My art teacher is easily impressed.

[betweensunandmoon]

According to her, Gerard Butler is great because he can "hold that note." I don't know for sure which note she was referring to (I assume it was the long one at the end of MotN), but good grief. Michael Crawford can hold that note. Every actor who has played the Phantom after him in the stage musical ever can hold that note. I can hold that note. Gerard Butler is not the only person who can hold a long note! And he doesn't even sing it on key!

She also implied that he was a better singer than Patrick Wilson. I pointed out that Patrick was more experienced, and she agreed, but still. *headdesk*

I like Gerard Butler, I really do, but he was painfully miscast in Phantom. I watched a couple movie clips on YouTube yesterday and was stunned by how out-of-place he seemed. I don't know if it was the costume department's fault or what, but Gerard as a whole looked sillier than Patrick's hair ever did.

Comments

[igenlode]

Whatever you say about Gerard Butler, his casting was apparently a conscious choice by Andrew Lloyd Webber (who wanted a 'rougher' rock Phantom), and his performance was the result of very active directing to that end (sometimes against the performer's better judgement). The effect you got in the film was exactly what was wanted; Lloyd Webber could have gone for a West End style musical production, but he wanted a passive teenage Christine and a rock god emo-Phantom, and that's what he went out and got.

(For some reason he also wanted ballet dormitories, apparently -- I suspect that was actually so that Raoul could look heroic by sleeping outside Christine's door without looking creepy by doing so inside her lodgings, but it may have been to establish a general 'boarding-school' atmosphere among the cast :-p)

[betweensunandmoon]

You'll forgive me if I'm not inclined to trust ALW's judgement, given that he brought us Love Never Dies. :P

[igenlode]

Like George Lucas, ALW is not necessarily the best person to be in charge of his own work :-p

But the film was not the result of careless casting; he did actively want it to be like that, however ill-advised...