Aaron Taylor-Johnson

Posted on by Tony CrawleyCategories:Actors
  1. Andrew Garfield, The Amazing Spider Man, 2011.
  2. Jesse Eisenberg, To Rome With Love, 2011.     To share the screen with his  first acting role in six year, Woody Allen was stuck between John Lennon and Edwards Cullen – aka Aaron or Robert Pattinson.  So Jack went to Mark Zuckerberg, aka Eisenberg.  Not great Woody Allen, said Chicago critic Roger Ebert  but  he’s made a film every year since 1969 –  “if they cannot all be great Woody, it’s churlish to complain if they’re only good Woody.”
  3. Nicholas Hoult, Jack The Giant Slayer, 2012.     In director Bryan Singer’s Jack Mix.  Alongside Aneurin Barnard and Alex Pettyfer 
  4. Taron Egerton, Kingsman: The Secret Service, 2013.  Passed on Gary – the working class hero dragged  into  the world of espionage. (But he  turned up in the third chapter, The King’s Man, 2019).   Sixty young actors were seen for the first. Final choices came down to John Boyega, Jack O’Connell, and Egerton’s winning “likeability.”  The not-007-but… thriller was made  by Aaron’s Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaughn, who created the  sixth James Bond with the 2003 choice of Daniel Craig for Layer Cake –  “My name? If you knew that, you’d be as clever as me.”
  5. Colin Farrell, Winter’s Tale, 2013.    Auteur Akiva Goldman didn’t stray far from the fantasy brigade for his  reincarnation romance. Up for  the  Manhattan burglar falling for the heiress who dies in his arms were: Kick-Ass’ Taylor-Johnson,  Luke Evans (Bard in The Hobbit), Garrett Tron Hedlund, Liam Hemsworth from Hunger Games, Tim Hiddldston (Loki in Thor) and Benjamin Walker aka Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Long before any of those, even Farrell had been Bullseye in Daredevil, circa 2002.  
  6. Taron Egerton, Kingsman: The Secret Service, 2013.   ATJ passed on joining Matthew Vaughan’s cracking spy number, alongside Michael Caine, Colin Firth, Mark Hamill, Sam Jackson, Mark Strong.  Egerton beat off John  Boyega and Jack O’Connell, said director Matthew Vaughn,  because  of his unique likeability. 
  7. Alden Ehrenreich, Solo: A Star Wars Story, 2017.   
  8. Austin Butler,  Elvis, 2019.   The final six testing voices, gyrating pelvises and lip-lock sneers  as the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll  for  Aussie director Baz Luhrmann’s biopic came down to…  Ansel Elgort, already booked for Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story… Harry Styles, the One Direction pop idol, who debuted in Dunkirk… Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Quicksilver in  Avengers: Age of Ultron… and  Miles Teller, aka Mr Whiplash, sharing Top Gun: Maverick wih Tom Cruise.  In 2018, Butler worked with Denzel Washington  in Broadway’s latest The Iceman  Cometh and Baz got a call from D about  E.   ‘Look, I’ve just been onstage with this young actor. I’m telling you, his work ethic is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I’ve never seen anyone who devotes every single second of their lives to perfecting a role.’” Selecting the dreaded Colonel Parker was easier.  Tom Hanks. (When sharing his producer’s hat with Steven Spielberg, they  chose Butler to head  their latest WWII series, Masters of the Air,TV, 2021). 
     

 Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls:  8