There’s been a lot happening behind the scenes of Watchmen in the last couple of weeks. Zach Snyder is going to start filming this fall in Vancouver, and he’s got his pre-production team working on storyboards and other art. Meanwhile, casting has been happening, and official announcements should start hitting soon. But there’s one bit of casting that’s been leaked to the web by actor Paddy Considine… he’s not going to play Rorschach, the masked and trenchcoated psychotic vigilante with a taste for cold cans of beans. Considine tells members of his official website that the role has gone out to Jackie Earle Haley.
If Jackie Earle gets the role, you can thank CHUD.com. Well, sort of. Before Jeremy ‘Mr. Beaks’ Smith joined our cast of misfits, he was doing some work for Creative Screenwriting, and one of his assignments was a profile of Zach Snyder. After doing the interview, Jeremy needed a contact number for a follow-up, and I happened to have it; while on the phone, I told Jeremy that he should recommend Jackie Earle Haley for the role of Rorschach. He did just that, and Snyder, after taking a second to figure out who the guy was, said that he had seen him at the Oscars and thought that he completely had the right look.
Haley, who spent decades out of the acting business, would be nuts to turn down a role as good as this. And while Considine would have made a terrific Rorschach, Snyder has done right by taking CHUD’s advice on casting – Haley has a creepy look that is ideal for the fucked up twerp behind that ever-changing mask. And best of all, he’s not so famous that his appearance out of costume in early scenes will ring a bell for most of the audience, since Rorschach’s identity is putatively a secret.
Nothing’s certain until the papers are signed, but this comes straight from Considine, so it’s got a rumor rating of better than average. Again, I expect that the casting will start to become official in the next few weeks… and if some of the stuff that’s being tossed around comes to be, you guys are going to be very happy.