15 Near Miss Villain Castings That Would Suck More Than Eisenberg's Luthor

7. Jean Reno - Agent Smith (The Matrix)

Jean Reno does well to play to his strengths as an actor: he's easily best known for his role as cool assassin Leon in the Luc Besson-directed movie of the same name, in which he's low on words, high on actions, and doesn't have to display an enormous amount of emotion. He's great at playing stoic characters, but the idea of him playing a character as verbose and fiery as Agent Smith? No chance. Reno could probably have gotten away with it in the first Matrix movie, but as the monologues became more wordy and Smith's insanity became more noticeable in the sequels, an actor of a different kind was needed: enter Hugo Weaving. Weaving did such a splendid job with the character that it's difficult to imagine anyone else playing it anyway, let alone someone with as limited a range as Reno (at least from what we've seen so far). More to the point, I just don't really see Reno as a villainous actor: he's much better suited to a badass hero role.