50 Huge Movie Characters That Were Completely Miscast
3. Zoë Saldaña As Nina Simone - Nina
Particularly when making a biopic, it is absolutely essential that the right person be chosen to play the role in question. It is their story that audiences are coming to see after all, and while Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman, and Elvis all nailed their castings with Rami Malek, Taron Egerton, and Austin Butler respectively, this isn't the case across the board.
Nina released in 2016, and should have been a celebration of the amazing artist and civil rights activist, Nina Simone. However, the biggest talking point to come from it had nothing to do with her. Instead it was the controversy over Saldaña's casting.
Similarly to Scarlett Johansson's role in Ghost in the Shell, it was never going to matter how good or bad the performance was. In spite of initially defending her casting, Saldaña in 2020 came out and apologised for taking the role that she never should have had.
Not only did she wear a prosthetic nose and fake teeth, Saldaña used skin-darkening make-up for the casting that Simone's family heavily criticised, going so far as to tell the actor to take Nina's name out of her mouth for the rest of her life.