Actors who look nothing like the character they're playing

I hate it, I could count film that stick to written characteristics on one hand, never for the better. Take Jack Reacher films, he is meant to be over 6ft tall, thin, wiry but discretely muscled and retired after a full military career.

Actor one, Tom Cruise, who is too young, pretty and notoriously short, and well actor 2...

Alan Ritchson, tall yes, but far too much muscle. Reacher works because he looks harmless - Alan simply due to weight/weight/muscle ratio looks dangerous.

Try to avoid films for books I've read now

William Hurt was so wrong as Mr Rochester. However so is Timothy Dalton, but I love that version of Jane Eyre. I had to look up versions of the film to remember the actors name, and was amazed to see that Charlton Heston has played the part. Glad I haven't seen that film.
The film - The Eagle= was made with Channing Tatum as Marcus Flavius Aquila, from a dearly loved book The Eagle of the Ninth. I had longed for a film of that book to be made, and was so disappointed with that casting I can't watch it. The BBC had serialised the book years ago, and that was quite good apart from the awful wigs that the Britons had to wear.

Nothing can be as incongrouos as that mono-browed midget playing Jack Reacher on film...

At least the guy who plays him in the new TV version is the right size...if fact, he's downright dishy!

Rosie51

I actually like Douglas Henshall as Jimmy Perez in the Shetland series, but he's totally wrong. In the books, he's often described as being dark and swarthy because of his Spanish heritage, definitely not blue eyed with red hair.

I was just coming to say this - I read the books (& loved them) and when I saw the trailer for the TV series I was so put out by the utterly different look of Jimmy Perez that I didn't bother to watch, as I knew that it would irritate me all the while...
Oh, and Joan Hickson IS Miss Marple - just as David Suchet IS exactly how Poiret is described in the books.