Roles Everyone In Hollywood Wanted To Play
Christian Bale as Anakin Skywalker? Nicolas Cage as Aragorn? It may be hard to imagine, but some of your favorite movies almost featured someone else entirely in leading roles.
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00:00Christian Bale is Anakin Skywalker, Nicolas Cage is Aragorn? It may be hard
00:05to imagine, but some of your favorite movies almost featured someone else
00:09entirely in leading roles. In 1977, Star Wars wasn't yet the massive cultural
00:16juggernaut it is now, but there was still a lot of buzz around his production. This
00:20was mainly due to the fact that young George Lucas, the writer-director of Star
00:24Wars, was just coming off the success of his 1975 period teen dramedy, American
00:29Graffiti. Although Star Wars was seen by the studio execs at the time as a bomb
00:34in the making, due to the dubious failures of many recent sci-fi films,
00:38Lucas's early auteur status still got actors interested in working with him.
00:42One of the roles that got the most attention was the smug, devil-may-care
00:47space smuggler Han Solo. The actors who showed up to audition were the who's who
00:52of the era, including Christopher Walken, Al Pacino, and probably most famously
00:57Kurt Russell. While many of these actors could have pulled off a good Han, we're
01:02lucky that Harrison Ford, who had also worked on George Lucas's American
01:06Graffiti, got the gig in the end. Who knows if Star Wars would have worked as
01:10well without his patented, salty, but still soft-at-heart charm. The 1997 epic
01:16romance drama Titanic, directed by action maestro James Cameron, turned out to be
01:20one of the most successful films of all time, and one of the only non-franchise
01:24films in the top 10 highest-grossing movies of all time. Even before Titanic
01:29earned historic box office rankings, James Cameron was standing on top of the
01:33world due to his back-to-back-to-back blockbuster successes. The Alien sequel,
01:38Aliens, and the first two Terminator films. Despite skepticism about the
01:43director working outside of his comfort zone with the period romance, Cameron was
01:47able to earn back his inflated budget at the box office, as well as push CGI
01:51technology to its limit for the time. Still, none of that would matter without
01:55a good human connection at the center of the spectacle. Without characters to care
01:59about, it would end up just being empty eye candy. Because of that, James Cameron
02:03took a long time to find the perfect couple to help anchor the lumbering epic.
02:07This meant a lengthy audition phase, including offers to then-heavy hitters
02:12like Claire Danes and Gwyneth Paltrow. After seeing a lot of other prospective
02:17actors, Kate Winslet got the part, with her talent paying off.
02:20I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere.
02:29From toys, to books, to cartoons, and even live-action TV series, Star Wars is
02:35seemingly omnipresent. This was especially true in the late 90s to mid
02:392000s, when the prequels reigned supreme at the box office. Star Wars Episode II,
02:44Attack of the Clones, was extremely popular and profitable. Apparently, over 700 young
02:51hopeful actors were lining up for a chance to play the hunky, pre-Darth Vader Anakin
02:56Skywalker. According to an insider source at the time, Lucasfilm wanted everyone to
03:01have a chance at the role. The Anakin hopefuls included Chris Klein, Ryan
03:05Phillippe, Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, and Leonardo DiCaprio. Ultimately, Hayden
03:11Christensen, best known at the time for his role in the 2001 drama Life as a House,
03:16infamously nabbed the role. The casting choice was initially met with cautious optimism,
03:20but the fans quickly soured on his portrayal upon the film's release in 2002. Luckily,
03:25fans seem to have warmed up on Christensen since then.
03:291995's Mortal Kombat was an early outlier of video game movies, with a good box office
03:35showing and decent reviews, including a thumbs up from Gene Siskel. It had amazing fight
03:39scenes, showing Hong Kong wire food stunts years before The Matrix. It also got a fun
03:44script, slick direction from Paul W.S. Anderson, and a fun cast. This includes the lead, Liu
03:51Kang, played by Hong Kong-American actor Robin Chiu, who was a great center of the film,
03:56bringing the role a sense of strength, integrity, and true leadership. But it wasn't easy.
04:02Chiu recalled the grueling audition experience to The Hollywood Reporter.
