4. Tom Cruise - Lestat (Interview With The Vampire)
Even
Interview With The Vampire author Anne Rice was famously irked about the idea of Tom Cruise's playing Lestat in the movie adaptation of her critically-acclaimed book, a character who is described as having blazing blonde hair and grey eyes, standing at six feet tall. Insert your own Tom Cruise height joke here. "I was particularly stunned by the casting of Cruise, who is no more my vampire Lestat than Edward G. Robinson is Rhett Butler," she said prior to filming. She must've been positively shocked when he first came on screen, then. Yes, Rice apparently envisioned an actor more along the lines of
Blade Runner's Rutger Hauer, who - tall and blonde and naturally mysterious - does, I'll admit, feel like the perfect man for the job. But ol' Tom decided to defy the naysayers and throw himself into the part anyway. In the end, Rice admitted that she had been wrong to campaign against him: "From the moment he appeared Tom was Lestat for me. He has the immense physical and moral presence; he was defiant and yet never without conscience; the guy was great." Nailed it.