We all want more vampire films, right? Even more importantly, we want more good vampire films. Towards that end we can all draw up lists of writers and directors who we think would make superior motion pictures about the undead. Likewise different ideas of such films no doubt bubble to the surface of many a regular visitor to this website. Herein however is a dream cast I would like to see in some vampire film someday, somehow. Please note I am not suggesting specific roles or storylines. I’ll that to others. More, this is a list only of actors who have not in fact played vampires before now, nor even appeared in a film or television series built around nosferatu–even as sometimes guests. Thus no one from “Charmed” or “True Blood” much less any version of “Dark Shadows” or even “The X-Files.”
Ready?
Christina Ricci. Given her rather gothic looks (I think someone described her once as the love child of Peter Lorre and Betty Boop), her attractiveness and her association with “The Addams Family” one might expect her to have played a vampire or something similar by now. Truthfully, she was a werewolf in “The Cursed” but–not the same thing. And in keeping with the overall theme, one can imagine her as victim, vampire or vampire-hunter can one not?
Michelle Williams. An awesome actress with real courage (some of her performances are almost too raw for comfort). Lovely enough to play Marilyn Monroe (that is her next role), fragile enough to play anything from a child-like girl to a ghost, yet with an undercurrent of real strength. Little wonder she’s been nominated twice for Academy Awards and it seems unlikely she won’t eventually win one.
Jonathan Rhys Myers these days is perhaps best known for playing King Henry in “The Tudors” but he has a pretty impressive resume. Among other roles, he was a fictionalized version of David Bowie in “Velvet Goldmine” as well as Elvis in a made-for-tv movie (how many actors can be said to play those two rock icons?). Easy enough to imagine him in other roles as diverse as Lestat, Jonathan Harker, maybe the Count of Saint Germain, Bill Compton, one of the Austra family, Sir Francis Varney, the Watcher to some Slayer, etc.
Which all goes double for Viggo Mortensen. Apart from Aragorn, we should also recall he played Lucifer in “The Prophecy” (and a fascinating performance it was) so he’s played for both teams–Light and Darkness. Honestly, can anyone think of a single performance of his that was less than sterling?
And Scarlett Johansson, who’s been turning out really fine performances since she was a teenager. Apart from her achievements in numerous films, we can hardly deny that she carries with her genuine glamor, almost as if she were some star of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
I could easily go on. But these are the first five that came to my mind, based on the criteria I set myself. As to what roles these five might play in this film–let your own imaginations run wild. Who is the vampire or vampires? The victim or victims? Of these who might be the vampire hunter?
Or–what are your choices?
Mortensen seems like hed make a good hunter. Personally, i cant see him as a vampire. Scarlett would make a good vampire bride, Michelle I can see as a nic victim or maybe a vampire also. The dude from the Tudors would make a fine vampire, either a head vamp or an accomplice vamp, but def a vamp. And Christina Ricci, well I’ve got a lot of respect for her and I feel she could play and part she wishes and pull it off. It would be cool to see her as a vampire, though, or maybe a victim that was turned and lived in the end to haunt everyone else.
Winona Ryder should play Gothic vampiress against that vampire-hunting priest Paul Bethany!
I liked to see Viggo Mortensen as Count Dracula, but he lost to Gary Oldman back in 1992. But could be his lucky day.