Have you ever read a book where the main character.....

Yes. The first one that comes to mind is the Outlander series. Both Jamie and Claire are not what I imagined. But now I can't picture them any other way.

jack reacher is a really tall nordic-looking guy
NOT that shrimp tom cruise!

gina

There's a difference between noting a biographical description later in a series and having the actor/actress cast who doesn't fit your mental image

I still cannot understand why someone thought TC could be Reacher. The choice completely ruined the movie for me.

You know what's a little bit funny? Remember the earlier discussions about historical movies and whether white people should play famous black people? Or people of color playing famous white people? Females playing males etc? Most peas didn't seem to mind if they had a young black man playing Kennedy for example. Me? Unless a parody of an event I know I posted I prefer my actors to reflect the physical appearance of the people they are playing.

When it comes to how characters in fictional books are portrayed though I find there is a general grumbling if they completely go off kilter. I never read the books with the character Tom Cruise played, or so his movies, but I can tell folks aren't happy with him.

That's interesting. I don't remember that conversation, but I would have said that it would be odd to have an African-American actor playing President Kennedy. It would be like having a white actor play Martin Luther King or President Obama or Colin Powell... Those people are all real historical people so I think having an actor with a different skin color to play them would be wrong. 

Fictional characters who have no description in the book...? That doesn't matter to me because it's my mind that's made an image of that character and it's not the movie casting director's fault that he/she didn't ask me for the "right" way to cast that role.   

Wasn't there some grumbling about how one character was cast in the Hunger Games movies? The little girl who Katniss befriends. I think that's the one...an African-American actress was cast and people grumbled about it. But if you read the book there's hardly any description of her beyond "darker skin" or something like that.

And then there's the flap over the black South African actress playing Hermione in the new play. J.K. Rowling pointed out that the only thing it says in the books about Hermione is "brown eyes, frizzy hair, and very clever". We're all just conditioned to think of her as white because of all the movies with Emma Watson. 

And on a non-human note, I refused to see the Lord of the Rings movies for quite a long time because the hobbits didn't look at ALL like I'd imagined them. rofl.    (yes, I caved eventually because I love Lord of the Rings).

my quick look at show jamie doesn't match jamie in my mind... so yah, i don't want jamie in my mind ruined until i have read entire series of books.

Stephanie Plum from the Janet Evanovich books. To me, that is Jennifer Esposito. When I listened to it, I just saw her especially from Spin City in my head.

I listened to all the audiobooks instead of reading them. Luckily the story drew me in enough to get past the first couple of books because they are read by Lori Petty and I dislike her voice. The woman who took over for her is wonderful.

Who did they change?

I hated the casting of the two Percy Jackson movies. They were too old and Annabeth was not blond and should have been.

When I started reading your post Alex Cross immediately came to mind. LOL great minds think alike! I do love his character.