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Alyson Hannigan, My Stepmother is an Alien, 1988. Auditioned for Dan Akykroyd’s teenage daughter trying to alert him to what we all know, that his new lover Kim Basinger is, yeah sure, a heavenly body… but from another planet. Hannigan had better fortune as Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s TV mate, Willow Rosenberg, during 1997-2003.
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Sarah Chalke, Roseanne, TV, 1993-1997. Alicia quit for college, then popped back awhile in the eighth season. In Sarah’s first episode as Roseanne and John Goodman’s daughter, Becky, the Conner family was watching Bewitched and suggesting producers were stupid to think that no one would notice that they replaced the original Darren (Dick York) with Dick Sargent. All the family preferred the old Darren. Except, and of course, the new Becky!
- Hilary Swank, Boys Don’t Cry, 1999. With so many actresses scared of portraying the life and 1993 murder of a young transgender man called Brandon Teena, auteur Kimberly Pierce almost dropped plans for a feature version of her short film. More willing candidates for Brandon included Alison Folland, Lisa Jakub, Katherine Moennig (the 2004-2009 L Word star) and Chloe Sevigny (who played Lana). Plus Alicia Goranson, who won Candace, based on Lisa Lambert, murdered alongside Brandon. Swank tested as a guy, stetson and all. “This person came onscreen,” recalled Pierce. “They were captivating. They were beautiful. They were masculine. They connected to us. They won us over. This person blurred the genre line. They won us over and they knew how to act. They could act that part. That was Hilary.” On her way to her first Oscar in what . Chicago critic Roger Ebert called the “a sad song about a free spirit who tried to fly a little too close to the flame…. a worthy companion to those other masterpieces of death on the prairie, Badlands and In Cold Blood.”
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 3