Miles Teller and Emma Watson Join Long List of Alternate Hollywood Casts
Thursday, September 22, 2016 at 10:30AM 
If you've been wondering why Damien Chazelle didn’t cast Whiplash star Miles Teller in his TIFF’s People’s Choice Award winner La La Land, it looks like we have our answer: Teller wanted more money. Editorializing on a celebrity’s character is a tricky line to tow so let's just say this is not surprising. Of much more interest is the alternate casting of a different Emma as the female lead, Emma of the Watson variety.
We'll never be able to speak to what Watson and Teller would have done with the roles that are winning Oscar buzz for Ryan Gosling and (frontrunner?) Emma Stone but it does get the mind racing about favorite almost-casts or last minute drop-outs in movie history. There’s your classic Tom Selleck as Indiana Jones or Winona Ryder as Mary Corleone, or more contemporarily you’ve got Will Smith as Django or, uh, Will Smith as Neo. (Follow up question: what made Deadshot so appealing to him that he made it all the way to production?) Alternate cinematic villains give you a dreamy rogue’s gallery of woulda-coulda-shouldas, including The Bening as Catwoman or O.J. Simpson as The Terminator. Above all else, I’d kill to see Warren Beatty play Quentin Tarantino’s Bill. What are some of your favorite alternate casting choices in Hollywood history?
Reader Comments (28)
Portman not Emma Stone is the current BA front runner. Hysteria surrounding the praise for Jackie. La La Land seems good enough to compete throughout the season. With Stone being its best shot at prizes along the way.
I don't know how well Emma Watson can sing or dance, but thank god an insufferable Miles Teller isn't in this. Greed got the best of him.
I like Madonna in it, but I always wanted to see the version of Evita with Oliver Stone and Meryl.
Chazelle is better off if he just cuts that dead weight entirely. Teller in Whiplash was sub-textually interesting and perfectly CAST (the music room scenes are really J.K. Simmons yelling at Miles Teller for being a bad actor), but not actually a good performance beyond that subtext. If Gosling becomes his go-to? Good for both of them.
Academy Award Winner Michelle Pfeiffer - Clarice Starling
There's so many but these are some of the most intriguing to me. Most of mine ended up being played by the right performer but the alternate choice still makes you wonder what they would have done with the role.
I won't delve into the whole Scarlett O'Hara could have beens, there never would have been a better choice than Vivien Leigh.
Cary Grant in the Judy Garland version of A Star is Born. He actually signed on and backed out near the start of production. James Mason is great in the film but what a fascinating contrast Judy and Cary would have made.
Tuesday Weld as Bonnie Parker in Bonnie & Clyde. Dunaway was great but Weld is such an idiosyncratic performer it would have been interesting to see what she could have done with such a complex role.
Doris Day, Patricia Neal and Ava Gardner as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate-Doris turned it down, Pat Neal had to withdraw due to her health and Ava had a disastrous meeting with Mike Nichols that knocked her out of the running but what a wide variety of interpretations they would have offered.
The proposed teaming of Greta Garbo and Katharine Hepburn as mother in daughter in Mourning Becomes Electra. It ended up being Rosalind Russell & Katina Paxinou.
Judy Garland as Mama Rose in the Natalie Wood version of Gypsy.
Ann-Margret in Mary Tyler Moore's role in Ordinary People
Olivia de Havilland as Blanche du Bois in A Streetcar Named Desire.
Kate Jackson in Kramer vs. Kramer
Marilyn Monroe in Gloria Grahame's part in The Big Heat. She was first choice but Columbia wouldn't meet Fox's loan out fee for her.
Conversely Gloria Grahame in Shelley Winters role in A Place in the Sun where the situation was reversed and Paramount wouldn't meet Columbia's quote for her services.
A fascinating subject, I could go on all day! And if I don't stop I will.
The two rumoured Thelma & Louise castings - Meryl and Goldie Hawn and Jodie Foster and Michelle Pfeiffer - not least because you can totally tell who would be the Thelma and who the Louise of each pairing.
Sarandon and Davis are so perfect.... but in my head, I love the alternate Pfeiffer/Foster version.
I really wanted the Bening to play Catwoman, but pregnancy...
But when Uma got pregnant prior to shooting of Kill Bill, Tarantino said: "If Josef Von Sternberg is getting ready to make Morocco and Marlene Dietrich gets pregnant, he waits for Dietrich!" And delayed the production.
Burton couldn't wait for the Bening.
Garbo and Hepburn as mother and daughter in Mourning Becomes Electra?! Garbo was only 2 years older than Hepburn. So GG would have been the mother I suppose. I can't imagine Garbo consenting to that. But, then again, Katina Paxinou was only 7 years older than Russell.
In any case, one of my favorites is this: according to the imdb these are the actresses who were offered the role of Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cockoo's Nest and said "no": Bancroft, Burstyn, Dewhurst, Fonda, Audrey Hepburn, Lansbury, Moreau, MacLaine and Page. Conversely, one actress who wanted the role but was not offered it was Patricia Neal. My first choice would have been Geraldine Page.
