5. Martin Sheen - Captain Willard (Apocalypse Now)
Martin Sheen's grizzled narration is part of what makes
Apocalypse Now so great, though originally the voice you might have heard muttering things over shots of Vietnam getting blown up and Marlon Brando's fat belly could have been somebody else's entirely: Harvey Keitel's. And Keitel - a wonderful actor, you'll agree - actually went into the depths of hell for a brief two-week period and shot a whole bunch of footage. But Francis Ford Coppola, the movie's director, became convinced that he'd cast the wrong man in the main role. Crazy, right? And so it was goodbye Harvey Keitel, and hello Martin Sheen. Was Harvey annoyed about this? How did Coppola break it to him? It'd be interesting to see just how wrong Keitel was for the part. Maybe he was too gruff or something. Or he insisted on being naked the whole time, I don't know. Anyway, Martin Sheen nailed it as Captain Willard, so no harm done. Well, he had a massive heart attack halfway through production, but no harm done to the movie, is what I meant.