are all from different eras, but they all have one thing in common. Perfect casting and absolutely believable love. My favorite from this group is Han and Leia. There are so many great movies with excellent actors doing their things, but these three came to mind first.

I would also like to see Brad Pitt and Robert Redford again. Before Spy Game came out, I had always thought that these two should be cast in a movie as Father and Son. Good thread kid.

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Thank you for caring enough to contibute Brian. I liked your list. And your right....Brad Pitt and Robert Redford should be cast as a father and son. I'd love to see that.


I was thinkng today of some bad chemistry in movies and I know what you mean about having a hard time remembering bad chemistry. Some movies you just want to put out of your mind...but I did remember...

Serving Sara...I realize this movie had a bad script...but one of the reasons I hated this movie was the pairing of Matthew Perry and Elizabeth Hurley. Dear Laurd this movie was doomed once they signed the contracts. I loved Liz with Mike Myers and Brendan Frazier, but with Matthew.....nuttin'....I hated them together.

Oh and....

Someone Like You (2001)...for me...compared to Sleepless in Seattle this was a b-rated romance. What saved this move was the chemistry between Ashley Judd and Hugh Jackman. I wouldn't mind seeing them together again with in an action movie instead of a strictly romance movie.


To end this on a positive note....

Thanks again for replying Bri. My threads don't normally do well, that's why I don't make many. I appreciate your support.

You know, I was thinking about Shelly Duvall and Jack in The Shining because of the other thread. But I don't think that that was the real culprit there, it was Duvall in general.

I thought these guys sizzzzzled together.......











non sizzlers



more to come.......

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~ Nikki ~

"I'm your hell, I'm your dream.......I'm nothing in between.......You know you wouldn't want it any other way".........

"Listen, when I slap you, you'll take it and like it"..........Humphrey Bogart..........Maltese Falcon.......

Graze on my lips and if those hills be dry, stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie...........William Shakespeare.......

People I think clicked were

CARY GRANT and EVA MAREE SAINT North by Northwest



CARY GRANT and GRACE KELLY in to catch a theif



CARY and KATHERINE in anything



You probably guessed that I am a Cary Grant fan

I will be baaaaaaaaaack with more soon.

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Bob Redford and Paul Newman
Only the two movies together - Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid and The Sting, but with those projects they pretty well defined the buddy movie concept. Absolutely perfect playing off and with each other. They've always been looking for another project, but never found anything of the same quality. Too bad.

Julie Christie and Alan Bates
Starring together four times, in Far From the Madding Crowd, The Go-Between, The Return of the Soldier and a TV-version of "Separate Tables" (directed by John Schlessinger), these two fine actors always bring out the best in each other. My favorite pairing will always be Far From the Madding Crowd, where Bates' simple but dignified shepherd loves Christie's headstrong landowner even as she makes terrible choice after terrible choice.

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall
Well, SOMEbody had to mention Bogie and Betty. Might as well be me. Of course watching them on film is added to by knowing what great lovers they were off screen, but their four movies together - To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, Key Largo and Dark Passage, are all classics, enriched immesurably by the natural and palpable chemistry between them.



James Garner and Julie Andrews
Only two films together, The Americanization of Emily and Victor/Victoria, but in both they are just perfect with the other. Emily is one of my all-time favorite films, and the interplay between Garner's smart-talking cynic and Andrews' reluctant romantic is the heart that drives Paddy Chayefsky's brilliant Wartime satire. In Victor/Victoria, they couldn't be any sweeter together.

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Being as I just watched this film a couple of nights ago I would have to add the majority cast and in particular the core four in 'Stand By Me'.
Such inspirational choices that 'Rob Reiner', the director spent ages working together with. This was more then just gelling on screen but also off. The four boys together made a unique and riveting comparison of characters. I love this film and everything about it.

Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi in 'Blues Brothers'.

Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd.

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Johnny Depp AND Benicio Del Toro
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
These two just click, Each of them bring there own Passion and Talent, and to make of the best teams in history. Lets hope they can do the same for The Rum Diary's.


Harvey Keitel AND Steve Buscemi AND
Reservoir Dogs
Forget Blonds coolness, Browns Theroies on maddona or Orange laying in a pool of blood, these two stole the show.


Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn
Swingers AND Made
"Your so f*cking money and you dont even know it"

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It's a god-awful small affair, To the girl with, the mousy hair, But her mummy is yelling "No", and her daddy has told her to go, But her friend is nowhere to be seen, Now she walks through her sunken dream, To the seat with the clearest view, And she's hooked to the silver screen, But the film is a saddening bore, For she's lived it ten times or more...

i'll go for different ends of the scale here...

1. the only time i have heard the words "love is a many spleadoured thing" without puking....


2. i loved these two together...GREAT psychos!!

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Hey you where are the pictures from the Sleeze Ball

As Good As It Gets; Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, Greg Kinnear, and Cuba Gooding Jr..

Who ever had the guts to put this crew together and think it would work?

One of my favorites from the Nineties.

orson welles, then-wife rita hayworth, and everett sloan, THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI.

Very good idea Annie… and there are some nice combinations listed already… a few that worked for me are…

Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe in The Last of the Mohicans

Michael Douglas and Annette Bening in The American President

Liam Neeson and Jessica Lange in Rob Roy

Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love

Johnny Depp and Mary Stuart Masterson in Benny and Joon

Rutger Howard and Michelle Pfieffer in Ladyhawke

Faye Dunaway and Marlon Brando in Don Juan DeMarco

Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty in Bonnie and Clyde

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I just thought I’d reveive this thread. Thanks everyone for your responses. Great choices everyone.

I'd like to add some new ones...

Intolerable Cruelty (2003)
I loved George Clooney (Miles Massey) and Catherine Zeta-Jones (Marylin Rexroth) together. I would LOVE to see these two paired again.

Cinema Paradiso (1989)
Philippe Noiret (Alfredo) and Salvatore Cascio (Salvatore as a child). I loved these two together. They were soooo incredibly sweet as the young impish boy and the seemily crusty old bear father figure.

Lost in Translation (2003)
What made this movie for me is the chemistry between Scarlett Johansson (Charlotte) and Bill Murray (Bob).

As a cast...
Elizabeth (1998)
I thought everyone was perfect for their role and meshed together brilliantly. I especially liked Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth I) and Geoffrey Rush (Sir Francis Walsingham) together.

oh fun fun fun

I really don't know if I can do this..it definately is hard to say but the voices of Albert Brooks as Marlin and Ellen Degeneres as Dory in 'Finding Nemo' (2003) just brought so much life into the film and the timing they had with eachother while less so as it would be in a live moving picture film was still stupendous

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Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
T.S Eliot, "Preludes"

Good Chemistry:

Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes, Jason Lee, Ben Affleck

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"In Brightest Day,
In Blackest Night.
No Evil Shall Escape My Sight,
Let Those Who Worship Evil's Might.
Beware My Power...Green Lantern's Light"

--Green Lantern Oath--

"The Green Lantern Corps has battled against the forces of evil and chaos for a millennium. To serve is the ultimate honor."

Totally agree with George Clooney and Catherine Zeta Jones. I also think the following work well together:

Anthony Hopkins & Emma Thompson (Remains of the Day & Howards End)
Colin Firth & Hugh Grant (Bridget Jones's Diary)
Jack Lemmon & Walter Matthau (The Odd Couple)
Audrey Hepburn & Gregory Peck (Roman Holiday)
Mel Gibson & Joachim Phoenix (Signs)
Robert De Niro & Al Pacino (Heat)

I don't think it has worked for:

Hugh Jackman & Meg Ryan (Kate & Leopold - the movie was very flimsy anyway, but it did nothing for me)
Tom Cruise & Penelope Cruz (Vanilla Sky)
Nicolas Cage & Penelope Cruz (Captain Corelli's Mandolin)

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In every generation there is a chosen bint

Good:

The total cast on the Sting was fantastic.

The three guys on the boat in Jaws.. powerful group.

Bad:

Gone in 60 seconds:

Duval should have never been in that movie. He is a class above the other actors.

Spencer Tracy - Kate Hepburn

Adam's Rib
Pat And Mike
Desk Set (Just bought the DVD)
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

* All their pairing except Keeper of the Flame, the movie had nothing to offer to them as pair.. Both were good ... movie fine but no pair chemistry there.