A-listers are a MAJOR part of what make some of our favorite films our favorite films.
But what if we told you some of those films originally had COMPLETELY different main actors?
Do you ever wonder how some of Hollywood’s biggest films could have been different with alternative actors?
Like, picture your favorite movie: same script, same side characters, same everything, besides the main actor… How would that change things?
Well, there have been several close calls that really make you wonder. Read ahead to find out which actors were FIRED from roles after being cast!
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Megan Fox
Transformers: Dark of the Moon, 2011
After a few solid roles in the early and mid 2000s, Megan Fox REALLY launched to superstardom when she joined the Transformers franchise in 2007.
She starred in two back-to-back box office juggernauts alongside Shia LaBeouf, but was nowhere to be seen in 2011’s threequel Transformers: Dark of the Moon, where the brunette beauty was replaced by blonde bombshell Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.
Why? Because of her infamous comments about the director!
During a 2009 interview with British magazine Wonderland, the then-23-year-old infamously compared director Michael Bay to Adolf Hitler. She said at the time:
“He’s like Napoleon and he wants to create this insane, infamous mad man reputation. He wants to be like Hitler on his sets, and he is. So he’s a nightmare to work for …”
She noted that when he’s not in “director mode,” she enjoys his “personality” because he’s “so hopelessly awkward. He has no social skills at all.” She added:
“He’s vulnerable and fragile in real life and then on set he’s a tyrant.”
Yikes!
But despite the crass comparison, it wasn’t actually Michael who made the decision to axe Megan… It was producer Steven Spielberg! Ahead of the 2011 release of Dark of the Moon, Michael said, “You know the Hitler thing? Steven said, fire her right now,” according to The Guardian.
Eventually, Megan and Michael made up when they re-teamed for two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies in the 2010s.
Ryan Gosling
The Lovely Bones, 2009
The Lovely Bones nearly had a VERY different feel to it than what we all saw in 2009. Not so much in terms of story, but in terms of cast! While Mark Wahlberg sent chills down viewers’ spines with his grief-stricken performance as Jack Salmon, father of murdered teen Susie Salmon (played by Saoirse Ronan), we were about 60 pounds away from seeing Ryan Gosling in the role!
Ryan had actually been cast and everything, but in preparation for the role, he quietly put on 60 pounds by drinking melted Haagen Dazs ice cream whenever he was thirsty… because that’s how HE envisioned the character Jack Salmon to appear.
However, Ryan did so without consulting with director Peter Jackson, who was completely taken off guard when he found out! Ryan told The Hollywood Reporter in 2010:
“We had a different idea of how the character should look. I really believed he should be 210 pounds. We didn’t talk very much during the preproduction process, which was the problem. It was a huge movie, and there’s so many things to deal with, and he couldn’t deal with the actors individually. I just showed up on set, and I had gotten it wrong.”
Ryan was then fired just DAYS before production began. He told the outlet:
“Then I was fat and unemployed.”
However, Peter’s wife and collaborator Fran Walsh recalled a different version of events. She told the outlet at the time:
“Ryan came to us two or three times and said, ‘I’m not the right person for this role. I’m too young.’ And we said, ‘No, no, no. We can age you up. We can thin your hair.’ We were very keen. It wasn’t until we were in preproduction and we had the cast there that it became increasingly clear: He was so uncomfortable moving forward, and we began to feel he was not right. It was our blindness, the desire to make it work no matter what.”
Can YOU imagine Ryan as Jack Salmon??
Anne Hathaway? No, she quit.
Knocked Up, 2007
We all know Anne Hathaway has comedy chops, but did you know she was at one point supposed to star in a raunchy Seth Rogen movie? During the 2007 film Knocked Up’s early pre-production stage, Anne was cast as Alison Scott, a hardworking woman who gets pregnant after a one-night stand with slacker Ben Stone, played by Seth. However, one script detail in particular left a bad taste in her mouth. In a 2008 interview with Marie Claire, Anne revealed she didn’t approve of the film intending to show a woman’s anatomy during the birth scene at the end of the film:
“I don’t actively search for [films] that I can get naked in. But nor is it something that I would ever not do a job because of. It is what it is. Some people choose not to do it on moral grounds; I think that’s a shoddy argument. Of course, there are limits. I turned down another movie [Knocked Up] because it was going to show a vagina — not mine, but somebody else’s — and I didn’t believe that it was necessary to the story.”
