From what I read in another article, once they got to rehearsals, they realized that not only was Helena Bonham Carter the wrong fit for the character, the character itself was wrong, and had to be completely rewritten. It doesn’t sound like anything that Carter did, it just sounded like the character itself wasn’t written right from the start.

[–] MimicJar@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I absolutely don't blame Helena Bonham Carter or series creator Mike White (at the moment). It's more that Helena Bonham Carter and Laura Dern are very different people. And they're rewriting the role to add to that.

Without getting into spoilers look at Jennifer Coolidge and her role in the series. She plays a very specific character. You couldn't just rewrite her character and replace her with a different actor. It would change the entire season or since she is in multiple seasons, the entire series.

That's where I struggle with Helena Bonham Carter. What role did they plan for her to play? How can you change that role without completely changing the season? And the answer is probably, it is going to completely change the season.

So I'm curious to know what vibe didn't work. But specifically I don't really want to know now. I want to watch the season, then know what didn't work.

[–] homes@piefed.world -1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Apparently, Jennifer Coolidge’s character was written specifically with Jennifer Coolidge in mind to play her. Probably why it seemed like such a good fit.

As for Helena Bonham Carter’s character, sometimes things work out on paper a lot better than they do when you actually try it out, and you have to go back and fix it once you realize it’s not working out. It’s probably a lot more rare for seasoned writers, but I’m glad they caught it when they did in preproduction rather than finding out after they started production proper. And, now that they have cast Laura Dern, they can get back to it, probably without any delays.