...whom do you think would have been better? Besides the obligatory, "Anyone!" who in 1994 could people see inhabiting this role believably? Who can you see properly delivering lines about skulking or not noticing rain?
My top picks would be the obvious ones: Sandra Bullock, Julia Roberts, Meg Ryan. Perhaps Michelle Pfeiffer, Uma Thurman or even Melanie Griffith could have pulled it off as well.
This comes up a lot. I think it needed a less sugary sweet and less wooden actress, and for that I doubt Sandra Bullock or Melanie Griffith could've made it work. They're alright in other films but I wouldn't rate them much higher than Andie MacDowell. Remember Groundhog Day? Andie's not always that bad then eh. Michelle Pfeiffer or Uma Thurman I can't see with Hugh Grant. Julia Roberts or Meg Ryan would've been great, but probably too expensive choices.
So my pick would've been Roseanna Arquette, who's the same age as Andie MacDowell and by then had experience filming in Europe too. She was in Pulp Fiction at the time though. Though, I hate to think what PF would've been like, had she and Andie switched roles. Her sister Patricia Arquette could've done it too, and as for British actresses I think either of the Sense & Sensibility girls (Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson) or Helena Bonham Carter could've easily pulled it off too. But that's easily said in hindsight.
Yeah basically any the ones youve said there, julia orberts adn sandra worked well with hugh before. The carrie was so annoying, "is it raiing i hadnt noticed", yes you had, stupid, such a fake delivery of the line
shareI'd cast someone with brains. Julianne Moore or Meg Ryan would have done a good job. But to make Carrie likeable there would have had to be a script re-write; how could even the best actress overcome the awfulness of that scene when Carrie is enumerating the faults of her many sex partners? Followed by dragging Charles off to look at the wedding dress she'll wear to marry another man? Yuck! No taste, no sensitivity, no intelligence. Oh, by the way, what does she actually do for a living? And exactly where does she come from, where's her family, how has she come to live in England? I think she might have been an expensive hooker who, now that she's getting on in years, wants to make a respectable marriage.
shareOh, by the way, what does she actually do for a living? And exactly where does she come from, where's her family, how has she come to live in England?
Actually, this was explained early on. Fiona tells Charles that Carrie "used to work at Vogue. Lives in America now." So apparently, Carrie had worked in the London offices of Vogue. (So not a hooker, lol.)
Fifi also tells Charles that Carrie "only goes out with very fashionable people." I imagine that Carrie must have met Hamish through the set she socializes in.
Just adding that I think the costumer for this film should be flogged for selecting that hideous (and I mean HIDEOUS) hat that Carrie was wearing at wedding number 1. The only statement that horrid thing makes is, "LOOK AT ME!" It would never have attracted a simple guy like CHarles; it would liklier have made him run far, far away -- as fast as he could.
The beautiful Cameron Diaz would have been far better.
I always though Fi was more attractive than Carrie. It's all in the eye of the beholder, not sure if they ever had the chemistry to pull it quite off.
But then the success of the film speaks for itself.
Though a fantastic scrip - and wonderful support cast help alot
Cam is yum, but would have been too young in 1994 to play this --- it needs a sophisticated 30-something. Hugh Grant was about 34 at the time.
shareShe works for Vogue magazine. She does not live in England, she lives n America and travels to England for her work (until she marries Hamicsh- She may even be engaged to or at least in a relationship with Hamisch at the time of the first wedding). She was raised on a farm. Through her work, she has developed some very high-echelon friends and acquaintances (Fiona travels in her same circles). Her dad is dead ( probably her mother too, because if she were alive, Hamisch certainly had enough money to bring her to Scotland for the wedding.) According to Fiona (who may be speaking from jealousy) , she is a slut, not a whore.
sharerkelleher wrote:
She works for Vogue magazine. She does not live in England, she lives n America and travels to England for her work
Fiona: Used to work at Vogue. Lives in America now.I think that Carrie worked for the British edition of Vogue and has been living in England for quite a while. It is not clear where she is living now -- Charles never asks -- and I suspect that it is wherever she wants to be.
