Some of the most iconic roles in cinema could have turned out very differently…
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00:00It's well known that the majority of films aren't cast with the director or studio's
00:04first choices for the roles.
00:06The sheer number of big-budget movies being made means that most will have to make do
00:10with the second or third choice instead.
00:12Most of the time this isn't particularly noticeable, but sometimes when you find out
00:16who the role was originally intended for, suddenly it just makes so much more sense.
00:21So I'm Amy from WhatCulture, and here are 10 Movie Roles Obviously Designed For Other
00:27Actors.
00:2810.
00:29Jerry Maguire In Jerry Maguire, Tom Hanks
00:32In recent years, Cameron Crowe has admitted that his first choice to play conflicted sports
00:36agent Jerry Maguire would have been Tom Hanks, not Tom Cruise.
00:40In fact, the role was specifically written with Hanks in mind.
00:43However, at the time, a year before shooting was due to begin, Hanks was focused on developing
00:48his directorial debut, That Thing You Do, and had to pass.
00:52The role ended up going to Cruise, who then spent the next nine months developing the
00:56part with Crowe.
00:57The result is iconic, and it might be hard now to imagine anyone else playing the role,
01:01except for the fact that Maguire's whole feel-good character arc is quintessentially
01:061990s Tom Hanks.
01:08The cynic with a soft heart, the good guy in a rough patch who just needs the right
01:12inspiration to come out on top.
01:14Sandwiched between 1993's Sleepless in Seattle and 1998's You've Got Mail, Jerry Maguire
01:19is exactly the kind of movie that Hanks was making at the time.
01:239.
01:24Ruby Rod in The Fifth Element – Prince Remember DJ Ruby Rod in Luke Besson's Gonzo
01:31sci-fi?
01:32High camp, high-pitched voice, dressed like he was, well, high?
01:35The part was written specifically for the late Prince.
01:38Costumes and props had been designed with him in mind, even down to the mole on Rod's
01:42cheek.
01:43Of course, Rod was actually played by comedian Chris Tucker.
01:46The official version of the story is that Prince's touring schedule prevented him
01:49from shooting the movie.
01:50But costumer Jean-Paul Gouthier has a different perspective.
01:54During the singer's Paris tour dates, Besson got Gouthier to go and meet Prince and show
01:57him some sketches.
01:58Of the experience, Gouthier said, quote,
02:01"...in broken English and with my strong French accent, I tried my best to make conversation.
02:06I showed him my drawings, but he didn't say a word.
02:09I had had a really funny idea for a costume with netting, through which quite long body
02:13hair would pass through, and I had done the front and back versions of it.
02:17So I explained this to Prince."
02:18And viewers, I apologise, I'm about to do a really bad French accent, but trust me,
02:22it has a point.
02:23It's going somewhere.
02:24So, I explained to Prince, it is fake hair, you know?
02:28The back is made of that, the back, the focale, a very big focale, end quote, and yes, I promise
02:36that was a quote.
02:37He explained that Prince gave him an odd look and then left without a word.
02:41And Gouthier later found out from Besson that Prince had pulled out of the movie, stating
02:44that the costumes were a bit too effeminate, and that he wasn't best pleased with Gouthier's
02:49lack of respect.
02:50And here's where the bad accent comes in.
02:52It turns out that where Gouthier had been saying focale, meaning fake ass, Prince had
02:57instead heard the words f*** you.
02:59So yeah, you can't really blame a guy too much for pulling out of a movie where his
03:02first meeting with the costume designer, he thought he was repeatedly being told to go
03:06f*** himself.
03:088.
03:09Dolores Wilson in Sister Act – Bette Midler
03:12When screenwriter Paul Rudnick pitched the movie that would later become Sister Act to
03:16producer Scott Rudin, it was with veteran actor and Broadway singer Bette Midler in
03:20mind.
03:21Midler, however, passed on the film, convinced for some reason that her fans wouldn't want
03:25to see her play a nun.
