Ian Somerhalder, Henry Caville and Ryan Gosling - just a few of the names associated with the movie adaptation of the worldwide phenomena that is 50 Shades of grey. Personally I feel that Somerhalder (who has the nickname of 'Smoldypants' on the set of TVD) would have been perfect for the role, but alas, it seems the producers didn't agree. Hollywood newcomer Charlie Hunnum has been announced as the lead in the upcoming trilogy, an appointment nobody expected because of his, well newness.
Ok well he isn't exactly new just kind of unnoticed, until this summers box office smash hit Pacific Rim was released that is. British born Charlie has been acting on American screens for a while now, in FX's drama series 'Sons of Anarchy' - a show about an outlaw motorcycle club. Now I'd never seen the show, but I'd seen the adverts on channel 5 on random Sunday evenings but not once had I recognised the actor, until a friend pointed out that the actor was in fact the lead in 2005's Green Street. Who knew?
Enough about the man we are going to be seeing a WHOLE lot of next summer, but what of the actress who is to play the 'beguiling' Ana?? Dakota Johnson has been awarded the role - another relative unknown. According to Google she has a pretty decent list of credits to her name, the only one of which I recognise her from is The Social Network whereby she played 'Amelia Ritter' a small and inconsequential character memorable only for the fact that she got to sleep with Justin Timberlake's Sean Parker.
So, now we have the names, what do we think of them? Well, needless to say there is a petition going round to have them both sacked. Hardly surprising, we experienced the same thing with Ben Affleck last month after his Batman appointment was announced (I'll be honest, I was hoping Bale had bowed out as he has received the Christian grey role - admit it, he'd be perfect!). EL James herself stated that R Pattz would have been her first choice despite the fact that it would be 'weird' to see him play the role - lest we forget 50 Shades began life as fan fiction - but what we need to remember with roles such as these is that whoever receives these roles will be typecast as that character for the rest of their lives, could you realistically see Henry Caville in the role without thinking 'Superman' in the back of your head? I know the whole time I watched 'Women in Black' I was laughing wondering why Harry Potter didn't simply whip out his wand. With this point in mind, and the fact that we have little to go by to judge these actors, we'll just have to wait and see.
