Kate Mulgrew played Katherine Hepburn on stage in the play Tea at Five. Damn, she looks and sounds like Hepburn. She could have played her in the two Howard Hughes biofilms, but Cate Blanchett did (and won an Academy Award) in The Aviator. There are reportedly two Hepburn biopics in the works, but I don’t know who they’re getting.
For some bizarre reason, when they cast the movie the Royal Hunt of the Sun (by Peter Shaffer, who wrote Equus and Amadeus. It’s about Pizarro and Atahuallpa in the same way that Amadeus is about Mozart and Salieri – which is a discussion for another time). On Broadway, Christopher Plummer played Pizarro and David Carradine played Atahuallpa. For the film, Plummer played Atahuallpa and Robert Shaw played Pizarro.
I love Plummer as an actor, but he’s not entirely convincing as a 16th century Spanish explorer/conqueror, and he sure as hell isn’t convincing as Emperor of the Incas. Whereas David Carradine’s look certainly do suggest Classic Inca. It would’ve been a better film with Carradine in it.
Bill Mumy as the older Will Robinson
It was rumored that Gary Sinise was considered for the role of Leonard H. “Bones” McCoy, M.D. in the 2009 Star Trek reboot. I thought Karl Urban was right in the part, though.
Ashley Judd as Catwoman in the 90s
Gene Kelly as Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls. He really wanted the part, but the producer didn’t like him.
Ann Miller as Peggy Dayton in Silk Stockings. She really wanted the part, but they went with Janis Paige instead.
Oh, and IIRC, Elvis Presley really wanted to play the Pharoah in a stage production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Always thought that myself. He’s a dead ringer.
Peter Dinklage would have been perfect to play Miles Vorkosigan 25 years ago. Now he’s way too old, he’s 48.
I agree, and we’re not the only ones.
[QUOTE=Leonard Nimoy]
When Karl Urban introduced himself as Leonard McCoy and shook hands with Chris Pine, I burst into tears. That performance of his is so moving, so touching and so powerful as Doctor McCoy, that I think D. Kelley [DeForest] would be smiling, and maybe in tears as well.
[/QUOTE]
Most of my 'perfect casting" attempts are for books that have yet to make it to film.
If there was a remake of The Fountainhead, John Hamm would be a great Howard Roarke.
Burt Reynolds as Buford T. Justice
Jim Carrey as Junior
Lyle Lovvett as Snowman
Chriss Issac as the Bandit
Paul Williams as Big Enos Burdette
Vern Troyer as Little Enos Burdette
It should have happened I tells ya.
If they ever do a Combat! full-length feature film, he would be a good Lt Hanley; Kiefer Sutherland would make a good Sgt Saunders.
The moment that cemented Urban as Bones for me was when he said to Spock (Zachary Quinto), “Are you out of your Vulcan mind?” DeForest Kelley had said that line in the TOS episode Elaan of Troyius and in ST II: The Wrath of Khan.
Judy Garland and her husband Sidney Luft wanted Cary Grant to play Norman Baines in their remake of “A Star is Born”. But he didn’t want to work with Garland because of her “reliability” problems and was turning down roles to be with his wife Betsy Drake. So they eventually got James Mason 25 years later Barbra Streisand and Jon Peters couldn’t get Elvis _Presley so they got Kris Kristofferson.
When John Frankenheimer made his movie about auto racing “Grand Prix” he wanted Steve McQueen to play the lead Pete Aron. McQueen talked to the money men, it quickly devolved into a shouting match and James Garner got the role. McQueen eventually made his own film about auto racing “Le Mans”. Frankenheimer always felt if they had McQueen, “Grand Prix” would have been a huge blockbuster.
Barbra Streisand, Jon Peters, and Elvis Presley; wouldn’t that have been an interesting meeting to sit in on.
If that’s what they felt, then they should have paid McQueen what he wanted. Sounds like they thought he was worth it.
But I’m not sure I agree it would have been a blockbuster with him. Pete Aron is arguably the lead, but it’s enough of an ensemble piece that I’m not sure McQueen could have carried the film. And I like Garner better anyway.
Leonardo DiCaprio really should’ve gotten the role as Robert Todd Lincoln in Spielberg’s Lincoln: http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/robert-todd-lincoln-1865.jpg
Could be, but I always saw Philip Seymour Hoffman in the role.
I, for one, am very, very glad that Harrison Ford got the role.
We saw her as Hepburn in a one-woman show a few years back. She was quite good.
Sean Young (Blade Runner, No Way Out) was also really eager to get the part, and the story goes that she came on so strong - even stalkeresque - that she spooked the studio execs and missed out.
It’s probably not in a class with most of these, but I would have loved to see a Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with Erland van Lidthe de Jeude as Miles Gloriosus. I’ve seen several versions of AFTHOTWTTF, and Miles nevers seems quite right.
Erland was BIG, and he could sing. (If you’ve seen Stir Crazy, where he played Grossberger, you should know that they dubbed that voice – it’s not his. He finally did get to sing on-screen in The Running Man, where he played Dynamo, but it’s hard to hear over all the explosions.)
He had “retired” from doing stage musicals as an undergraduate at MIT (I was in two productions with him in the Musical Theater Guild), but the director talked him back on stage for AFTHATWTTF because he was so ideal in the part. A lot of the lines that, in the mouths of actors who aren’t gargantuan, sound like hyperbole (“Stand back, everyone! I take large steps!”) were accurate in his case. When the actor playing Pseudolus is running around the stage near the end, Erland simply stuck out an arm and Pseudolus climbed up on it, chinning himself, without moving Erland at all. And Erland’s operatic voice filled the theater.
He had his natural hair and a Roman Soldier beard to play the part, and looked good. He was easily the best Miles Gloriosus I’ve seen.
Philip Kaufman, who “discovered” Erland for the movies when he cast him in The Wanderers, had him shave his head, because he was playing the leader of a gang based on the real-life gang The Fordham Baldies. But Erland was not bald. Nevertheless, every director who cast him wanted him with a shaved head, in Stir Crazy and Alone in the Dark. He got tired of playing Big Bald Geeks, so when John Derek wanted him to again shave his head for his part in the Bo Derek version of Tarzan the Ape Man, he left. I can’t tell if he’s bald under that helmet in the Running Man, but if he is, he probably got lured back by the promise of singing on the big screen.
I’m guessing Colonel Tom would’ve been there too since he eventually put the kibosh on Elvis being in the movie.
She was on Letterman shortly thereafter, with some footage of herself in what looked like a black rubber catsuit. Batshit crazy, do-doo-de-doo-do!*
*But still incredibly MILF-hot! :o