DARK SHADOWS FORUMS
General Discussions => Current Talk Archive => Current Talk '24 I => Current Talk '10 I => Topic started by: loril54 on May 25, 2010, 05:21:13 PM
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What do you guys think, I don't think that there could have been a better pick than they did. It
was sure something that was unplanned, and no one expected to have all the questions that
they did.
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they did fine. Twenty five, i thought he was about 30?
if Frid was not hired as Barnabas, we would never have really had a "cult" following. he was good as the tormented vampire (although, i feel they made him whine too much). he was mean, he was ferocious, he was loving, he was tender and funny.
his shakesperean acting also helped role to be more poetic, as was the whole show.
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I had always thought Barnabas was supposed to be around 35.
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Remember that Bert Convy was 33 when he was considered for Barnabas. And I had no problem accepting Alec Newman as Barn in the '04 pilot - and he was only 29...
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Loril, might you mean that they could have recast young Barnabas while having JF play older Barnabas? That's another possibility to throw in there, anyway.
We needed older, worldly, ravaged Barnabas, and we also needed to see innocent, young Barnabas. It was crucial to be confronted with that contrast, even if there's a problem with the logic of it. JF did a great job of playing younger Barnabas, and he looked the part too, even if all they did was comb his hair differently and put more color in his face. I often wonder why it wasn't possible to "youth" Mr. Frid to play Bramwell in a similar way, but maybe three or four years of aging in the real world made a real difference.
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I think that the real world got in the way. Just think how much stress was on JF.
I think if they would have had a younger man, we might not have had all the
problems, with Barnabas attracted to the younger gals. Maybe then there might
not have been the thought about Barnabas and Julia, that those two were closer in age.
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Maybe then there might not have been the thought about Barnabas and Julia, that those two were closer in age.
But again, do we really know how old Julia was supposed to be? Grayson Hall's own age, just like Frid's, could be immaterial...
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Well she was a DR., she probobly had to do at least two residencies, and had founded her own hospital, she would have to probobly need to be in her 30's
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needless to say all of this could be explained this way...
barnabas was not originally intended to be the romatic antihero of the whole thing. he was supposed to be scary. accordingly they cast a middle aged actor because up to that point the familiar vampire wasn't "young" but of the christopher lee/peter cushing school. creepy middel aged guys.
once he had morphed into the guilt-ridden anti-hero they probably decided to shave a decade or two off his age to make him more of a romantic lead.
and as someone else pointed out since julia was a doctor with her own hospital(and peer of dr. woodard)she was probable cast correctly as a middle aged woman.
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Besides Bert Convy, other actors in their early-30s were considered for Barnabas before Frid was cast. Though, of course, none of them got the role...
It would be interesting if the original casting sheet/listing could ever be uncovered just to see what age range of actors was being sought for Barnabas. ;)
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A young vampire Barnabas would not have had credibility or weight to him. It's only the present times where casting people universally decide to throw credibility aside in favor of dreamboat hunky cute actors. That's today's Hollywood environment. To some extent it always happened, but not when creative people who cared about drama were in control.
I just cannot care about a young actor, hired to look like and serve as a romantic lead, playing Barnabas. Vampires aren't dreamboats. They're walking cadavers with, we hope, some remnant of a human soul inside, struggling to stay human. They should look battered and ravaged and dragged to hell and back. They should also be worldly, not youthful.
Now... if viewers can make their way through all that, and still find someone such as Jonathan Frid's Barnabas a romantic figure, then that's great. That means you appreciate the darker, more 3D kind of romance. You need to accept him with warts and all, though.
I don't blame Johnny Depp for his fannish desire to be Barnabas, but if he does it, I think he'll have abused his Hollywood power to foist yet another depressing wrong-headed remake onto the culture. We should wall off Hollywood like NYC in Escape From NY....
