The actor must be tall, angular of features, be between 40-60 years of age and able to project a high level of menace. The most difficult aspect of casting Kane would be the need for a powerful voice, not oft used, but available.
link › jameslafond.blogspot.com
Voices can be helped along with technology. Really good actors can "be" the part, and if you found one who understood Solomon Kane, and a director who appreciated the part and didn't try to feminize or super-size it, there are several who might be good.
James Cromwell is a good enough actor to do it, a little old maybe, but he's such an asshole off-screen that I hope he dies in poverty.
Clancy Brown for sure ... he can play any part and make you believe it. The most believable scary Bad Guy on film in "Highlander".
Christopher Heyerdahl certainly has the features and the look, as does Hugh Jackman.
Hugh Laurie would be good in it if you can get Bertie Wooster out of your head; one of the best actors ever.
Benedict Cumberbatch may not be "angular" enough, but a good makeup guy could fix that, and he'd make you believe the part.
Karl Urban is 6'1", not sure if he's tall enough. The rest of these guys are 6'2"+. He's a superb actor, though.
Probably couldn't afford any of these guys anyhow!
Thought of you when I saw this 2015 article
unz.com/isteve/conan-the-librarian
As far as Kane, how about Beto? Or Obama, currently unemployed. Both great actresses.
Thanks for the link. In 1982 I was involved with a fencing group in which one of the guys called himself Conan the Librarian.
Tom Cruise. (Duh) After all, Cruise played the 6'5" Jack Reacher, who was described as having "[a face that] looked like it had been chipped out of rock by a sculptor who had ability but not much time."
Great quote!
If you were casting Solomon Kane today I’d say Clive Owens would be perfect. (Simon Purefoy was ok, not his fault that movie missed the mark)
But the real deal would be to go back to the 1970s and make the Kane stories into a series of Hammer Studios productions…
… starring Christopher Lee