04:06It was the toughest casting process. I read seven times. My agent friend had never heard
04:11of anyone who had to read seven times. I had to read for the producers, the director, the
04:16casting director, the line producer, and then my final reading was with new line. Chiu even
04:22considered giving up. Luckily, he didn't, because Mortal Kombat wouldn't be the same without him in
04:27the lead role. The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers TV series, and its various sequels, were seriously
04:33popular in the 1990s. Debuting in 1993, the original show was created by Haim Saban, who
04:39bought the rights to the Japanese tokusatsu show Super Sentai, which depicted a group of heroes in
04:45colorful helmets and spandex fighting off evil kaiju monsters. Saban's crew filmed cheap, English
04:52language interstitials with young American actors between fighting scenes, creating a mess of style
04:57and tones that somehow still worked. The show inspired two Power Rangers films in the 90s,
05:02each starring the TV cast. The first was released in 1995, with the sequel, Turbo, a Power Rangers
05:09movie, released in 1997. Then, after over 20 Power Rangers spinoff shows, Lionsgate decided to
05:15produce a gritty reboot of the initial Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in 2017, an epic, big-budget
05:21feature film starring an all-new cast of teens with Tude. Despite the ultimate critical and
05:27commercial disappointment of the 2017 Power Rangers reboot, the hype for the film before
05:31its release was palpable. Many young actors who were in their teens or early 20s gave it a shot,
05:36including up-and-comers such as KJ Apa, Austin Butler, Mitchell Hope, Stephanie Scott, and Ross
05:43Butler. Ultimately, Ludi Lin, Naomi Scott, Dacre Montgomery, Becky G, and R.J. Kyler were cast as
05:52the new Power Rangers. M. Night Shyamalan's critically acclaimed breakthrough horror film
05:59made Haley Joel Osment a star and landed him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination at the
06:04ripe old age of 11. Cole Sear, the little boy who can communicate with the dead, was a plum role,
06:10and lots of Hollywood's youngest actors were eager to see dead people in the 1999 flick.
06:15Liam Aiken, the star of Stepmom and later a series of unfortunate events, auditioned for Shyamalan.
06:21He wanted the role badly, but his mother declined due to his age and the dark subject matter.
06:26While he's mostly now known as a comedic actor, Michael Cera also auditioned to play the sensitive,
06:31troubled Cole. In an interview with Esquire, Cera recalled not knowing the character sees
06:36dead people, and instead playing a serious, emotional audition scene with a lot of optimism.
06:43Origin stories are all the rage these days, so it's not surprising that MGM, Warner Bros.,
06:48and GK Films decided to reboot the Tomb Raider film franchise nearly 15 years after Angelina
06:55Jolie last donned the popular video game heroine's infamous hot pants. When asked about
06:59the film, director Roar Uthag told GQ, this movie will introduce Laura as a young woman
07:06who hasn't yet found her way and her place in the world. Not long after the project was announced,
07:11a host of Hollywood's hottest young female talent lined up to try to snag the part,
07:15including Saoirse Ronan and Emilia Clarke. Star Wars heroine Daisy Ridley was in serious talks
07:21with the casting team at one point, but ultimately, the producers went with Oscar winner
07:26Alicia Vikander. The quest to find the perfect actor to play the future king of Gondor
07:31was almost as long as Frodo and Sam's journey to Mordor. When Peter Jackson and his team set
07:36out to adapt J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings for the silver screen,
07:41they launched an exhaustive worldwide casting search that included quite a few of Hollywood's
07:46heaviest hitters, many of whom were eyed for the role of Aragorn. Nicolas Cage turned it down,
07:52telling Newsweek, There were different things going on in my life at the time
07:55that precluded me from being able to travel and be away from home for three years.
08:00Three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis also famously said no, citing fear of being bored.
08:06Russell Crowe considered joining the fellowship, but budget constraints caused him to pull out.
08:11Stuart Townsend, aged 27, was finally cast and trained for over two months, but was replaced
08:17with Viggo Mortensen just before filming began, as Jackson felt Townsend was too young for the role.
08:30Aragorn wasn't the only one sought far and wide in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings.
08:34The heart of the entire trilogy rests on the tiny shoulders, and big hairy feet,
08:39of Frodo Baggins. Unfortunately, Jackson had trouble finding the perfect Frodo,
08:45a character who had to embody so many different attributes in one person,
08:48most notably a real sense of kindness and purity of heart. In an interview with Charlie Rose,
08:55Jackson said he'd seen over 200 would-be Frodos at one point, and almost none of them seemed
08:59quite right for the role. This included star Jake Gyllenhaal, who, after his historically
09:05disastrous audition, was coldly told by Jackson that he was the worst actor he'd ever seen.
