15 Most Ridiculously Absurd Casting Calls Of The 21st Century

6. John Cusack - The Paperboy (2012)

John Cusack might have range, but his really comfortable wheelhouse is fairly limited: he plays likeable everyman types on the edge of neurosis (more edgy than Tom Hanks, not quite as far gone as Michael Keaton or Nic Cage). Most of his successes have come from a variation on that theme, even when there's been interesting genre additions like him playing a hitman suffering an existential crisis or a cop looking after Con Air.

So hearing he'd been cast as sociopath and accused murderer Hillary Van Wetter for Lee Daniels' The Paperboy was jarring to say the least for those familair with the source novel. It would require Cusack to go against everything he'd done in his career as a character actor and he really didn't come across as a man you'd expect to see pocket-masturbate during an interview with journalists seeking to clear his name.

He could do oddball, but cold-blooded, masochistic abuser and killer? It didn't fit.

Did It Work?

The Paperboy is pretty uneven, even if it's memorable in places, but Cusack's psychotic Van Wetter is actually pretty great. He's detached, dangerous and mesmerising when he's switching between victim and villain (before we know his true nature) and he sells the explosive ending really well. This was stunt-casting that REALLY worked.