03:27It made no sense.
03:29Dolores wasn't a nun, she was a brassy lounge singer forced to masquerade as one.
03:33Sister Mary Clarence is only Sister Mary Clarence while she's in witness protection, and she
03:37uses her showbiz instincts to transform the fortunes of the convent's choir.
03:42The part wasn't just written for Midler, it was made for her.
03:45Well, we all know how it goes from there.
03:47Eventually, the film went to Whoopi Goldberg, and it also went through so many writers and
03:51so many drafts that Rudnick requested he be credited with a pseudonym, as it no longer
03:55resembled the movie he pitched.
03:57You know what survived the rewrites though?
03:59Dolores Wilson, aka Sister Mary Clarence.
04:02And that movie was a huge hit.
04:04I for one am glad Whoopi Goldberg got the part.
04:087.
04:09Bruce Willis in What Just Happened – Alec Baldwin
04:12That's right, the role where Bruce Willis somewhat famously plays a douchebag version
04:17of himself wasn't actually written for Bruce Willis at all.
04:20Writer Art Linson and director Barry Levinson's Hollywood satire follows Robert De Niro's
04:25stressed-out film producer Ben from set to boardroom to set, amongst many other memorable
04:30moments.
04:31It features a subplot in which Bruce Willis turns up to shoot Ben's movie with an impressively
04:35luxurious beard which he refuses to shave off, despite it being completely inappropriate
04:40for the part.
04:42But that part was originally intended for Alec Baldwin, because it was actually based
04:45on Alec Baldwin himself.
04:46You see, What Just Happened is a fictionalised retelling of the stories from Linson's own
04:51memoir of the same name.
04:52In his book, Linson recounts Baldwin turning up to a shoot in 1997 with an impressively
04:57luxurious beard which he refused to shave off.
05:00Baldwin's character was a fashion photographer whose plane crashes in the wilderness.
05:03His having the beard at the end of the movie made sense, but having it from the beginning
05:07made no sense whatsoever.
05:09Baldwin didn't quite see this though.
05:11In the end, Baldwin had to be threatened with being fired from the movie and sued by
05:14the studio before he actually agreed to shave it off.
05:17De Niro, who was also a producer on the film, had originally approached Baldwin to play
05:21himself, thinking his famously prickly friend might have developed a bit of a sense of humour
05:25about the whole thing.
05:26Judging by the fact that Willis was cast in his place, I think we can all confidently
05:30say, no such sense of humour had been developed.
05:346.
05:35Russell Hammond in Almost Famous – Brad Pitt
05:39Director-director Cameron Crowe wrote the script for Almost Famous with Brad Pitt in
05:42mind for the pivotal role of Stillwater guitarist Russell Hammond.
05:46Not only that, but he also managed to secure Pitt for the role, working with him for over
05:50four months in developing the character.
05:52However, Pitt pulled out of the film before shooting could begin, and Crowe rather frankly
05:56admits that he cried when he found out, worrying how it might look for his career.
06:01Billy Crudup was cast in his place, and did a fantastic job in a career-making role.
06:05There's even an argument to be made that Pitt, an established movie star by that point
06:09with a ridiculous level of cool, wouldn't have been able to deliver the vulnerability
06:13or the callousness that Hammond exhibits.
06:15Nonetheless, there are multiple references in the finished film to Hammond being too
06:19good-looking and a golden god, and these lines were very clearly intended to be delivered
06:23by the blonde, god-like-looking Pitt.
06:265.
06:27Peter Weyland in Prometheus – Max von Sydow
06:31Ridley Scott's long-awaited return to the Alien franchise began life purely as a backstory
06:36to his original film.
06:38The initial thoughts on what this film should look like were very different from how it
06:41actually turned out, and at one point it was going to quite heavily involve an elderly
06:46Peter Weyland, the founder of the Weyland Corporation.
