Which actor could play Norman Bates better than Anthony Perkins?
Anthony Perkins was better suited to play the part than any actor I can think of. Montgomery Clift would have been fairly well suited. Another possibility is Robert Walker, Sr., although he had died about a decade before the film was made. Check out his performance as Bruno in “Strangers on a Train.” Subsequent to “Psycho,” Anthony Perkins’s psychologically fragile persona was dominant in his career, but before it he had mostly played light romantic leads: Hitchcock’s use of him was less obvious than it might seem now.
