Given what would have been his physical condition at the time, I really can't imagine Brando as an action hero.
Alternate castings in Film/TV that could've been?
- Thread starter Reflection
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Given what would have been his physical condition at the time, I really can't imagine Brando as an action hero.
Apparently Bill Murray was offered to play Batman in the 89 version. Also, Liam Neeson was supposed to play Abraham Lincoln in Spielberg’s Lincoln.
Yep. The role was originally offered to Daniel Day-Lewis, who turned it down via a rather flowery letter to Spielberg. Then, Leeson was signed on, but dropped out(I THINK because of his wife's death), at which point Day-Lewis came back aboard.
All in all, it's really difficult to imagine anyone better suited for that role than DDL, even just going on physique alone. Plus, given the actor's subsequent career, a Neeson Lincoln woulda been like if Charles Bronson had done King Lear right before embarking on his Death Wish phase.
Sibel Kekilli, best known from Games and Thrones, did a fair bit of porn. And according to IMDB she even appeared in the German Sesamestreet.
Coulsdon Eagle
Monthly Donor
Would have been a very different result with Connery - not necessarily better, but different!
Or, as was originally planned. John le Mesurier as Captain Mainwaring, Arthur Lowe as Sergeant Wilson.
Geneviève Bujold got as far as starting to film the pilot before quitting. Erin Grey (Col. Deering in Buck Rogers) auditioned for the role and Patty Duke was considered (an older, more Picard-esque captain).
Even Lazenby being more into the role might have been an improvement and could have resulted in him keeping the part for a while.
To be fair, it was his first big acting gig, and the people around him weren't helpful.
Gene Hackman was considered for the role of Mike Brady in the Brady bunch but the studio thought he was not famous enough(despite Hackman having an Oscar nomination)
Liam Neeson was supposed to play Mr. Keating in Dead Poets Society before Peter Weir came aboard--@Geekhis Khan went with that in his A Hippie in the House of Mouse timeline. That would have been...odd, as I can't see anyone but Robin Williams in the role...
Eli Wallach was supposed to play Angelo Maggio in From Here to Eternity, but he'd been cast in the Tennessee Williams play Camino Real and decided to play that role; that was good for Frank Sinatra, because Harry Cohn, at the suggestion of Sinatra's then-wife, Ava Gardner, cast him as Maggio in part because he wasn't likely to cost as much (and not because the Mafia got it for Sinatra--who was connected to the Mob IRL)...
Eli Wallach was supposed to play Angelo Maggio in From Here to Eternity, but he'd been cast in the Tennessee Williams play Camino Real and decided to play that role; that was good for Frank Sinatra, because Harry Cohn, at the suggestion of Sinatra's then-wife, Ava Gardner, cast him as Maggio in part because he wasn't likely to cost as much (and not because the Mafia got it for Sinatra--who was connected to the Mob IRL)...
Nicolas Cage was almost a star of a Soviet film.
Georgiy Daneliya's 1990 film Passport is a tragicomic tale of an average driver from Tbilisi accidentally switching places with his half-Jewish half-brother, who intended to immigrate to Israel. In the film proper, both half-brothers were portrayed by Gérard Darmon, a French actor (Passport was a co-production, and French sponsors insisted on such casting). The film had something of a troubled production, and Nicolas Cage was considered for the role at one point. He did read the script and actually liked it enough to agree to take on the role. But the time went on, and Cage became not as affordable for the production over time.
Georgiy Daneliya's 1990 film Passport is a tragicomic tale of an average driver from Tbilisi accidentally switching places with his half-Jewish half-brother, who intended to immigrate to Israel. In the film proper, both half-brothers were portrayed by Gérard Darmon, a French actor (Passport was a co-production, and French sponsors insisted on such casting). The film had something of a troubled production, and Nicolas Cage was considered for the role at one point. He did read the script and actually liked it enough to agree to take on the role. But the time went on, and Cage became not as affordable for the production over time.
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I suspect they thought he wasn't famous enough among the kind of people The Brady Bunch was aimed at. Hackman had done a small handful of one-episode parts on TV, and been nominated for a supporting role in Bonnie And Clyde, a somewhat countercultural film.
By contrast, Robert Reed had been a regular for a number of years on some TV show or other.
Yeah, it would be odd but I think neeson would have been okay, but not compared to ddl.