Casting The Roddy Piper Film

7. Andre The Giant - Paul Wight

Sam Rockwell Piper 2
WWE/WhatCulture

If its a story about 1980s professional wrestling, Andre the Giant has to be involved. Roddy Piper and Andre didn't really cross paths on too many occasions, with only one televised singles match in the history books, but Andre is a historical presence that is too big to ignore. Even if he's hanging around in the back of shots or drinking legendary amounts of beer in a post-show blaze, Andre the Giant must be in the film.

Finding someone to play the monolithic Roussimoff is no easy task, but the wrestling business has groomed a ready-made option. The Big Show was originally booked as Andre's son and has frequently been touted as the ideological successor of wrestling's great giant. Casting Show as Andre in the Roddy Piper film seems to make all the sense in the world.

This is particularly obvious, as Andre likely wouldn't have much of a speaking role in the movie. It is the physical side of things that really matters here, and Big Show is the closest thing the modern world has to The Eighth Wonder of the World.

Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.