She was raised on a farm.I have some memory about a rural background, and if you have any information about whether it was a small farm, a big farm, or a horse farm, I would be interested.
Her dad is dead ( probably her mother too,Interesting point. Or possibly estranged. Carrie was quite wild in high school suggesting an unstable family background.
According to Fiona (who may be speaking from jealousy) , she is a slut, not a whore.
Fiona: Name's Carrie . . . American . . . Slut.Fiona, whatever her own sexual values, is surely speaking from jealousy in response to Charles's enthusiasm. "Slut" is a gratuitous insult at that point. Look at how Fiona treats Henrietta, and she is hardly much of a threat.
I read in the trivia that Jeanne Tripplehorn was originally cast as Carrie. I think she would also have been great, but I do like Andie McDowell in this role.
shareWell, they had decent chemistry in 'Mickey Blue Eyes,' but I've always considered Tripplehorn to be something of a blank slate. She just makes so little an impression on me each and every time I see her in a film. But I really just did not like MacDowell in this film. She just took all of Richard Curtis' lovely words and failed to filter them through anything to make them at all believable. I look at the way Julia Roberts pulled off tough and sappy 'Notting Hill' scenes like 'I'm just a girl standing in front of a boy...' or the way actresses like Rachel McAdams and Calista Flockhart seem to mull over their dialogue and embue it with realism - and I keep failing to appreciate the clumsy and forced way MacDowell delivers her lines. Some blame has to go to the director of course, but in all fairness, only Steven Soderbergh and perhaps Harold Ramis wrenched truly good performances out of her (not even Peter Weir, my favorite helmer can claim that distinction). But I truly believe someone like Sandra Bullock or Meg Ryan would have been better able to embue Carrie with the kind of confusion and playfull worldliness the character needed. JMHO.
shareGood thread;
I rather blame Richard Curtis and not Andie. It was a very difficult part to pull off. Not a character that you want to empathize with. I watched the movie last week, last time I think was in 1995. The movie did not age well. Or maybe after watching his follow up movies; Notting Hill, et al; 4 Weddings seem less mature and defined.
I agree with everything you've said about Andie MacDowell. Watching her in the film can be excruciating. (I want to throw my shoe at her!)
But I truly believe someone like Sandra Bullock or Meg Ryan would have been better able to embue Carrie with the kind of confusion and playfull worldliness the character needed.
But I don't think either of these actresses could ahve pulled off the sophisticated "model-gorgeousness" that the script called for.
According to the DVD commentary I listened to recently (featuring writer Curtis, director Newell, and producer Kenworthy), the dialog in several scenes had to be "looped" in post-production because of the awful acoustics of the filming locations. This includes the dialog between Carrie and Charles in two crucial scenes where I think her affect comes off as dull and unnatural: the conversation at wedding reception 2 about the Boatman and the very last conversation in the rain. In fact, the filmmakers praised Hugh Grant's ability to loop the latter scene perfectly, right down to every stammer and hesitation, but did not say anything about MacDowell's abilities in this regard. Perhaps part of what we're picking up as unsatisfactory resulted from this process.
shareTrentinaNE wrote:
Perhaps part of what we're picking up as unsatisfactory resulted from this process.That is certainly possible, but I suspect that in some cases people are more sensitive to it because they simply don't like Carrie or don't like Andie McDowell's performance.I like Carrie and I like Andie McDowell's performance, and so I don't pick at it.
