Shere Khan needs little introduction—he's a tiger, he's evil, you may have had nightmares about him as a child. Our suggestion for Mowgli's nemesis is Daniel Day-Lewis.


Photo by Janusz Kawa. Interview, April 1988.

Bagheera is the wise black panther feared by all other animals except for Shere Khan. We think Cary Elwes could make a good Bagheera—his voice is very commanding. That he played an arrogant English soldier in the last live-action version of The Jungle Book had no influence on this decision.


Photo by Tony Kent. Interview, February 1996.

David Bowie has done voice work before—his narration of Peter and the Wolf was pretty splendid. We like to include Bowie as much as possible. Here we've cast him as Mowgli's wolf-brother, Grey Brother.


Photo by Herb Ritts. Interview, May 1990.

Disney's Baloo was a bit silly—a perfect example of the large, jolly, dopey male character trope. In Kipling's book, however, Baloo is a little more on the ball. Sure, he's still described as "a sleepy brown bear," but he's also a member of the (wolf) Pack Council and is responsible for teaching the young one The Law of the Jungle. We nominate Gerry Bednob as our Baloo. He's generally funny, occasionally scary, and we'd like to see him play someone calm for once.

The ever-villanized snake—the species gets rather a rather unfavorable portrayal in books and film. Blame the Bible, or all those poisonous ones; The Jungle Book's Kaa does not stray from the snake stereotype. We've chosen Christopher Walken a well-practiced villian with a sense of humor, to play Kaa.


Photo by Kurt Markus. Interview, July 1993.

if there is only one important human in this remake, might as well make him a pretty one! We pick Skins and The Borgias alum Luke Pasqualino to play Mowgli.