- Damn it, that's good.

- I like what we've created here.

- I would definitely watch that.

- [Both] Obviously.

- Welcome to The Recast.

I'm Alison Leiby.

- I'm Patrick Monahan.

- And today, we are gonna be talking about

my favorite film of all time, "My Cousin Vinny".

They could do 50 versions of this film,

and I would never get enough of it.

- I love it.

Maybe not as much as you, but.

- This is gonna be a very heated debate

'cause I have some strong opinions on

what a new version of this movie would be,

even though the original is flawless.

We'll go through our first two.

But then we'll kind of see

which couple makes the most sense.

So the first role, the lead role,

the iconic role, Vinny Gambini, played by Joe Pesci.

I wanna do kind of something a little bit different here,

a bit of a gender swap.

I chose Cardi B.

- [Patrick] Okay.

- I think that she is super funny.

I think that she has that zaniness and that,

you know, very New York,

which I think is something that this role is identified by.

Everybody's like, "Youse,"

and I feel like her pronunciation and language

and the way she speaks is so funny.

That's mine.

- Okay.

I didn't go as big a change.

I went with Tony Sirico,

who was Paulie Walnuts in the Sopranos.

- Why him over anybody else from the Sopranos

or from the world of, like, those style movies and shows?

- I think I like his character the most

in terms of his sort of matter-of-factness.

I wanna see him do the two-finger point

with the pinky ring at somebody.

I think you're gonna get a lot of really good

new legal terms that are not--

- [Alison] Absolutely.

- I just think he's hilarious,

intentionally or unintentionally, for that matter.

And he can play a little bit heartwarming.

He was at least on one episode of Sesame Street.

So, you know, he's not gonna terrify the audience too much.

- I guess.

- I guess, so yeah, that's my pick.

- Okay, so for Mona Lisa Vito,

which is played brilliantly by Marisa Tomei,

who won the Oscar, very well deserved,

Zac Efron.

If I'm doing Cardi as Vinny,

I need a attractive, comes off maybe dumb at first,

but actually is trustworthy, which is what she does.

I wanna see him stamping his foot about positraction

with her ... He does the whole thing with her accent.

That's the concede.

- Okay, he's got the--

- He's doing the Mona Lisa Vito, like, "Vinny!"

Like that, but it's Zac Efron saying it.

And we're talking, like, "Neighbors" Zac Efron,

like, chiseled, not this puffy one.

- Okay, Zac Efron's puffy now?

I guess I must have--

- I don't know, I mean, he's always hot.

It doesn't matter.

- Okay, fair enough.

I went with somebody

who might be a little bit controversial here,

Cardi B.

- [Alison] Did you really?

- [Patrick] I did.

- Can we do a Cardi B, Cardi B,

she plays it like Sandler

in that movie where he plays his own twins?

- Like a "Jack and Jill".

- Yeah, a real "Jack and Jill"

"My Cousin Vinny" of Cardi B.

- Yeah, like a fake beard and red velour suit.

I mean, that's what he wears.

- With the ruffled top, yeah.

- Questioning herself on the sand.

- I would watch--

- [Patrick] I might see that.

- I would definitely watch that.

I think it's an interesting take.

They're both insane characters,

which she is.

- I have real questions

about Zac Efron's ability to do the accent.

I've gotta be honest with you.

- Yeah, I don't know that he has the chops.

He's so funny and so great.

He might not be right for this.

Can we settle on a Cardi B, Cardi B?

- [Patrick] I think we have to do it.

- I think we have to.

- We're betting a lot on Cardi B here.

- We are betting a lot on Cardi,

but honestly, I think she can handle it.

- [Patrick] Okay, I like it.

- [Alison] All right, we are going Cardi B

for Vinny Gambini.

And we're also going Cardi B for Mona Lisa Vito.

- [Patrick] Sold.

- I think that's a perfect casting already.

So the next role is Judge Chamberlain Haller,

which is played by Fred Gwynne.

I like the gravitas and the seriousness

and the white Southernness of all of it.

So I went Patricia Clarkson.

Patricia Clarkson is a lady character actress.

She is that lady in a lot of things,

whereas a lot of guys are, like, that guy.

