FoxPhile

** Previous Threads **

Walter O'Brien / Elyes Gabel Appreciation Thread #1 - Because his IQ is 197 {31-Aug-2015}
Walter O'Brien/Elyes Gabel #2: "I have gained humanity these past years." {30-Apr-2016}
Walter O'Brien/Elyes Gabel #3: Because Elyes loves his fans and House†Gabel {08-May-2017} Elyes!
Walter O'Brien/Elyes Gabel #4: Because we can't imagine anyone to have taken care of Walter better {06-July-2018}

WeBuiltThePyramids

TFTNT, Heidi.

WriterFreak001

Thanks Heidi! I love the title of this thread! It's spot on!

FoxPhile

Anyone else and Walter just wouldn't have been Walter.

WeBuiltThePyramids

Nope. I don't know if I would have loved him as much with anyone else, to be honest. It was like Elyes just knew.

FoxPhile

Can you imagine if they had cast the same people - but in different roles? Like what if Ari was Walter, and Eddie was Sly and Elyes was Toby? Or if they swapped Jadyn and Kat? I'm sure the show would still have been good - but it would have been very different.

WriterFreak001

If I'm correct, I do believe that when Ari auditioned, he originally wanted to be Walter, but the cast-team picked him as Sylvester.


I am so glad he was Sly instead of Wally. That would have been weird lol.

FoxPhile

It would definitely be different. Ari was much better as the hyper-emotional Sly than he would have been as suppressed-emotions Walter.

WeBuiltThePyramids

I honestly don't think Jadyn and Kat swapping would have felt off if we'd never known any different - we know Kat can play more subdued and emotionally shut down - Jenna is like that for a part of Waitress and Kat could have definitely taken it further - and I don't doubt Jadyn could play a lot warmer. The guys all could too, for sure - based on that mummy show, Elyes would have pulled off Sly or Toby fine. And they're all actors, so they all could have played any part, of course. But I think sometimes you just have a teeny something that makes you naturally fit and understand a specific character better than others. Like on TBBT, Johnny and Jim almost were cast the opposite roles, and in Friends, Courteney Cox auditioned for Rachel and Jennifer Aniston auditioned for Monica. It seems weird to think about, but a lot of the time the basic character is written but the little things, the idiosyncrasies the characters have, are based on actor interpretation. So the frowning and scratching the back of the neck and the little stutter Elyes would do, that almost certainly was not written in but something he came up with. We've all seen parts of the scripts for some episodes and I at least (and I'm assuming it's true for others too, I just obviously can't speak for them) could tell exactly how a line was going to be delivered, right down to body language, even though there were no directions about that in the script, because we knew the actors well enough to know how they were going to play it.

FoxPhile

Of course, had they been cast in different roles we would never have known the difference. And they are all excellent actors and could have managed any of the roles very well. But I do think each of them brought something a little unique and personal to the roles they got. I assume that the casting folks saw something in their auditions that told them which roles they fit best.

WeBuiltThePyramids

I was cleaning today and came across the signed stuff Elyes sent me, and I just got emotional over this man all over again.

FoxPhile

He's such a great guy. He's so nice to his fans. I went back in his IG history the other day to find the post he did when he got our HouseGabel t-shirt gift and it made me feel good all over again.

WeBuiltThePyramids

Yeah, he's so humble and appreciative.

maplezbear

That's great he is so appreciative and great. It seems like you don't hear this much about stars now days.

Hope he has something new in the works!

maplezbear

That's great he is so appreciative and great. It seems like you don't hear this much about stars now days.

Hope he has something new in the works!