Murray Pomerance's post on actors "acting" characters "unlike" themselves (and his brain teaser about Sigourney Weaver playing Billie Holiday) reminded me of an item I read in some entertainment mag last year--Hollywood producer is getting pitched various concepts for script development. One of them, a treatment of a story about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, catches his eye. He becomes excited and starts throwing out names, and he sugggests Michelle Pfeiffer for Harriet. (MP was supposedly not amused by the suggestion). (and, on the lighter side, wasn't there something of a flap in the marine biology community because of a "miscast" Andre. sea lion -- seal ?) One thing that I do see from the audience perspective is whether it is distracting. I personally spent half the time at that movie with Keanu Reeves as Siddhartha (?) , wondering WHY, OH WHY Keanu?. They got real lamas for heavens sake. I found the fact of it completely disconcerting and made it impossible for me to watch the rest of it with complete attention--maybe this is a function of casting in general. kal kal alston ed pol studies/ women's studies uiuc 380 education champaign, il 61820 217-333-3673(ofc)/333-2446(sec'y) ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]