Alan Rickman as professor Snape

Hugh Laurie as House

Mary Tyler Moore as Laura Petrie.

Patrick Stewart as Jean Luc Picard.

Who do you think was the quintessential James Bond?

Melissa McCarthy, Billy Gardell, Katy Mixon, Reno Wilson, Swoosie Kurtz, Nyambi Nyambi, Rondi Reed, Louis Mostillo and Cleo King ......... all from Mike and Molly.

Blfenton - Roger Moore.

I used to be set on Roger Moore, and later suspected it was because he was more for my generation. I have no predilection now. I'm as happy with Daniel Craig as Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan. Any and all of them.

:)

For me it was Sean Connery.

Andy Griffith as Sheriff Taylor. lukki and I watched the same TV shows. :)

I've not seen the recent James Bond films (I was never a big fan) so can't compare Daniel Craig -- but between Connery and Moore, it was Connery hands down.

I have none to add to all the good responses above, but about those old Westerns . . . those widowed blondes (okay, and an occasional unmarried brunette--most likely someone's daughter) managed to keep their lipstick unsmudged and their false eyelashes in place under all conditions--even after their stagecoach overturned and rolled down a hill. Somehow this was accepted back then. Just as it was accepted that the Indians were either Jewish or Italian. :-)

Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, which is a big part of why the remake with Johnny Depp was simply awful.

I read that for Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, they really wanted Sean Connery. He declined. They upped the ante and offered $10 million per film, plus 15% of the box office take, and he still he turned it down, saying he didn't really understand the role. Given that the three movies grossed something like $3 billion his total payday may well have been $450 million.

Given that Ian McKellen so perfectly embodied the role its hard to imagine how Sean Connery's portrayal would have been.

DH and I are geeks, so many of mine are sci-fi based.

Colin Firth in anything, but especially as Fitzwilliam Darcy in BBC's 6-part Pride & Prejudice. Please do not speak to me of Matthew Macfadyen, who made me wince at the 2005 movie version.

The entire cast of the old Blake's 7, but the highlight Jacqueline Pearce as the ultimate villainness and chic fashion plate Servalan. When she and Paul Darrow as Avon were on-screen together, I'm surprised the video tubes on the old TVs didn't melt, LOL.

David Duchovny as Fox Mulder in X-Files.

Saul Rubinek as Artie Nielsen in Warehouse 13, proving that you can be pudgy, wear glasses, forget to shave and desperately need a new wardrobe, but still be sexier than the dopey Neanderthal hero played by Eddie McClintock.

The entire cast of Eureka!, a vastly underrated and delightful SyFy series about eccentric geniuses working for the government in a secret town of their own.

The cast of Person of Interest, which featured two of my favorite actresses, Sarah Shahi and Taraji Henson.

I dislike the storyline of Gotham, but David Mazouz, who plays the young Bruce Wayne, is excellent - and his scenes with Camren Bicondova, who plays the equally young but already cynical Catwoman, are amazing.

Although I loved Connery as Bond, truth be told the most authentic Bond was Timothy Dalton. He came the closest to Fleming's descriptions of both physical appearance and grim ruthlessness in the books. Daniel Craig has done the second-best job as Bond, helped along by the incomparable Judi Dench as M in seven films, including Craig's first three outings as Bond (in Spectre she appears only as a video "will").

And lastly: Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson in Marvel's Agents of Shield, and not only because he had the world's greatest anecdote about being invited to join the cast of the first Avengers movie*.

* This was the first movie with all the Marvel superheroes assembled, all coming off very successful introductory solo films: Hunky Chris Hemsworth (Thor) and sly Tom Hiddleston (Loki), snarky Robert Downey Jr. (Ironman), clean-cut poster boy Chris Evans (Capt. America), angsty Mark Ruffalo (The Hulk). Nick Fury (Samuel Jackson) and Scarlett Johanssen (Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow), altho not solo characters, are long-running Marvel Comics characters for over half a century.

Coulson is an ordinary human, a mid-level field agent for S.H.I.E.L.D. He briefly appears in the first Thor movie, just another black ops bureaucrat. So when the studio asked Gregg if he wanted to play the Coulson character in the big-screen movie, his first thought was, "You're making a movie with all these super-powered heroes and you want Coulson in there? What for - do I run around and fetch Slurpees for everybody?!"

Obviously an actor with a great sense of humor, LOL!

Richard Dean Anderson as Jack O'Neill on Stargate SG-1

Roger Moore was my favorite James Bond, hated Pierce Brosnan.

Speaking of great sci-fi casting, jakkom- Firefly! Perfectly cast and tragically prematurely cancelled!

Marty Feldman as Igor in Young Frankenstein...

Loved Eureka, loved SG-1 and loved Firefly. I really like obscure sci-fi shows that get prematurely cancelled. :(

First thing that popped in my head was Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.

And is it Jennifer Grey that was Baby in Dirty Dancing? I watched the remake on TV not long ago and that cast did not work for me at all.

Oooh, Colin Firth as Darcy, yes!!!! and Jennifer Ehle, who played Elizabeth, was pretty darn perfect also. Extra credit for bringing to life very well known characters that had lived in reader's imaginations for centuries -- now I picture only these two actors when I read the book.

Lassie

Haha! Since you went there, I'm nominating Toto.