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Johnny Depp's 47 June 9 and looks plenty worldy in my opinion. I also think he Johnny Depp looks very wordly and certainly not dreamboat. He is good looking but he is not the cookie cutter actor that currently resides in Hollywood! JMO!
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Oops! Everyone's ten or twenty years older than I think they are!
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That is okay Magnus. I wanted to come back and say that you certainly have a right to your opinion and I wasn't discounting that. But yep Johnny will be older than Johnathan was when he played Barnabas! According to IMDB.com JF was 43 when started playing Barney as he just had a bday that December before he appeared in the spring. Johnny has obviously taken care of himself physically. People don't seem to quite look there age these days. Even ones who don't have work. And JF was a very heavy smoker who didn't quit until Grayson died. It scared him him terribly I have heard. And I am glad that he did quit.
Smoking ages one and that is a fact peorid. No offense to any smokers.
Do I think a younger Barnabas would have made a difference. Yes! I think it was destiny or Kismet whatever you want to call it for JF to play Barnabas and even though I am not a Frid head I don't know that the show would have taken off had he not been cast!
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I always thought that Dr. Hoffman was about 40. she was older than Barnabas (so to speak! [ghost_undecided])
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Johnny has obviously taken care of himself physically. People don't seem to quite look there age these days. Even ones who don't have work. And JF was a very heavy smoker who didn't quit until Grayson died.
I think Johnny Depp was known to be quite a heavy smoker as well, I'm guessing the man's just blessed with some good genes.
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I didn't know that. Maybe he quit as some point?? Thanks Sara! I meant to add that I do think that when they went back to 1795 the lighting, makeup etc. helped him to look younger. I don't know what was done exactly but he did look somewhat younger to me. He certainly didn't look 25 though!
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I think that Frid looked to be early 40's shortly after he started DS. When he first showed up at Collinwood and Mrs Johnson opened the front door..he looked younger than 42 in my est. He had a fuller face and build. The make up and comb allowed him to look mid to late 30's for the 1795 storyline IMO. However, keep in mind that some people have the type of face that is definitely difficult to determine age by. I've been totally shocked to learn that some men that I've met are in their late 20's when I could swear they were closer to 40.
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40's sort of a midpoint or turning point, where you can seem young or middle-aged, depending on how you're made to look. You can be a strange combination of young and middle-aged, or perhaps neither, like Tom Baker in Doctor Who. Jonathan Frid looked like that in his first DS moments.
I remember that David Letterman kept having to remind guests on his NBC show in the 80s that he was in his 30s (36 when the show started in 1982), because he was a bit baby-faced. Then I noticed that there was a sudden spurt of aging at 39 for him, and he looked middle-aged and no one called him a kid ever again. I don't remember a sudden moment for JF, but he did seem to catch up to his age and perhaps overshoot a little....
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i'll throw another log on this fire...
in episode 463 after tony peterson follows carolyn to the old house and spys her with barnabas when he confronts her he refers to her as being "in that old man's arms".
i don't think he'd refer to a 25 year old as an "old man".
i think this was a major continuity gaffe on the part of the writers having barnabas "young" in 1795 and middle aged in the present since,as has been noted,vampires do not age.
perhaps i'm too literal minded but unless i'm specifically told otherwise i just assume the characters are close in age to the actors hired to play them.
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Yeah, well, as we know only too well, continuity was never DS' strong suit. [ghost_wink] [ghost_rolleyes] And when it comes to the ages of some of the characters, their ages sometimes fluctuated from storyline to storyline - though none more so than Jeremiah. Though apparently Barnabas would come in a strong second...
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I remember that "old man" line very well M however it was cool to be reminded of it as I hadn't thought of it for this thread! Thanks.... :)
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I still think I remember reading that Barnabas was supposed to be around 35. Tony definitely wouldn't refer to a 25 yo as an "old man," since he was probably around that age himself.
