Kenny Powers is not an actual person. He is the creation of Jodie Hill, Danny McBride and the other writers and creatives on the HBO show Eastbound and Down and embodied by McBride. As such, he cannot be cast in other projects, per se, the way real life actor McBride can. Yet the idea of Powers bringing his bluster and bravado to roles is intriguing. This came up during a recent Solute Happy Hour where beloved Soluter Casper declared she would love to see Powers – not just McBride, but specifically Kenny Powers – perform Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses.” And you can hear the poem’s call to rage against age in his overconfident Carolina accent:
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’We are not now that strength which in old daysMoved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;One equal temper of heroic hearts,Made weak by time and fate, but strong in willTo strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Some actors (including arguably McBride) bring such a distinct energy to their roles, it feels like their previous characters are being cast for other roles. Use Jeff Bridges these days, and you’re probably getting some version of Rooster Cogburn (or maybe his Oscar-winning performance for “Bad Blake” from Crazy Heart). Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Dalton and others on occasion lent their Bond personas to other films. My mind also goes to Star Trek around this question, where characters in the show would occasionally play classical roles, usually Shakespeare but of course on the holodeck Data would inhabit Sherlock Holmes and Picard a hardboiled detective named Dixon Hill.
But if you could just call-up a character from the screen a la Purple Rose of Cairo (or Last Action Hero, if you like) and have them play another role, what character would you cast and for what?