She was amazing dramatically in "Sharp Objects",

but I feel like her comedic roles

are so much more interesting.

So I'm going with her.

- Okay.

I went with another that actor, that guy type person.

I went with Delroy Lindo.

- [Alison] Delroy Lindo?

- Yep, you probably don't know who that is by name.

I know who that is by name and face and everything,

everything he's been in,

because I have a very specific brain disease--

- Sure, clearly.

- That prioritizes information like that over, you know,

memories and important things about loved ones.

- Of course.

- I guarantee you've seen him.

He was in "Gone in 60 Seconds".

He's one of the two cops chasing Nicholas Cage.

He's in "The Core", one of the scientists

who develops the machine to go to the core, obviously.

He's got a certain warmth to him, I think, that helps.

And Fred Gwynne is, you know, he was Herman Munster.

He does have that sort of imposing, Southern gentile thing.

But also, he's got a little bit of kind of comedic chops.

And I think Delroy Lindo can kind of pull that off.

- And I feel like that's kind of important in this role.

There needs to be that little bit of sympathy,

which I don't know that Patricia Clarkson

always gives off a ton of sympathy

when she's playing very intensely.

So maybe yours is the better one here.

I will concede.

So for Judge Chamberlain Haller,

instead of Fred Gwynne,

we're going with Delroy Lindo.

All right, so the last role that we're gonna recast

is Jim Trotter, who was played by Lane Smith,

the Southern opposing lawyer.

- [Patrick] He's trying to put the Karate Kid in jail.

That's what it comes down to.

- [Alison] There you go.

That's how you would explain this movie to people.

So I have chosen Laura Dern.

I feel like she'd be really good at playing that fake nice,

like, "Oh, I'm being so nice,"

but secretly knowing that she's not helping at all

'cause I think she's really good at playing nasty.

And she's so good in Big Little Lies.

- For me, the thing about the prosecutor

in "My Cousin Vinny" is it's somebody who has

a kind of smarmy attitude.

It's somebody you wanna see lose obviously,

'cause you're rooting for the guy

'cause you know they didn't do it and all that stuff.

So I went with somebody

who's sort of in a similar vein to Lane Smith.

I went with Christopher McDonald,

who maybe you might as well just call him

by his most famous character name, Shooter McGavin.

- [Alison] Wow.

- Lane Smith was also the coach

of the Hawks in "The Mighty Ducks."

He has that kind of long career

of being, later in his career,

being kind of like the bad guy you wanna see go down.

And there's nothing I wanna see more

than Christopher McDonald doing his closing argument,

and then kind of doing a little shimmy like Shooter,

and then he gets completely upended.

- [Alison] Yeah, damn it, that's good.

- I understand Laura Dern.

I just don't, for me, I don't see

wanting to see her lose with such a ...

She's not hateable in the way that Christopher McDonald

has made his whole career on.

- She isn't.

She gets crushed very easily,

but this role, I guess, is mostly dominating the film

in terms of successes, until the very end.

So you just see her succeeding.

And it's just like, do we need to see another

rich, white lady succeeding?

No.

- No, we need to see a rich, white man succeeding.

- Show me something I'm comfortable with, you know?

So for Jim Trotter, instead of Lane Smith,

we're going Christopher McDonald.

- I like what we've created here.

- I do too.

I feel like we really made something special.

- And I think, you know,

the budget's gonna be a little high

because of all the swapping Cardi Bs

and whatever has to go on there.

- Yeah, I don't know how that works.

But I know it's not cheap.

- It's movie magic, folks.

That's all you need to know.

- [Alison] So to run down the new "My Cousin Vinny",

Vinny Gambini, Cardi B.

Mona Lisa Vito, Cardi B.

Jim Trotter, Christopher McDonald, AKA Shooter McGavin.

Judge Chamberlain Haller, Delroy Lindo.

I mean, that's a film.

That's not even a movie.

That's a film.

- And just think of all the Instagram feuds

that would lead to the promotion of the movie.

- People would only watch that movie on Instagram.

- That's right.

- That's how it would happen.

That's how all movies are gonna be watched moving forward.

Maybe we're on the right track.

- Yeah.