Mass Effect Cast Wishlist: Who Should Play The Crew Of The Normandy?

Our first choice is going to send some Mass Effect fans running for the nearest Reaper, but hear us out. Even though the majority of players played through the franchise as a male Commander Shepard, we always preferred to play as the female version. After all, doing so allowed us to enjoy the always excellent voicework of Jennifer Hale, and it also opened up some bonkers romantic options (call us, Garrus!).

With that in mind, we’d like to cast Emily Blunt as Commander Shepard for a future Mass Effect film. In many ways, her performance in the Tom Cruise film Edge of Tomorrow proved she has what it takes to be a badass space warrior who knows how to put aliens in their place. Brains, beauty, and biotics, are the perfect ingredients for the perfect onscreen commander.

Aside from Shepard, perhaps the most important human character in the franchise is Captain Anderson. He is the original captain of the Normandy and only steps down to give command to Shepard after she is promoted to Spectre status. And while Anderson was voiced wonderfully by Keith David, we’d like to go in a slightly different direction for our Mass Effect casting wishlist.

Specifically, we’d like to have Denzel Washington play the role. The Anderson character is supposed to be a former badass who nearly made Spectre himself before settling into a more advisory capacity to younger soldiers. As a 68-year-old actor who is currently headlining an action film (The Equalizer 3), Washington would be the perfect choice to play an aging warrior who still knows how to kick ass.

While most of our Mass Effect casting wishlist doesn’t include alien characters, we included Liara T’Soni because bringing her to life wouldn’t require any CGI or practical effects, and she wouldn’t be covered up by a mask. We just need someone who would look good bald, and blue and still give a captivating performance. With that in mind, we’d like to cast Anya Taylor-Joy as Liara.

One of the reasons we’d like to see Taylor-Joy in our Mass Effect movie is that she handles genre films very well. She was a revelation in Last Night In Soho, and (we realize this is damning her with faint praise) she was the best part of that New Mutants movie. Between her genre experience and her ethereal beauty, we think she’d be great, and this talented start could get a career boost by appearing in a blockbuster film like Mass Effect.

On paper, we understand that the worlds of Euphoria and the Mass Effect don’t seem like they’d have much overlap. However, the simple truth is that the film would need a fresh-faced young man to play Kaidan Alenko, the loyal soldier who (depending on your choices) might have to lay down his life to save the rest of the crew. And for our Mass Effect movie, we’d like that part to be played by Jacob Elordi.

Obviously, Elordi is young, fit, and handsome, and those are arguably enough qualities to have him fill Kaidan’s shoes. But the young actor also has crazy chemistry with almost everyone he acts alongside. Given this and his clear passion for various social causes when the cameras aren’t rolling, we think Elordi would be the perfect Kaidan Alenko (bighearted and stubborn, all at once) for a big-screen Mass Effect.

Ashley Williams is one of the more complex Mass Effect characters. That’s because she has a firm anti-alien bias, and while she gets a bit more progressive over time, it sometimes wigs players out to have a bigot on their crew. To showcase the emotional arc of this controversial character, we decided to make an equally controversial casting choice: Maya Hawke.

Before you hit us with a biotic barrier, hear us out: Hawke is actually extremely talented, but her relatively young age and limited experience means that she typically gets cast in goofy teenage roles. But in Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, we got to see something a tad darker when she played the Manson Family’s flower girl. In Mass Effect, Hawke could get a role that helps her channel her sweet and salty side, and (like Ashley herself) she might grow as a person and professional from her time on the Normandy.

While the real Big Bads of Mass Effect are the giant Reapers threatening to wipe out all life in the galaxy, the franchise still has some major human threats. The biggest of these is the Illusive Man, the founder of the problematic pro-human group Cerberus. The character has questionable ethics and seemingly unlimited resources, and in the game, he was voiced by and even modeled after Martin Sheen.

While Sheen was perfect for the game, we respectfully suggest that the 83-year-old actor may not want to be the Big Bad of a film that could easily turn into an entire trilogy. That’s why we’d like to go against type a bit and have George Clooney play the role. While Clooney typically plays charming good guys, From Dusk Till Dawn is a reminder that he makes for a fearsome onscreen antagonist, and an older Clooney would be the perfect age to play a character who has become disillusioned with the galaxy even as he tries to remake it in his own image.