I wonder what would've happened if Dougray Scott got to be Wolverine leaving the road open for Hugh Jackman to breakthrough as a musical lead, giving us a string of musicals and a revival of the genre instead of wasting his talent and natural charm as an X Men. One can dream.
Carradine was excellent, but Beatty as Bill would have been so much fun!
I read the fantastic oral history of "Clueless", and Sarah Michelle Gellar auditioned for Amber but was living in NYC as a cast member of "All My Children" and the show wouldn't let her take time off for it.
Olivia de Havilland turned down The Towering Inferno, and I'm thrilled she did. Jennifer Jones killed that part. Of course, Olivia went on to do The Swarm. I hope she fired her agent.
Anne Bancroft was first offered Mommie Dearest. Legend has it that she said "I wouldn't touch that with a ten-foot pole." HA
Speaking of Anne, as intriguing as Ava Gardner sounds in that part, I can't envision anyone doing that film besides Anne. What a spectacular turn.
Audrey Hepburn was William Friedkin's first choice to play the role of Chris in The Exorcist, and Warner Brothers supported him because of her good critical/commercial reputation with the studio, but she only agreed to do it if it was filmed in Rome.
Jane Fonda and Shirley MacLaine were also approached. Anne Bancroft was another choice but she was in her first month of pregnancy and was dropped. Ellen actively campaigned for the role and won it. Jack Nicholson was considered for Father Karras, but was deemed too unholy.
Anthony Michael Hall was supposed to play Private Joker in Full Metal Jacket, but talks between him and Kubrick fell through at the last minute. I've always found that an interesting tidbit.
TERMS OF ENDEARMENT with Sissy Spacek in the Debra Winger role; and Burt Reynolds in the Jack Nicholson role
Blake Lively in Gravity :)
Jennifer Jones was to play Aurora in Terms of Endearment. She got the balling rolling but life got in the way and the production was delayed and Shirley got it instead.
tom, I would have loved to have seen Jennifer as Aurora. I love Shirley's performance, but I believe Jennifer would have been transcendent. Jennifer was also supposed to star in The Country Girl, but when she got pregnant the role went to Grace. She was also given Laura, but Selznick, the big dope, told her not to take it.
Rami, LOL--is that because there's no oxygen in her head?
Louise Fletcher was originally considered for the Lily Tomlin role in "Nashville". Would have loved to see her in that part. She couldn't have been anything but wonderful.
When Albert Brooks was casting "Mother" (1996) he wanted an actress who'd been out of the spotlight for a long time and whose reappearance would be something of an event. He approached Doris Day, Esther Williams and Nancy Davis Reagan. And although attracted to the script, all three, for various reasons, declined. After that, Brooks signed Debbie Reynolds - who'd never really been away. Still, it turned out to be a solid personal success for her. I think she got a Golden Globe nod . I've always thought Davis' work at MGM was intriguing - and I love Doris and Esther. So I'd have relished seeing any of them top-lining a high profile film in the 90's.
I cannot imagine Audrey Hepburn in the Exorcist at all. I would have loved to see Ava Gardener as Mrs. Robinson though. She proved in Night of the Iguana that she still had it (she never lost it).
Brookesboy: I think Jennifer Jones would be great in Endearment and Country Girl, but maybe not Laura. Jones had a good girl next door charm to her performances. Laura needed to be a ilttle more mysterious and sensual. Gene Teirney was perfectly cast.
also Audrey Hepburn was to play Anne Baxter's role in the Ten Commandments. And Grace Kelly was to play the wife of Moses.
Annette Bening in basically everything. Michelle Pfeiffer in Evita. Holly Hunter in As Good As It Gets. Angela Bassett as Storm in X-Men. Goldie Hawn & Madonna in Chicago. Sandra Bullock in Million Dollar Baby. Nicole Kidman in Mr. & Mrs. Smith. (#Brangelexit, sigh.)
Two perfect actresses in perfect roles BUT -
Emma Thompson in Basic Instinct
Helena Bonham-Carter in Breaking The Waves
I can hardly imagine...
bette midler in sister act [so easy to imagine]
Doris Day The Graduate! What a different film it would have been...probably more shocking...
Michelle Pfeiffer in Oliver Stone's version of Evita.
Marilyn Monroe in John Cromwell's The Goddess (1958). The story was loosely based on Monroe's life, and she was offered the part -- but turned it down -- which ultimately went to Kim Stanley.
Streep or Pfeiffer would have been amazing in Evita.
Ditto Streep in Sweet Dreams doing her own singing as Patsy Cline.
All for the best that Miles Teller was dumped. Unlikable tool.
Mareko -- i REGULARLY flash back to what would have been with Holly Hunter in AS GOOD AS IT GETS which is strange because i never think about that movie in almost any other context.
I would have taken Teller. I have no idea why Stone and Gosling have been in so many movies together, when their chemistry is mediocre at best.