So, technically Anne didn’t get fired. It was HER that made the decision to leave. Earlier this year, Seth himself confirmed as much on The A24 Podcast:
“It was Anne Hathaway who quit the movie.”
Olivia Wilde, who just starred in The Invite with him, asked if it was “because of the crowning” scene,” to which he responded:
“Yeah, I mean… it could have been a hundred million things. That was what I remember being told. Crowning is a tough one. She didn’t want the crowning of the baby to be visually representative. Even though it wasn’t going to be hers… It’s obviously not real. But she didn’t even want…she felt that it was not her brand. Part of me also… we had started rehearsing the movie… maybe she was just like, ‘I don’t know if this is for me.’ I don’t know. I will take what she said at face value, which was the crowning.”
Ultimately, Katherine Heigl was cast as Alison.
Natalie Portman
Romeo + Juliet, 1996
30 years later, it’s hard to picture anyone else starring in 1996’s Romeo + Juliet than Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Daines. Prior to Claire landing the role of Juliet, though, it had actually gone to Natalie Portman. But there was one very OBVIOUS red flag that should have been taken into account before she was ever cast… While Leo was 21 years old at the time, Natalie was just 13!
In a 2015 interview with HelloGiggles, the Harvard graduate revealed that because she was literally a child, it became clear during rehearsals that it was a no-go:
“It was a complicated situation. At the time I was 13 and Leonardo was 21 and it wasn’t appropriate in the eyes of the film company or the director, [director] Baz [Luhrmann].”
Uhhh, YEAH.
She noted her parting of ways was “a mutual decision” as it just “wasn’t going to be right at the time.”
But guess what? Even Natalie’s replacement STILL wasn’t technically an adult! At the time of production, Claire had just recently turned 17. Yikes…
Christian Bale
American Psycho, 2000
We know what you’re thinking — “What is Christian Bale doing on this list? He DID star in American Psycho!” Well, yes. But only after being hired, fired, then re-hired! In a 2014 interview with the Wall Street Journal, the Oscar-winning actor revealed that Lionsgate wanted Leonardo DiCaprio to star as Patrick Bateman, so he and director Mary Harron were fired and replaced with Leo and Oliver Stone. Yes, seriously! But that version of the film didn’t last long as both Leo and Oliver quit, leading to Christian and Mary being brought back on!
Christian told the outlet at the time he never truly accepted that he wasn’t going to star in the film:
“I just pretended it didn’t happen. I’m English, so I never go to a gym, but for that role it was part of the whole deal that I had to go. I still kept going down to the gym every day because I was going, ‘Oh, I’m making the film.’”
He needs to teach a seminar on how to block out bad vibes! LOLz! Christian went on:
“I would call Mary Harron — she’d be having a nice dinner with her family — and I’d go, ‘So Mary, so when we do this scene,’ And she’d go, ‘Christian, Oliver Stone is directing, DiCaprio is playing your role.’ I said, ‘Right, but you said it, my role, all right? It is coming back, so let’s talk about it, because it’s coming back to us.’ And she’d go, ‘Christian, can you please leave me alone?’”
King of manifestation!
Kirsten Dunst and Winona Ryder?
The Brown Bunny, 2003
Does anyone remember The Brown Bunny? The xxx-rated 2003 erotic drama Vincent Gallo wrote, directed, and starred in alongside Chloë Sevigny? If you go looking it up, be warned: it’s NSFW stuff. But according to Vincent, Kirsten Dunst and Winona Ryder were at one point attached to the project.
In footage from the 2003 Cannes Film Festival published by the Associated Press, Vincent talks about firing both the actresses ahead of filming. He claimed he fired Kirsten because of her allegedly “lunatic, nasty agent,” yeesh. As for Winona, he said he hired her in the first place on the heels of her shoplifting arrest:
“I knew she was going to jail, and this will be good for the movie. I would never cast Winona Ryder in a significant role.”
He crassly went on to claim Winona “ball-busted” him on set over her makeup and wardrobe:
“She, let’s say, had some tablets that seemed to have an impact on her behavior. It was a very bad moment.”
It should be noted neither Kirsten nor Winona have ever commented on their alleged connections to the film.
Julianne Moore
Can You Ever Forgive Me? 2018
Can You Ever Forgive Me? is the film that transformed funny gal Melissa McCarthy into an Academy Award-nominated actress. It’s a biographical drama about author Lee Israel and her infamous literary forgery.
