Sixteen years after its original release, director Zack Snyder’s Watchmen can be reflected upon as an impressive work. It was long thought that properly adapting Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ legendary comic was impossible, and there are some controversial choices made by the production, but it’s a loving and faithful work that is unquestionably visually stunning. All that being said, the film does have its critics, and one of them is star Matthew Goode – who thinks the movie on the whole is great, but he second guesses his own casting as Adrian Alexander Veidt a.k.a. Ozymandias.
The actor recently did a nice career retrospective as a guest on an episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, and when he discusses Watchmen, he is still a bit awed that he was part of the film. Zack Snyder had originally wanted Tom Cruise for the part of Ozymandias (the Mission: Impossible star actually wanted to take on the role of Rorschach), but he eventually cast Goode, and the Dept Q actor isn’t quite sure why:
I honestly couldn’t believe they had given me this job. I think [Zack Snyder] had seen The Lookout or something. Goodness knows why he made the jump. Tom Cruise would have been amazing in that film, but it would have cost them an arm and a leg.
which ended up being a box office disappointment), Matthew Goode also has a few critiques of his own performance that he can’t quite let go. Looking back at his take on the character, he thinks that he probably was trying to do too much with the complex role, and he has certain regrets regarding his accent choices.
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