'Highlander' is a Scottish-themed movie about highland clans. And they cast Seán Connery in it AS A SPANIARD
and everyone playing a Scottish character can't do a Scottish accent
And they couldn’t find an actor of Russian ancestry to play the Kurgan... but they did have an actor of Russian ancestry play another famous fantasy Spaniard swordsman—Inigo Montoya—a year later. And they cast Connery as a Russian in The Hunt for Red October a few years after that. (And meanwhile, the actor of Spanish ancestry who would have been appropriate for the role of Ramirez in Highlander—Ricardo Montalban—was cast as a man of Indian/Sikh ancestry in The Wrath of Khan.)
I don’t think casting actors of appropriate ethnicities for their roles became a big factor in Hollywood until the 90s.
Connery, Montalban, and Patinkin all did great in their roles, though.
They used to cast actors of appropriate skill
They used to cast actors of appropriate
skillnepotism
FTFY, they still do, but they used to as well.
Imagine your selling point being good at acting and not your nationality. Unbelievable. /s
Everyone in the comments is getting so bent out of shape over "They cast THIS guy, to play THIS role, but he's clearly not that thing!"
But nobody is bringing up the fact that for the past 10 years they've cast Jimmy Fallon as a comedian.....
funny joke but also yeah valid point. its acting. people are playing pretend.
"I'm not Spanish, I'm Egyptian..."
It's annoying how people don't understand he's not a Spaniard.
I feel like Hollywood was trolling with Connery's roles. They cast him as a fucking Russian sub commander with that accent!
Yet he nailed the role. They changed all of the Russian lines to English anyways, with a really creative method that hadn't been done before.
And before the switch, they showed him speaking Russian so the audience could realise what a good decision it was!
That movie holds up!
Hollywood movies rarely do accents right anyway.
It's as if any play is for a given audience, and we have to bridge the gap with our own imagination. Crazy, right? 😆
Mind, I'm not criticizing your point, I agree with it, Hollywood has never been great with accents, it just has to be "good enough", like watching a stage play and the props have to be "good enough".
And they cast a French-American as a Scott. And an American as a Russian.
They were all over the place with that cast. But yes, Sean Cover as a Spaniard has to be the pick if the bunch.
Still a great movie though. Let's just not even talk about the sequel movies!
There was only one film, don't know what you're talking about with sequels.
And if there were sequels, there was only one of them and it was Highlander 3
Dude, you're supposed to watch the movie high
And only on the land.
I first watched this as an adult in the 2010s, made a reddit thread about how it kinda sucks, and I guess it hit google cause I'd get new messages every few months on that thread
Craig Ferguson did a joke about that in his stand up. He was so excited to hear Sean Connery was going to do a movie with a focus in Scotland, lol.
I've got some nostalgia for the movie since it's where my name came from but yeah, it's definitely shows the ahhh.... sensitivity of the time.
I'm not sure I follow? His character is Egyptian, he was immortal. Though I take OP's point, he couldn't really be Scottish since he had been alive long before Scotland existed, possibly before the Picts even.
Though I take OP's point
Do you though?
Is there any movie where Sean Connery plays a Scotsman? 🤔
Bond is Scottish.
The Longest Day, IIRC, but it's a small part.
Paul Mooney would like a word.
Didn't he already do that in Highlander? Although TBF it wasn't pretty.
Have you ever actually watched the movie?