I know I’m late, but I just finally saw the last of the Bourne movies this week, and I just had to comment on the casting of Albert Finney in The Bourne Ultimatum. Was it intentional to employ an actor that would be so confusing to viewers who would easily mistake him for Brian Cox, an actor who appeared in the first two films? It’s worth noting that our first look at Finney’s character is in a photograph, and so the ability to recognize him as a different actor than we’d previously seen in the series is less than if we were introduced to him in person.

As little as I figure out what purpose it serves, I think the lookalike casting had to have been a conscious decision. After all, who hasn’t mistaken the actors for one another at some point in time? When Cox first became a heavily used character actor, I mistook him for Finney. And according to a five-year-old Page Six write-up, Cox gets wrongly identified as Finney all the time (”But I’m much better looking,” he says). It wasn’t surprising that I have found countless reviews of The Bourne Ultimatum, as well as forum comments, that acknowledge the confusion regarding Finney’s appearance in the sequel. Unfortunately, I can’t find any discussion of the film that attempts to give a reason for the casting choice.

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