Jaws The Revenge - Casting

Casting

Lorraine Gary reprised her role as Ellen Brody, a role she had portrayed in the first two films. In the press release, Gary says Jaws: The Revenge' is "also about relationships which... makes it much more like the first Jaws." This was Gary's first film since appearing in Spielberg's 1941 eight years earlier. The press release proposes that the character "had much more depth and texture than either of the other films was able to explore. The promise of further developing this multi-dimensional woman under the extraordinary circumstances... intrigued Gary enough to lure her back to the screen after a lengthy hiatus." Although the film was always going to be centered on Gary, Roy Scheider was offered a cameo. If he had accepted it, it was his Martin Brody character, rather than Sean Brody, who would have been killed by the shark at the film's beginning.

Gary is the only member of the main cast who returned from the original film, although Lee Fierro made a brief cameo as Mrs. Kintner (the mother of the young boy who was killed in the original Jaws film), as did Fritzi Jane Courtney who played Mrs. Taft, one of the Amity town council members in both Jaws and Jaws 2. Cyprian R. Dube who played Amity Selectman Mr. Posner in both Jaws and Jaws 2 is upgraded to mayor following the death of Murray Hamilton, who played Larry Vaughn. Gary states that one of the reasons she was attracted to the film was the idea of an on-screen romance with Academy Award winner Michael Caine (who previously starred in another Peter Benchley-adapted flop The Island), who portrayed pilot Hoagie Newcombe.

The first day we were to work together I was nervous as a school girl. We were shooting a Junkanoo Festival with noisy drums and hundreds of extras. But he never faltered in his concentration and he put me completely at ease. It was all so natural. He's an extraordinary actor – and just a nice human being.

Caine had mixed feelings about working on the film, both on the production and the final version. He thinks that it was a first for him to be involved with someone his own age in a film. He compares the relationship between two middle-aged people to the romance between two teenagers. Although disappointed not to be able to collect an Academy Award because of filming in the Bahamas, he was glad to be involved in the film. In the press release, he explains that "it is part of movie history... the original was one of the great all-time thrillers. I thought it might be nice to be mixed up with that. I liked the script very much." However, Caine later claimed: "I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific!" In his 1992 autobiography What's it All About?, he says that the film "will go down in my memory as the time when I won an Oscar, paid for a house and had a great holiday. Not bad for a flop movie."

Lance Guest played Ellen's eldest son Michael. Guest had dropped out of his sophomore year at UCLA to appear in another sequel to a horror classic; Halloween II (which was also distributed by Universal). Karen Young played his wife Carla. She commended the director's emphasis upon characterization. Thea, Michael and Carla's daughter, was played by Judith Barsi. She was murdered by her father a year after the film was released.

Mario Van Peebles played Jake, Michael's colleague. His father, Melvin Van Peebles, has a cameo in the film as Nassau's mayor. Mitchell Anderson appeared as Ellen's youngest son, Sean. Lynn Whitfield played Louisa, and stunt performer Diane Hetfield was the victim of the banana boat attack.