Context makes all the difference in the world. If, for example, the director of The Descent approached Seymour Cassel and said ‘I need a leathery old gentleman,’ a soft rustling of cloth would be followed by the same view of a reproductive organ you used to consult banned library books to find.
But if he said the same thing to a casting director, he might hear ‘I already gave you Bob Hoskins’ before being tossed a coctail napkin upon which was shakily inscribed the cell phone number for Malcolm McDowell.
I’m not saying I have any insight into Neil Marshall’s workdays (or evenings) but that must be pretty much what happened, as McDowell has joined the cast of the rather 28 Years Later…-ish Doomsday, a flick about a killer virus, a big wall, and Rhona Mitra as a militant babe named Eden. (Virus decimates part of Britain, wall is built to contain it, virus scales wall, Crack Tactical Team is inserted to stop the spread. Stop me when this starts to make sense.)
‘Chaps’ McDowell will be the virus expert, and hopefully he’ll be propped out with reams of paper and charts in which he can hide his copies of next season’s Heroes scripts to peruse while other people in the room say lines and hit marks and so forth.