09:11Fortunately, former child star Elijah Wood, who was a fan of the Hobbit novel and Peter
09:15Jackson's early horror work, jumped at the chance to audition. He even hired a dialect coach and
09:21videotaped himself on VHS to ship to Jackson himself. That tape was apparently enough to
09:26convince Jackson that Wood was the guy to take the more than three-year journey to film the epic
09:31trilogy. It's hard to imagine anyone but Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman as the ill-fated
09:36lovers in Baz Luhrmann's hypnotic movie musical Moulin Rouge, but the visionary Aussie director
09:42saw tons of actors during a lengthy audition process. Luhrmann was particularly impressed
09:48by Jake Gyllenhaal, telling MTV the actor has a wonderful voice. Interestingly, it was during
09:54these auditions when Gyllenhaal met his future Brokeback Mountain co-star Heath Ledger, who was
09:59also being considered. Ledger even went so far as to read scenes with Nicole Kidman,
10:03but Luhrmann went with McGregor when they changed Christian's age, making Ledger too young.
10:09Though Kidman wound up as the teen, whole frontwoman Courtney Love also auditioned for
10:14the consumptive courtesan. Luhrmann found her intriguing, and though she wasn't cast,
10:19Love helped him obtain the rights to her late husband Kurt Cobain's song
10:22Smells Like Teen Spirit for the film. Superman is perhaps the most iconic superhero
10:27in the history of the genre. While he wasn't the first superhero to get his own film,
10:32he was the first superhero to get the big-budget treatment that's standard today.
10:36In the late 1970s, producer Alexander Salkind got the rights to Superman and tapped The Omen
10:42director Richard Donner to helm the superhero epic. Salkind was looking to get an A-lister
10:48to wear the iconic spandex tights and cape. Among them were Nick Nolte, Clint Eastwood,
10:53Robert Redford, Sylvester Stallone, and Harrison Ford. Donner, on the other hand, advocated for an
10:59unknown actor to play Superman, so the character could shine without being bogged down by a star
11:04persona. The producers initially disagreed, but cooler heads ended up prevailing. Ultimately,
11:10they went with the relatively unknown 24-year-old Juilliard-trained actor
11:14Christopher Reeve, who turned into the ideal Superman, even to this day.
11:23Despite being one of the most recognizable comic book superheroes of all time,
11:32Spider-Man had a hard time getting his Hollywood debut. After scripts and projects bounced around
11:37for many years, the rights to Spider-Man eventually reverted to Marvel, who sold them to Sony Pictures
11:43Entertainment in 1999. Sam Raimi's iconic Spider-Man trilogy later inspired the Marvel Cinematic
11:49Universe. After Spider-Man 3, there was uncertainty about if Spider-Man would ever
11:54join the iconic film franchise. Luckily, Disney and Sony reached an agreement, with Spider-Man
12:00making his first MCU appearance in 2016's Captain America Civil War. Almost every major young star,
12:07aged 15 to 25, came in to read for the MCU version of Spider-Man, including Timothée
12:12Chalamet, Asa Butterfield, and Ms. Marvel co-star Matt Lentz. The casting web was spread so wide
12:19that the actor who ended up sticking was relatively unknown theater star Tom Holland,
12:24who at the time was best known for the stage musical version of Billy Elliot.
12:28One of the most disappointing cinema trends in recent years is the dreaded Disney live-action
12:33remake. This includes director Guy Ritchie's 2019 Aladdin live-action remake. One of the bright
12:39spots of the Aladdin film, however, is its casting. According to Julie Ann Crommett,
12:44Disney's Vice President of Multicultural Engagement, casting took half a year and demanded
12:48travel to over a dozen countries to find just the right actors to authentically portray Aladdin and
12:54Princess Jasmine. Luckily, they landed on the Egyptian-Canadian actor Mina Masoud to play
12:59Aladdin and Naomi Scott as the aforementioned Princess Jasmine. They were joined by Will
13:04Smith as the Genie, previously voiced by late comedian Robin Williams. Everyone was able to
13:09take their animated counterparts and do them justice, while also adding their own flair and
13:14personalities to them.