The fickle finger of fate

I shouldn't place too much stock in the phrasing of questions asked on Quora, which come to me via email notifications due to a search I did a couple years ago. The questions are interesting enough that I keep reading them, which is probably why I keep getting the notifications. Sometimes I learn something. Sometimes I just laugh.

Today is the second scenario.

The reason I say I shouldn't place too much stock in the questions, or in the answers, is that for many of these people, English is not their first language. For many others, logic is not something they are really acquainted with.

Take this one:

"What Hollywood actor/actress lost a career-making role due to the fickle finger of fate?"

(I added the hyphen in "career making," since that would have been a bridge too far for this person.)

I think "the fickle finger of fate" is hilarious phrasing, but I think the answer is even more hilarious.

This poster gave the example of Meg Tilly, who had to drop out of Amadeus because she tore a ligament while playing soccer just before shooting was set to begin. The doctor said it would take five weeks before she could start shooting, so obviously they had to replace her.

It's true, Meg Tilly did not go on to have a particularly illustrious career. She's often considered the lesser Tilly, as her sister Jennifer was the better known name -- though even Jennifer's career has not been a major one.

What I find funny about this answer, though, is that the role did not go to Julia Roberts, or Sandra Bullock, or Nicole Kidman, or Meryl Streep -- in short, it did not go to an actress who took the role and ran with it, and is now considered a screen legend. 

No, the role went to Elizabeth Berridge:

Who?

Exactly.

After Amadeus, Elizabeth Berridge appeared in a couple movies I've never heard of, and held down some recurring roles on TV shows that lacked any distinction, the most prominent of which was probably The John Larroquette Show. She guested on Touched by an Angel, but that was only one episode. 

She does still work. She appeared in a short just this year. But she only has four total credits since 2005, though granted, two of those are films I saw and liked: Please Give and Results.

However, by no definition of the word was Elizabeth Berridge's career "made" by appearing in Amadeus. So why does this person assume that the role would have changed Tilly's career?

And really, Tilly was one of the main cast of The Big Chill the year before Amadeus. The roles she got for the rest of the 20th century -- some of them quite prominent -- were probably as much due to appearing in that movie as anything that Amadeus could have done for her.

Like I said, I should not place too much stock in what I read on Quora.