As a few others have pointed out, there is a difference between "stunt casting" and "star casting", and much of this thread is actually talking about "star casting." Stunt casting is a term in casting that refers to hiring of well-known actors, such as movie stars, to play small roles on television series, films and more recently Broadway shows. Stunt casting makes roles traditionally played by character actors unavailable to them. Examples of stunt casting include Peter Cushing and Alec Guinness in Star Wars, and Marlon Brando as Jor-El in Superman.
Star casting, (and to me, a great example was the casting of Catherine Zeta-Jones in ALNM) is the casting of a true star/celebrity in a leading or major role. Even the objectives of stunt v. star casting are slightly different, as stunt casting is usually done to generate publicity (buzz) that is temporary, while star casting is very definitely a way to generate greater ticket sales. And it works, more often than not, which is, to me at least, a bit unfortunate.
CZJ at opening night party for A Little Night Music, Dec 13, 2009.
Updated On: 8/17/14 at 05:29 PM