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Nite Owl: The Old Guard
Former cop Hollis Mason was one of the founding members of the Minutemen in 1939. He fought street criminals, flamboyant supervillains, and the Axis, then retired to write his memoirs and go back to normal life as a car mechanic -- one of the few of Watchmen's heroes to get out unscathed. (The autobiography, Under the Hood, adds loads of background information to the graphic novel; a straight-to-DVD documentary version is being released March 24.)
Casting Call: Veteran actor Stephen McHattie looks just right for Hollis Mason, rugged but aging. He's been in some forgettable movies and TV shows, but can actually act.
Another original Minuteman, the Comedian was just fifteen when he joined. A serious mean streak turned out to be useful as he became a ruthless vigilante, then a paramilitary agent for the government, fighting in World War II and on the brutal battlefields of Vietnam. Because of his connections, when heroes were outlawed, he was the only one still allowed to legally operate.
Casting Call: At the right angle (look at that shot of him smoking a cigar), Grey's Anatomy's Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a ringer for Robert Downey Jr., and that's a good thing. I mean, it made me wish that Downey had saved himself for Watchmen (playing a guy called the Comedian? Come on!), but Morgan has the right rakish charm and edge of derangement.
Former burlesque dancer Sally Jupiter was in the original Minuteman lineup too, but she was more celebrity than crime fighter, and always admitted she was in it for the money. Later she pushed her daughter Laurie into the family business.
Casting Call: Sin City's Carla Gugino is perfect as the golden age Silk Spectre. Fine, in the comic she's got a red frizz of hair rather than a slick brunette Vargas girl 'do, but Gugino's got the '40s pinup vibe down cold. In fact, she looks better than the comic.
An ultra-violent antihero with a mask made of shifting inkblots, Rorschach is a mystery even to himself -- he considers the mask his true face. After teaming up with Nite Owl, whose hi-tech gadgetry complemented his shoe-leather crime hunting, the violence and depravity he saw made him harder and even more twisted, until his rough justice routinely left people dead. While most heroes quit after the law that made them outlaws, Rorschach answered by leaving a rapist's corpse in front of a police station, with a note reading "Never!"
Casting Call: The former child actor (he was in The Bad News Bears!) and Oscar nominee Jackie Earl Haley plays Rorschach, the key character in the story. Haley looks spot-on as Walter Kovacs, Rorschach's skeevy alter ego. Pinched, miserable, and a little bit crazy -- or a lot -- the look and the voice are nailed. And his real-life martial arts training helps in the street fighting that Rorschach loves to wallow in. A great choice, and could be the one that makes the film.
The second Nite Owl relies on tech, not muscle. When he asked the retired Hollis Mason to use the name he'd made famous, Mason gave his blessing, and is still a mentor. But after years of being a two-man team with Rorschach, Nite Owl's glory days are long gone, and now he's just another middle-aged man with a secret basement full of flying machines and battle armor.
Casting Call: Apparently Patrick Wilson, nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe for Angels in America, put on twenty-five pounds to play Nite Owl, who's supposed to be middle-aged and sliding into flab. But while shots of alter ego Daniel Dreiberg are appropriately shlubby, in costume he still looks pretty ripped. (Maybe he wears a girdle?)
Doctor Manhattan: The God
When physicist Jon Osterman was caught in a nuclear experiment, he was transformed into an immortal, all-powerful being who can manipulate molecules and lives outside of time and beyond humanity, despite his strained relationship with Laurie Juspeczyk, the former Silk Spectre II. His existence prompts difficult questions, most importantly, does a world with a living god even need heroes?
Pressured into heroing by her mother when she was just seventeen, she became involved with Doctor Manhattan shortly after meeting him. Never too sold on her role as masked vigilante, she was quick to quit when heroes were outlawed, and became Doctor Manhattan's full-time companion.
Casting Call: Malin Akerman, a model-turned-actress last seen in 27 Dresses, seems a poor choice. Laurie Juspeczyk is supposed to be a little older, a little rawer, a little raspy and smoky -- she may have become a hero as a teenager, but she's not one any more. And while Akerman is actually thirty, she sure doesn't look it. Is it the costume? The hair? I'm not sure, but she looks about nineteen.
Two years before heroes were banned, Andrew Veidt retired from life as Ozymandias, "the world's smartest man." Now he's also one of the richest, focused more on marketing junk to the world than saving it.
Casting Call: Matthew Goode, best known from Brideshead Revisited, looks way too young (Veidt is forty-six). In costume he looks more like an X2-era X-Men sidekick than a pharaoh, and as Adrian Veidt, his Rick Astley hair is ridiculously foppish. Fine, it's supposed to be the '80s, but still. Jude Law was originally in consideration, and would've been a much better choice. The tough thing is that Watchmen spans decades, so you never know when the sneaked stills are supposed to be coming from; maybe this is young Ozymandias? We can hope.
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