But before Melissa landed the role, Julianne Moore was attached to star… That is until she was fired! In a 2019 interview on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, Julianne revealed:
“I didn’t leave that movie, I was fired.”
She revealed screenwriter Nicole Holofcener, who was originally set to direct before Marielle Heller took over, “fired” her:
“I think she didn’t like what I was doing. We hadn’t [started shooting]. We’d just been rehearsing and doing pre-production stuff, and I think that her idea of where the character was was different than where my idea of where the character was, and so she fired me.”
She revealed at the time she still hadn’t seen the film because the situation still felt “painful,” but that she “love[s]” Melissa McCarthy:
“I worship her, I think she’s fantastic, so I’m sure she’s great. But that’s the story.”
Nicole told IndieWire in 2018 that Julianne exited the film just six days before production was set to begin:
“I felt I had already made it. Every outfit, every location, every actor cast. It was a labor of love. It was traumatic. Terrible.”
Ashton Kutcher
Elizabethtown, 2005
More than two decades ago, Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst starred in a little Cameron Crowe-directed film called Elizabethtown. It debuted to mixed-at-best reviews, with a common complaint having to do with Orlando’s performance. Little does the general public know it was almost Ashton Kutcher who took on the role, though!
During a 2019 appearance on Hot Ones, Ashton told the tale of being “fired” from the movie:
“[Cameron] originally wanted Orlando Bloom for Elizabethtown, [but Orlando] was working on a Ridley Scott picture and wasn’t available. And so I went [to] audition, [Cameron] cast me and then we started working on it. I think he wanted to see the character rehearsals all the way, and I probably wasn’t disciplined enough as an actor to get myself to a point where I was able to do that and show it to him in a way that he felt comfortable.”
He continued:
“At a certain point we just kind of agreed that it wasn’t working out. More him than me.”
Ha! At least he’s honest! Ashton left off:
“But also, I found out at the same time that Orlando Bloom had just become available right when he decided to let me go, so I think he had a nice little safety net he could land on.”
Related: The Clueless Sequel Series Is Finally Happening! WITH Alicia Silverstone!
Judy Garland
Valley of the Dolls, 1967
Throwing it waaaaaay back to the 1960s, the now-classic film Valley of the Dolls starring Barbara Perkins, Patty Duke, Jacqueline Susann, Sharon Tate, and Susan Hayward. Based on the best-selling novel of the same name, the film sees three women chasing fame and dealing with the dark side of it after achieving such, including substance abuse.
It was a sad reflection of what poor Judy Garland was experiencing in real life at the time…
The 1967 film was set to mark her return to Hollywood, but after filming costume tests, a song, and even a bit of footage, Judy was fired by Fox.
There are several theories out there about why Judy was dismissed, but Fox officially announced at the time the actress has “resigned for personal reasons.” She disputed the claim, though. Another theory is that Judy failed to show up to set, potentially due to the issues with substance abuse she developed as the result of abuse within the industry.
Judy was recast with Susan Hayward, and sadly died in 1969 without ever playing another role.
Eric Stoltz
Back to the Future, 1985
Speaking of changing the timeline, imagine a world where Marty McFly was played by Eric Stoltz instead of Michael J. Fox… Well, people, we almost DID end up living in that reality.
When the sci-fi comedy was being developed, Michael was the name on everyone’s mind to star. However, he was busy filming Family Ties at the time, so Eric was cast. He even began filming and everything, but after a few weeks in, director Robert Zemeckis realized Eric just was not the right fit for his vision. So he let him go! In an interview with CBC years later, Robert said having to fire Eric was “the worst experience of my career.”
“Eric is a brilliant actor. I simply miscast him and I learned a very serious lesson. It’s not worth it. It’s too painful for everybody. What you have to do is cast the movie the right way and feel really right about it.”
Eventually, Michael was cast and had to juggle filming the movie at night with filming Family Ties during the day. Busy!
In an interview with Moviehole, Eric reflected on the series of events:
“In retrospect, I think just getting through that difficult period helped me realize how freeing it really was. I went back to acting school, I moved to Europe, I did some plays in New York, and I actually invested in myself in a way that was much healthier for me.”
Well there you have it, Perezcious readers! Are you surprised by any of our examples?? Are you happy? Sad? Or intrigued by what could have been? Be sure to let us know in the comments down below!
[Images via MEGA/WENN]