It was timing. Jeanne Triplehorn had been cast but dropped out at the last minute when her mother died suddenly and unexpectedly. MacDowell was in London doing promos for Ground Hog Day. She fit the bill physically, and was interested in the script. From what I've read, she took no salary (or a very low one) in exchange for a share of the profits and ended up doing very well financially.Yes. And he had confidence in the script and made out well. Hugh seems to have hated it and did not make out so well. Well, it made him a star.Some people conclude that because she was a last-minute choice, she was a choice that they really didn't want. I see no evidence of that. She was cast based on her performance in Groundhog Day, and I doubt that they expected her to do something completely different from what she had done there. share
Although her acting is rather lame I think casting Andie McDowell was not a total failure at all. Personally I think she has some kind of stunning sexiness in this movie, just as she is supposed to. To me that works for this movie.
shareI've just watched the deleted scenes from FWAAF and apparently, there was more dialogue during Charles and Carrie's kissing scenes, namely: 'I always vowed I'd sleep someone else one last time after I got engaged' (or something similar) and another one about having to go and get bridesmaids's dresses. These were cut as it was decided that they didn't want the audience to see the characters as 'too unlikeable'!
Surely scrapping Carrie's entire personality and replacing it with a much nicer one would have been a better way to warm the audience to her? I will never understand how Richard Curtis possibly thinks a woman like this is attractive to anyone, let alone the film-watching audience.
It's obvious what Curtis thinks of American women - gorgeous, seductive, heartless, and thoroughly selfish. I don't like Carrie, I don't like Anna Scott, and watching his films is like eavesdropping on a session between Curtis and his therapist. The saving grace of "Four Weddings" is that it's hysterically funny. I'm not a fan of MacDowell's, but she's better than the truly dreadful Julia Roberts, who can't act her way out of a paper bag. Though even an accomplished actress couldn't have pulled off that scene in "Notting Hill".
I agree; the best way to get the audience to like the character is to create a likable character. The only likable female American character I've seen from Curtis is the one played by Laura Linney in "Love Actually".
"Anna Scott" ???
WYSYHYG
Yea, I don't see how there is so much support for Julia Roberts on this thread. She is dreadful.
shareA&E is playing it this morning and I agree Andie can be a bit stiff, but you can't deny she's lovely in it, and the director gave her beautiful lighting.
shareI just love Andie Mac Dowell and she's at her top in this movie (physically speaking). It's not her fault if what she says is stupid or how she is dressed is awful. She just has the most beautiful face in the world at that time... look at her eyes in the last scene. maybe meg Ryan would have been great... but never as georgeous as Andie is.
"hard work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"
Concur. Her dialogue wasn't as witty as John Hannah's or Simon Callow's. With her natural curls, it would've been awesome if she didn't have her hair cut.
shareI watched FOUR WEDDINGS last night... to help in my recovery from The Fammily Stone. I think Andie is lovely to look at. Not convinced her wooden-ness in the movie was the script she was handed... But I must be honest. Andie could be a twin to my deceased sister...a face just as lovely. So she could be reciting a nursery rhyme badly and I'm riveted.
The last person I can see as Carrie is Julia Roberts. None of the others mentioned work for me, either. Love Sandra Bullock but she, unfortunately, has been stereotyped and I can't see her as Carrie.
I love this movie. I pop in the video and in minutes I'm on the floor laughing or reaching for the Kleenex. I never tire of it.
I concur that the Family Stone was horrible and no Julia Roberts, the movie itself is ok but hey it's just my POV.
shareAndie MacDowell was pretty awful in this, but she was better in Sex lies and Viedotape so i don't think she's necessarily this bad an actress. Her role in this is not very well written and that may have affected the performance. However,I still think she was miscast. She's oddly cold, rude and distant in the part and we're still supposed to want them to end up together. I can't say that I did! Other than that it's a delightful film, so it's a shame.
shareI hadn't seen this for ages and just watched it again today. I was aghast at how horrible Andie MacDowell was and got on here to see if anyone else thought the same and laughed to find how much bagging she gets.
The character of Carrie was pretty awful and apart from replacing Andie maybe there needed to be some sort of explanation for her behaviour so the audience could feel a bit more sympathetic towards her. eg. maybe she had no family and was insecure which led to her having so many flings and seeking out a wealthy husband or maybe she had an uppity family pressuring her to marry within a particular social status. Somewhere in the movie this information could have subtly been conveyed and we should have had a few glimpses of a softer, vulnerable side of Carrie.
