Casting A Wide Net

Typecasting is unfortunate when it let's you figure out the bad guy before the "surprise" reveal at the end. But there's another similar problem in casting that deals with prominence.

If a character seems important early on but you have no idea who the actor is, he's probably gonna die or go into a coma or disappear or whatever. Then there's the star, like Tom Hanks on Normandy Beach, who's simply not gonna die. (This made Pyscho's shower scene all the more shocking.)

Then there's casting reasonably prominent names in seemingly small parts--you know they'll have more to do. This isn't necessarily a big deal, except when it ruins surprises.

Last year on Heroes, we start with cast regular Mohinder Suresh's dad dead. We see his dad's picture on the back of a book, and it's Erick Avari, a fairly well known character actor. They didn't just take his photo for a book jacket, he will appear on the show. And he does (though in flashbacks).

This season on House, the Doc is trying to find three people to replace his old team of assistants. He begins with 40 candidates and starts firing them right and left. Last week, he fired Kal Penn of "Harold and Kumar" fame, so you knew, since Penn was the biggest name of the 40, that he'd be back. And sure enough, he made it, and will probably be in this week's episode. (Interestingly, they had John "Harold" Cho as a guest star in the first season--of course, that was shot before the movie came out.)