8 Actor Recasts That Completely Changed Everything

2. The Emperor - Return Of The Jedi

Though you'd be forgiven for not knowing it, the Emperor from Star Wars was originally played a woman named Elaine Baker, ex-wife of the make-up designer Rick Baker. Elaine was decked out in prosthetics, gifted monkey eyes and voiced by Clive Revill, thus successfully obscuring the fact she's female.

It wasn't until Return Of The Jedi that Baker was replaced by Ian McDiarmid, and the iconic character of the Emperor was truly born, complete with rasping voice and perpetually sneering expression. Recasting Baker meant actually being able to develop The Emperor as a fully-fledged character, instead of merely using him as a mysterious background force. This actor change paid off in other ways, too. Though much criticism has been directed at the Star Wars prequels (and for good reason) Ian McDiarmid (who was the right age to play an older senator by 1999) puts in a good turn as Chancellor Palpatine; sinister, infinitely campy, and one of the better things about those films. This is ultimately what Star Wars was founded on, and is much more acceptable than wooden performances (like that give by Hayden Christensen). It'd be hard to imagine anyone else in the role (or shouting "Unlimited power!").