06:49He was meant to be a man of advancing years, seeking to use his vast fortune to stave off
06:53death.
06:54Originally, Scott had legendary actor Max von Sydow in mind to play Weyland.
06:58He was 86 at the time, which is age-appropriate for the role.
07:01However, a subsequent draft of the script called for a younger version of Weyland to
07:05appear.
07:06To find the alternatives, it was decided to go with the equally formidable but considerably
07:10younger Guy Pearce, who could appear au naturel in the flashback part of the story and then
07:14be aged up with makeup for his other appearances.
07:17Pearce was cast, and the production proceeded, and then a further draft of the script cut
07:21the flashback sequence entirely, leaving Scott with the prospect of Pearce playing a character
07:25twice his own age for no good reason.
07:28With an actor of Pearce's calibre, it's not the worst thing in the world, but the
07:31old-age prosthetics the team used sort of did make him look like a mummy at times.
07:36Moral of the story?
07:38Maybe they should have stuck with Max.
07:394.
07:40Mary Corleone in The Godfather Part 3, Winona Ryder
07:45The Godfather Part 3 is over 30 years old now, and a lot of critical narratives have
07:49grown up around this movie.
07:51You know them by heart.
07:52It was too rushed, there wasn't a story, Francis Ford Coppola did it purely for the
07:57money, it didn't live up to the quality, blah blah blah.
08:00One thing almost everyone agrees on, though, is that Sofia Coppola, the director's daughter,
08:05was a disastrous choice to play pivotal plot point Mary Corleone, the daughter of the trilogy's
08:10protagonist.
08:11The critics savaged her performance in a way that almost felt too personal.
08:14She was called vacant and wooden, they said she didn't know how to perform on camera,
08:18and that her line delivery was childish.
08:20Of course, the fact is that Coppola hadn't intended to cast Sofia, he hadn't even intended
08:25to make the film until he was made an offer he couldn't refuse.
08:28With only 20 months to go from a blank page to a premiere, Coppola drew the best possible
08:32cast and crew around him.
08:34No one could say no to The Godfather, and that included Winona Ryder, who was perfectly
08:38cast as Mary Corleone.
08:40That is, until, having filmed three movies back-to-back, she pulled out due to nervous
08:44exhaustion a day before she was due to begin filming.
08:47Coppola didn't have anyone else except Sofia he could bring in to play Mary at such short
08:51notice, and he couldn't just rework the schedule, he was already pushed for time.
08:56That, in turn, led to one of the most notorious miscast roles in Hollywood history, and it's
09:00one that he's regretted for about 30 years.
09:033.
09:04Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park – Harrison Ford
09:09From the late 80s to the mid-90s, Harrison Ford was the biggest leading man in Hollywood.
09:13If a script had a male lead role over 45 years old, then they took Ford first, because if
09:18he said yes, their project would get an immediate greenlight.
09:21Of course, even a workaholic can't be in everything, and Ford has never been a workaholic,
09:25so he almost always said no.
09:27And that's exactly what happened with the role of Dr. Alan Grant in Steven Spielberg's
09:31Jurassic Park, a role which was not so much written for him as modelled on the character
09:36that had made him a star.
09:37No, not so much Han Solo, though there could be elements of that, I guess.
09:41We're talking about Indiana Jones.
09:43If you check out the painted concept art that Spielberg had knocked up at the pre-production
09:46stage, the guy running away from the T-Rex with the two kids is the spitting image of
09:50Ford's rugged archaeologist.
09:52And that is not a coincidence.
09:54In retrospect, you can kind of see why he turned it down.
09:57Grant is a rough-and-ready pre-history geek, a paleontologist with a gung-ho attitude and
10:02a cool hat who spends half the movie running away from elaborate special effects.
10:06It's basically everything he spent half of the 80s doing, and you can't blame a man for
10:10not getting too excited at the prospect of doing it all over again.
10:132.