Instead of Andie? Please not Meg Ryan. But I'm pretty stuck. Maybe Demi Moore?
She wasn't bad in Groundhog Day either. It's true, she's not brilliant to say the least in Four Weddings, but I agree that her character wasn't that well-written.
I think she was meant to be quite mysterious to the audience, to explain how Charles is so intrigued by her, this American woman who nobody seems to know that much about. It was probably meant to be alluring. But it had the opposite effect, in that she just became an unsympathetic character.
EXACTLY!! You actually took the words right out of my mouth.
shareI love the Family Stone! The heart ache of a family denying their mother's imminent death and the journey of the kids figuring out who they are... I loved it!
share
Just a huge nay to Julia Roberts. She would not have fit at all. The film is not about Carrie. That's why it's still a great film despite MacDowell not being so great. Roberts would have had her usual self-centered shtick. And many of us would have hated the film.
I actually would have preferred Tripplehorn. The role didn't need the world's greatest actress. Again, that's why it's still OK with MacDowell. Of the other names mentioned, I think Bullock would have been fine too.
[deleted]
i'm glad you asked this coz IMO, Andie seriously couldn't carry the supposedly charming attractive irresistible American character Hugh falls for.
among your suggestions.. i'd pick Meg. she was actually America's Sweetheart that time. i've always loved her, too. =)
i think you know the game i mean
i mean the game called 'go insane'.
-Jim Morrison
I think Sandra Bullock would have been a great choice.
"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
I don't know who I'd recast, and I agree that Andie McDowell was atrocious in this, but part of the problem is that the lines are written in a very English manner, and she's very American. Perhaps she had picked up the speech mannersims while living in London, but it highlighted the forced aspect of her character by making her say very English things and she's clearly very not. Specifically, the wedding dress trying-on scene, "Bit of a meringue"
sharei agree that she wasn't very good and the charles/carrie story line is my least favorite in the movie i think meg ryan would have fit or julia roberts(i don't care if some people don't like her i do) but the movie has been made and let's just enjoy it insted of asking who would have been better they had to recast this quickly after the orignal carrie dropped out so cut her some slack
Now Harry let us go out in to the night and persue that flighty temptress adventure.
[deleted]
My husband and I had this discussion just this past weekend as we watched Four Weddings for the thousandth time on cable. I really like the movie, can't stand Andie McDowell/Carrie's character. He came up with what I believe to be an excellent recast for the part of Carrie...Elisabeth Shue. She was moderately well known at the time, beautiful, bright and down to earth. I think she could have made the character of Carrie likable AND a believable love interest for Hugh Grant.
shareI happen to like Julia Roberts, but she has too strong of a presence to be in the movie. She would've overshadowed (right word?) Hugh Grant. But andie, I think, had trouble grasping such an underdeveloped character. Loved her in Groundhog Day, though!
^And Elisabeth Shue isn't a bad suggestion!
Somebody mentioned Julianne Moore earlier, and I think she would've handled the role very well... However, what about Jennifer Connelly? I know she would've only been in her mid-twenties, but IMO she has always had a 'mature' air about her, and a younger person like her playing someone in their early- to mid-thirties like Carrie... well, I think that would have provided the 'allure' that Richard Curtis and Mike Newell had strived for in an American woman that has had a promiscuous life before (and during) the movie.
My Movies: http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list
Can you tell I had fun doing this?
I've heard that, too, that someone else was the original Carrie and they needed someone fast. Who was the original Carrie? And what happened to her?
shareFrom what I've read, the part was originally offered to Maris Tomei, who turned it down. I actually would have loved to see what she could do with the part.
They then had Jeanne Triplehorn signed up for the role, but her mother died unexpectedly just before shooting was to start and she dropped out. Andie MacDowell was in London doing promotional work for Ground Hog Day, so they met with her and decided to offer her the role, very last-minute.