My top choices.
1. Michael Rooker
2. Cuba Gooding Jr
3. Samuel L. Jackson
4. John C. Reilly
5. Bryan Cranston
"How come nobody's ever tried to be a superhero?" - Dave Lizewski, 2010.
Samuel L. Jackson
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And then give Kaa a role closer to the book so we get the show-down between Kaa and the Bandar-log, during which time Louie could shout out:
"I'M SICK OF THIS MUTHA-F'IN KAA IN MY MUTHA F'IN JUNGLE!!"
Yes... that would have been great. 😅
Cee-lo Green. But hollywood would never cast a black man playing a monkey. They were scared in the 60's, and they're terrified now.
shareCee-lo Green. But hollywood would never cast a black man playing a monkey.
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For the way King Louie is portrayed - like a Mafia Boss - in this movie I think Walken is a fine choice. Louie Prima did an excellent portrayal of him as a Jazz con man in a lighter vein.
To update it I'd like to see him as a light hip-hop rapper, but I don't know who to suggest. But like another poster said it would be touchy to cast a black performer playing an ape. Maybe that's why Louie Prima was cast in the 60s rather than Louis Armstrong.
Al Pacino -- in fact Walken sounded just like Pacino at times.
shareInteresting choices, littleyellowfish.
It was fun to imagine what it would have been like if each of those actors had played the role.
__ __
Hate leads to anger.
Anger leads to the Dark Side.
This is a Haiku.
I don't think it would really matter. He was such an incidental character with such bizarrely-atonal scene (swinging haphazardly from a gangster-like attempt to induct Mowgli into his scheme to the sudden light-hearted musical jaunt and then to savage animal violence...) that I think anyone could have pulled it off.
Had the part been better written and settled on one theme for the scene, then it would have depended on what the writing demanded.
As it is, the voice actor was irrelevant to the part.