Hello and welcome back to the Casting Couch! Today we will be putting the cast of Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra’s “The Manhattan Projects,” a wildly fun sci-fi comic book from Image that speculates as to what would happen if the Manhattan Project was actually a cover for a series of endeavors that were decidedly worse, with every scientist from the project actually being a rather duplicitous and selfish entity that could at any time destroy all of civilization. It’s a feel good comic, for sure.
The difficulty, of course, is that all of the characters in the comic are based on real people — but almost none of the character really reflect who the person actually was, whether in looks or mannerisms. That’s what makes “Manhattan Projects” one of the most difficult castings I’ve tackled yet.
And we’re not going to go into the full extended cast, either: everyone you see here is someone who appears in the first volume of the book. The way I’m looking at it is very much from an introductory lens, as in who we started the series with, so you won’t see any castings for Laika the Dog I’m afraid.
So read on as I give my picks for who should star in the potential “Manhattan Projects” film. Science Bad. Casting Good. (I hope.)
Director – Paul Greengrass
A lot of people complained about Paul Greengrass’ decisions in the Bourne films he directed, but I’d say that the Bourne Trilogy is one of the few series where they actually get better in each sequel. His use of “shaky cam” wasn’t used as often as then (and most complaints were from Supremacy and the train station scene), but they’ve somewhat become a mainstay staple in action films now. So if we’re looking for a director that can balance humor and science fiction with big action sequences while still being able to keep every relatively grounded, Greengrass is our guy.
J. Robert Oppenheimer – Colm Feore
Oppenheimer in the comic is a rather devious figure, made all the more complex by the infinite Oppenheimer’s that reside in his brain or on his shoulder, whispering in his ear. As such, whoever we cast in the role needs to be someone who can not only balance an otherwise “evil” character with the task of playing multiple iterations of himself. While the multiple iterations thing should be easy (they’re actors, after all), anyone who saw Feore in the Borgias will know that he can play that very cool and composed type of evil, right alongside a more maniacal despot in Thor. If anyone can bring a very anchored villain to our cast, it’s him.
Albert Einstein – Armin Mueller-Stahl
Einstein was a more difficult character to cast, because we wanted to shoot for someone in his general age bracket in real life while also having someone who can pull off the various things that the comic Einstein does. While Stahl is pushing 80, that’s not particularly slowed him down as he still relatively appears in films, including the highly underrated Eastern Promises. And while Einstein is a character that very evenly straddles the line between “good” and “bad,” I think Stahl could pull off this particular example of duplicity rather well.
Richard Feynmann – Andrew Garfield
Feynmann has been described by series artist Nick Pitarra as “prissy” in the past, and with all respect to Garfield, that’s something he could easily pull off. Garfield has shown time and time again that he’s able to pull off different types of characters (though he seems to gravitate more towards the stoic moody type), but we’ve still seen him bring to life characters who were very narcissistic, smart and captivating. And with Feynmann being the youngest and otherwise most self-involved figure in the group, it would be interesting to see someone as young and talented as Garfield join this cast and compete on his own with some of the best in the room — which, I guess in some ways, might actually describe Feynmann?
Franklin D. Roosevelt – John Goodman
FDR only really appears in the comic in flashbacks and as a computer AI, but he still commands a fair amount of presence. And if we’re going to have the FDR AI in our cast, we’re going to need someone who knows how to speak in a voice that can instantly take over a room; while FDR does that in a very literal way, it wouldn’t hurt to have someone play him who can do that in a figurative way. Anyone that has ever heard John Goodman speak knows that when he gets up there his voice is dominating, and am I the only one around here who thinks he kind of looks the part already? Mark it zero!
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Enrico Fermi – Burn Gorman
Burn Gorman is an actor who I don’t think has had the opportunity to really show what he can do to an American audience yet. He’s had roles in films that we’ve all seen, sure, and he was pretty great in Pacific Rim, but he’s been best in things like Torchwood or The Hour. And really, he’s been quite frightening — pretty much the dramatic opposite of what we saw in Pacific Rim. So for Fermi, a character who straddles that line so well of being someone we like and trust but ultimately no we can’t, someone like Gorman could very much pull off his mannerisms in a way that always feels alien, but with those brief human moments that make you forget.
Harry K. Daghlian, Jr – Oliver Platt
Daghlian in the book is pretty much an irradiated skeletal blob, so casting an actor for him is tough because it’s all going to be CGI anyway. However, if you ever look at a picture of the real Daghlian you’ll have to admit — you know, he kind of looks like Oliver Platt. And it just so happens that Platt, while always pretty much playing secondary characters, is really quite good when given the opportunity to step up. His bigger, recurring roles like on Bored to Death are great, but even his smaller roles like the Man in Black in X-Men: First Class are still memorable. So seeing as Daghlian in the role is a smaller but still great character and that’s an easy way to describe a lot of Platt’s roles, he pretty much fits in here evenly.
Wernher Von Braun – Liev Schrieber
Von Braun is one of the best characters in the book because we all know he’s an absolute shit, but we need him. He’s easily one of the most well-defined characters in the book, because there’s never any question if he’s bad or not, and yet he still manages to get some things done that other characters can’t, or even won’t. So I’ve gone with Liev Schrieber in this case, because by now I think everyone on this site knows that he can play a villain that still somehow remains sympathetic in the end, whether it’s because he has lived for ages with his best friend and half-brother or because some bald asshole is accusing him of being Chechen cahoots. Really, Liev Schrieber is just pretty much great in everything.
General Leslie Groves – Danny Huston
This is a little bit of type-casting as Huston as actually appeared as a soldier in a film before (with the aforementioned Liev Schrieber, actually!), but what I like about Huston is that he’s the type of character that really fits the role well. When he played Stryker there was no question about his motives in the movie, even if we viewed him as the villain; he was the type of character that was “bad” and in the wrong, but was otherwise convinced that he was doing the right thing while manipulating others. That, to me, describes “the Manhattan Projects'” version of Groves to the T, and it’s shoes that Huston could easily fill again.
Harry S. Truman – Jonathan Pryce
Truman in the comic book is… well, quite weird, right? A cult member and otherwise kooky despot figure, I don’t think Truman here is anything like what people think of Truman in real life. So what we want to have here is someone who can bring a larger than life performance to the role while still not being all that domineering, someone we can still view as weaker than the rest — and with all due respect to Jonathan Pryce (who stars in one of my favorite films, Brazil) but if anyone saw him in Tomorrow Never Dies? Well, that’s sort of all I could think of once I got that into my head. Because Elliot Carver was one of the first Bond villains ever, and “Manhattan Projects'” Truman could sort of be described the same way.