10:14Bloodsport in The Suicide Squad – Will Smith
10:18During interviews in the run-up to The Suicide Squad's release, both James Gunn and star
10:22Idris Elba were keen to dismiss rumours that he'd been hired to replace Will Smith's deadshot.
10:27Since it was a while before Elba's casting was attached to a specific character, the
10:31initial assumption was that the part of the hitman Floyd Lawton had been recast.
10:35Warner Bros were very keen to publicise that this wasn't the case, no doubt to ensure that
10:39Smith, arguably the biggest star, remained on the radar to return to the role in a potential
10:43threequel.
10:44After a bunch of rumours about different characters being introduced, it turned out that Elba
10:48was playing Gunn's version of DC's Bloodsport, aka Robert Dubois.
10:52The thing is, Elba's Dubois is Smith's Lawton.
10:55They're both bad-tempered gunmen, and reluctant team leaders with a sinister metallic full-face
11:00mask.
11:01And, like Deadshot, Bloodsport even has a daughter who is, like Deadshot, the only good
11:05thing in his life, an addition to his character that only exists in Gunn's movie.
11:10Then let's look at the timeline.
11:11Smith announced that he wouldn't be returning at the end of February 2019.
11:15Gunn's shooting schedule was set in stone, and Smith was already booked.
11:18Elba was announced to be in talks to join the cast a week later, and by this time, Gunn
11:22had already written several drafts of a script that Warner Bros were reportedly high on.
11:27It seems obvious that those drafts included Deadshot.
11:29Peter Safran has all but admitted this in an interview last July.
11:33What it looks like from the outside is that they were going to recast Smith with Elba,
11:36but then panicked over losing their relationship with Smith, forcing Gunn to think on the fly
11:40and bring in a new character.
11:42However, given the huge similarities between the characters, it was less of a last-minute
11:46rewrite and more of a find-and-replace job.
11:501.
11:51Everyone in Blow Dry
11:53Blow Dry is a case study in the horrors of studio micromanagement.
11:57There may be no other film in history where the entire cast were all clearly intended
12:01to be practically anyone other than who they were.
12:04It's fair to say that 20 years ago, Oscar-winning screenwriter Simon Bofoy didn't have the
12:08Hollywood clout that he probably enjoys today.
12:11Bofoy's first feature was The Full Monty, an unexpectedly massive comedy about laid-off
12:15Sheffield steelworkers who form a male stripper troupe.
12:18The film featured a cast of virtual unknowns, most of whom came from the north of England.
12:23But when he attempted to duplicate the trick with his script for Never Better, this time
12:26being about rival hairstylists in Yorkshire, Bofoy found his film placed with Miramax and
12:31the infamous Harvey Weinstein.
12:33Suddenly, there were lists of Hollywood-famous actors flying around, mostly over his head.
12:38Even the director had little control over who was cast, which is how a movie supposedly
12:42about the authentic lives of working-class northerners ended up with pretty much no cast
12:47members from the north.
12:48I mean, there was Londoners, there was Australians, there was Americans, and all of them absolutely
12:52murdered the Yorkshire accent.
12:54The result was, to put it mildly, horrible.
12:57Unable to fix it, Bofoy bowed out to make room for another writer, but since the whole
13:01point was to play up the connection with The Full Monty, he wasn't even allowed to remove
13:05his name from the film.
13:06Instead, in a towering moment of English passive aggression, he asked for his credit to read
13:11based on the screenplay Never Better by Simon Bofoy.
13:14Probably would have been even better if he had managed to get them to preface it with
13:17Very Loosely.
13:19And on that note, we've reached the end of this list of 10 Movie Roles Obviously Designed
13:23for Other Actors.
13:25If you've got any more in mind, then let us know in the comments down below.
13:27And remember to check out WhatCulture.com for more lists and articles like this every
13:31single day.
13:32As always, I've been Amy from WhatCulture, and I'll catch you next time.