A vague resemblance. Tried just listening to it; cadence ok but voice not close to McQueen. For an icon, I needed something spot on. Thoughts?
shareI agree that it is a vague resemblance, but since this isn't a Steve McQueen biopic and it's only a small part I'm fine with it.
shareDaniel Craig?
shareCraig -- being the first blond Bond -- got some McQueen references when Casino Royale came out. But he also got Charles Bronson references for his muscled physique.
Kevin Costner was considered "the new Steve McQueen" when he hit stardom in the 80s. Art Linson, producer of "The Untouchables," said upon first meeting Costner , he thought "he's got Steve McQueen written all over him." Some felt that Costner mixed McQueen and Gary Cooper's looks. But at the end of the day...Costner was Costner. With his weird "California surfer guy" voice and his own surly manner. Also -- and rather like McQueen -- Costner got better looking as he got older, and looked less like McQueen with every year.
Evidently, QT couldn't cast either Daniel Craig or Kevin Costner as McQueen in OATIH, so he went with Damien Lewis.
I thought Lewis was OK. They dyed and fluffed up his hair to mimic McQueen's blond long hair style in 1969(on display in The Reivers of that year, though when this movie scene is set -- February -- McQueen would be basking in the Number One hit, Bullitt.) The voice was barely there -- but who CAN do a Steve McQueen impression?
I thought that Lewis flat out NAILED McQueen in one moment only -- when he did a closed mouth, closed eye smirk of a smile that matched McQueen exactly, and tilted his head a bit like McQueen. But that was it.
CONT
The truth is this. I read one agent quoted thus about major movie stars: "They are stars because they are unique. There can only be one of that type. There was only one Blue Boy painting."
Thus, in ANY movie, where lesser actors are hired to play major stars ...it doesn't really work. I'm thinking James Brolin and Jill Clayburgh as "Gable and Lombard" years ago. John Gavin played Cary Grant in the biopic of Sophia Loren(with Loren playing HERSELF.) Didn't work. TWO actors, in the same year(2012) played Alfred Hitchcock -- (Anthony Hopkins in Hitchcock, and Toby Jones in The Girl) but neither of them really got his face - just the voice, and not even that well enough.
I suppose Ana de Armas came close with her Marilyn Monroe last year, but not close enough. And Oscars have been given to those who played Ray(Charles) and Judy(Garland) so...maybe that agent was kind of wrong.
Bottom line: some stars CAN be imitated. But others cannot.
And no one can duplicate the star's talent or presence.