The entire cast of Taxi. The entire cast of WKRP in Cincinnati.

OK...I have been away.

How about some other actors!

Remember Perry Mason? How about Della Street?

Remember The Lucille Ball Show? How about Ethel Mertz?

Keep it old! Just like me!

Modern Family TV show: Ty Burrell as Phil Dunphy and Sophia Vergara as Gloria Delgado.

Most of the cast of Downtown Abbey, but especially Maggie Smith.

John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever

Larry David as Larry David or Bernie Sanders.

Clint Eastwood in any role!

Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes, Joan Hickson as Miss Marple, David suchet as Poirot, Tom Baker As Doctor Who.

Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's, Richard Boone as Paladin in Have Gun, Will Travel

I'd say the entire cast of Moonstruck, one of my favorite movies: Cher, Nicholas Cage, Olympia Dukakis, etc. It just "worked."

Edmund Gwen was the perfect Santa in Miracle on 34th Street, and was a darling helper and counterfeiter in Mr. 880.

Seeing it's on TV tonight reminds me that George C. Scott is my favorite Scrooge.

I think the women who play the nurses on Call the Midwife are excellent in their roles. It's hard to believe they are actually modern women.

Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser on Outlander. Perfect casting.

Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster

George C. Scott is one of my favorites in anything! I was upset that his amazing "They Might Be Giants" has never been released in DVD, but recently Amazon video has finally released it as a streaming purchase. At last!!!!!

Oh, and how could we forget Diana Rigg as Emma Peel in The Avengers TV series?

Partnered with Patrick MacNee -- a great combo. Thinking back to other shows of that time, Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner -- which I wouldn't miss, but never understood....

The Avengers - I loved that show but didn't find it until I was a little older. That was the show that I understood screen chemistry.

Rue MClanahan as Blanche Devereaux-Golden Girls.......well,all of them on GG!

And Irene Ryan as Granny on the Bev.Hillbillies

Did we mention Peter Falk as Colombo?

David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine in Kung Fu.

Raul Julia in Havanna.

The reason we think an actor is perfect for the role is because in any original or at least early screenplay he/she who does it first is what we assume the role is. The writers, the producers, the directors have more to say how a role be be played than an actor ever would. The actors job it to make the character in the script believable in the way the producers want it. That's why remakes are so often disappointing. How many of your favorite picks above followed someone else in the role they were perfect for? Well may to a new generation of viewers who weren't exposed to the earlier versions.

Actor plays a role well enough they could find themselves typecast to the point of early retirement. It happened to many during the golden age of TV sitcoms. Look what happened to Sally Field. Not much difference really between Gidget and Sister Bertrille. But she was determined to break the mold. Her bio references how she was repeatedly told she was never going to be good enough for the movies. She proved them wrong.

We get so used to seeing actors in specific roles, it's hard to picture them in anything else. e.g. Miles in Frasier (David Hyde Pierce). We saw him in a drama and it was difficult.

Matt Bomer as Neal Caffrey in White Collar was a perfect fit. Of course the eye candy didn't suck either!!

>>How many of your favorite picks above followed someone else in the role they were perfect for? >>

Good point! For instance, Diana Rigg was not MacNee's first partner on The Avengers; Honor Blackman as Cathy Gale was his original partner. Elements of the Gale character carried over into Mrs. Peel's persona, but as the series progressed there was a clearer delineation between the two female characters.

When it comes to Fitzwilliam Darcy in P&P, however; much as I love Lawrence Olivier in the old Hollywood movie, Colin Firth still edges him out, I think.

BTW, if you enjoy Sally Fields, I've always considered 1991's Soapdish one of her most fun and underrated roles. She's a takeoff on TV soap superstar Susan Lucci and the cast was phenomenal: Kevin Kline, Robert Downey, Jr., Elisabeth Shue,
Whoopi Goldberg, Teri Hatcher, Cathy Moriarty, Garry Marshall, Kathy Najimy,
and Carrie Fisher!

Which reminds me, I loved Whoopi as Guinan in Star Trek Next Generation. When she sticks a fork into "Q"'s hand to emphasize he's now human instead of one of the Q Continuum, we almost fell off our sofa laughing!

Hmmm, does this mean that Tribbles are perfectly cast as....themselves?

Joan Crawford as Mildred Pierce. For which she won her only Oscar

> Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster

My father-in-law played tennis with Fred Gwynne several times. He joked that you never wanted to try a lob since Fred Gwynne could reach almost anything.

Funny you'd say that about Irene Ryan for the Beverly Hillbillies. Here's what it says about casting her from Wikipedia:

________

After her divorce from Knox the prior year, Ryan was cast in 1962 as
Daisy "Granny" Moses, the mother-in-law of patriarch J.D. "Jed" Clampett
in The Beverly Hillbillies. According to Filmways publicist Ted Switzer, series creator and producer Paul Henning had decided to cast Bea Benaderet
as Granny. However, when Ryan read for the role, “with her hair tied
back in a bun and feisty as all get-out", she just blew everyone away.
Executive producer Al Simon and Henning immediately said, "That’s
Granny!" Later, when Benaderet saw Ryan's tryout, she agreed. Benaderet
was cast as Jed Clampett's cousin, Pearl Bodine.

_______

Even the "original" granny agreed she was right for the part.