So, we could always look at Tony's comment like this. Carolyn was supposed to be what... 18 around this time? We know there is underage drinking in Collinsport, so we have to go off of some other evidence... What was her age in the Collins Family Bible? I remember this:
[spoiler] I believe her tombstone in 1968 put her age at 18, but I can't remember. [/spoiler]
So, if Barnabas was 35, then he would be nearly twice as old as Carolyn. Thus, Tony's "old man" comment could be justified for the 35 yo age. Of course, it could be justified for an older age as well, but considering that Barnabas looks to be around 35 in 1795, I think that Tony's comment was meant in this way.
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I think in a couple story-lines, including the Leviathan one, it was established that Carolyn was born in 1947.
Gerard
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Okay, so, even with that number, Tony's comments could still be justified - at least from his perspective.
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i'll throw another log on this fire...
in episode 463 after tony peterson follows carolyn to the old house and spys her with barnabas when he confronts her he refers to her as being "in that old man's arms".
i don't think he'd refer to a 25 year old as an "old man".
i think this was a major continuity gaffe on the part of the writers having barnabas "young" in 1795 and middle aged in the present since,as has been noted,vampires do not age.
Spoiler alert would be nice. I've never seen that episode and didn't even know "1795" had anything to do with anything. Oh well . . . Just thought I'd point that out since it seems every one is so hard up about it at randomly selected times.
Answer to the question: It would have made a huge difference. If the character could remain the same but magically be about 15 years younger, that would be excellent.
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Spoiler alert would be nice. I've never seen that episode and didn't even know "1795" had anything to do with anything. Oh well . . . Just thought I'd point that out since it seems every one is so hard up about it at randomly selected times.
MB and I try to get spoiler warnings in place as a help to our readers who haven't seen all the eps. Admittedly, we might not catch them all, and my apologies in this instance. Though in hindsight, it does seem helpful that the poster began his sentence with "in episode 463."
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..having barnabas "young" in 1795 and middle aged in the present since,as has been noted,vampires do not age.
Borrowing from other vampire stories/fandoms, I guess it could be possible that Barnabas might look older or different when in need of blood. Case in point, [spoiler]after Julia's injections turned him old, drinking blood revived him back to looking his normal age.[/spoiler] Actually, rather instantly after he turns into a vampire, I think his appearance begins looking a bit more aged. (thanks mostly to a good bit of heavy eye liner)
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the big spinning "S" in the topic header is the spoiler alert.
"nice".
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I always assumed Barnabas' vampiredom and being stuck in that box for 170 odd years would have worn on his looks just a bit. Even if his face and body stayed the same, with the state of mind he was in when released, it would have shown loud and clear in his eyes and his expressions. I think they did a fantastic job with JF in 1795 in making him look more youthful and lively, and I always assumed he was around 30 or so. I dunno.
[spoiler]
Look how old they made him look in the Levianthan storyline. Gray streaks in the hair and everything![/spoiler]
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Hey, arashi! Good to have you here!
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[spoiler]
Look how old they made him look in the Levianthan storyline. Gray streaks in the hair and everything![/spoiler]
I also think that working so hard and having so much stress, JF might have aged
also through the show
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*waves at Magnus* Glad to be back!
Yeah, I watch the show and think about the hours and the commitment the actors had for it and it makes me love them even more. It may have been just work, but their hard work turned into something totally awesome for the rest of us. Not to mention several of them were also doing plays and movies on top of DS. It's mind boggling! I'm sure I would have collapsed at some point under such a schedule!
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I would not trade Jonathan Frid for any younger actor under any circumstances.
I try not to focus too much on the age of Barnabas' character....I only care about the depth of his performances, and, bloopers and messing-up-lines occasionally aside, he gave it his all and was on target 9 times out of 10.
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I would not trade Jonathan Frid for any younger actor under any circumstances.
I try not to focus too much on the age of Barnabas' character....I only care about the depth of his performances, and, bloopers and messing-up-lines occasionally aside, he gave it his all and was on target 9 times out of 10.
I am equally Frid-supportive!