- Cathy Moriarty, Raging Bull, 1980. Stone had dropped out of college, waitressed, countr-girled at McDonald’s, managed a backgammon store and modelled in New York and Europe while trying to crash movies. Scorsese remembered her audition and she became another De Niro wife in Casino… in a 100-day shoot some 15 years later!
- Brooke Shields, Endless Love, 1980. Italian maestro Franco Zeffirelli said Sharon was too old for the 15-year-old gir Jade Butterfield. Of course, she was. She was 22. What was her agent thinking…
- Elizabeth McGovern, Ragtime, 1981. “My first audition was for [Czech director] Milos Forman who got on his knees and begged me, ‘Just say the words.’ And I sat in the chair and cried.”
- Michelle Pfeiffer, Scarface, 1982. Tested as the glacial Elvira Hancock. As did Rosanna Arquette, Kim Basinger, Colleen Camp, Glenn Close, Geena Davis, Carrie Fisher, Jodie Foster, Melanie Griffith, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kay Lenz, Kelly McGillis, Kristy McNichol, Deborah Raffin, Brooke Shields, Kathleen Turner.
- Jennifer Beals, Flashdance, 1982. The “nation-wide search“ (of LA…!!) came down to 20 possibilities for flashprancerAlex Owens. Sharon, Jamie Lee Curtis, Bo Derek, Janice Dickinson, Bridget Fonda, Jennifer Grey (yet she won Dirty Dancing), Melanie Griffith, Daryl Hannah, Mariel Hemingway, Helen Hunt (hated the script), Jennifer Jason Leigh, Heather Locklear, Andie MacDowell, Kathy Najimy, Tatum O’Neal, Michelle Pfeiffer, Kyra Sedgwick, and Debra Winger. Pix of the final three – Beals, Demi Moore and Leslie Wing – were shown to the studio’s construction guys by Paramount suits asking: “Which of these women do you most wanna fuck?” Dissolve.
- Rebecca De Mornay, Risky Business, 1983. She missed being Lana in the film that made Tom Cruise. Then again, Tom missed the film that made Stone – Basic Instinct, 1991.
- Daryl Hannah, Splash, 1983.
A mermaid? Moi? That’s what they all said, more or less. Except Debra Winger who longed to be Madison. (Director Ron Howard did not agree). The full 19 options were… Hannah, Rosanna Arquette, Jodie Foster (she was booked into The Hotel New Hampshire), General Hospital soap queen Genie Francis, Melanie Griffith, Diane Lane, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tatum O’Neal, Michelle Pfeiffer, Molly Ringwald, Tanya Roberts (booked for Sheena: Queen of the Jungle), Ally Sheedy, Brooke Shields (studying French Literature at Princeton), Sharon Stone, Kathleen Turner, Lisa Whelchel (from The Facts of Life, 1979-1988), Debra Winger. Plus two Brits, Lynne Frederick and Fiona Fullerton – impressive as the daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra, 1970. Oh and PJ Soles, who was originally chosen to co-star with… Bill Murray – as Disney’s new (“adult”) Touchstone unit rushed Splash into production to beat Warren Beatty’s similar “half-human-half-kipper” tail. Mermaid. - Linda Hamilton, The Terminator, 1983. In all, 55 actresses were considered, seen or tested for Sarah Connor (aged 18; Linda was 27) opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger. Auteur James Cameron created Sarah for Bridget Fonda. She passed; so did Tatum O’Neal. He decided to go older… and Glenn Close won – her schedule didn’t agree. OK, Kate Capshaw! No, she was tied to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom – and Kathleen Turner was Romancing The Stone. Debra Winger won her audition, said yes… then no. The other 48 ladies were The ’80s Group: Stone, Rosanna Arquette, Kim Basinger, Christy Brinkley, Colleen Camp, Glenn Close, Jamie Lee Curtis, Geena Davis, Judy Davis, Mia Farrow, Carrie Fisher, Jodie Foster, Teri Garr, Jennifer Grey, Melanie Griffith, Darryl Hannah, Barbara Hershey, Anjelica Huston, Amy Irving, Diane Keaton, Margot Kidder, Diane Lane, Jessica Lange, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kay Lenz, Heather Locklear, Lori Loughlin, Kelly McGillis, Kristy McNichol, Michelle Pfeiffer, Deborah Raffin, Meg Ryan, Susan Sarandon, Ally Sheedy, Cybill Shepherd, Brooke Shields, Sissy Spacek, Lea Thompson, Sigourney Weaver… one aerobics queen, Bess Motta (she became Sarah’s room-mate, Ginger Ventura), two singers, (Madonna, Liza Minnelli), two Brits (Miranda Richardson, Jane Seymour), five essentially funny girls, Goldie Hawn, Rhea Perlman (Mrs Danny De Vito), Gilda Radner, Mary Tyler Moore… plus the new MTM, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, from Saturday Night Live. Most were in contention again a few years later for Fatal Attraction (won by Close) and The Accused (going to Foster and McGillis). Ten years later (after T2), Linda gave birth to Cameron’s daughter and Josephine’s parents wed in 1997… for two years.
- Kate Capshaw, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, 1983.
- Elisabeth Shue, Adventures in Babysitting, 1986. Back in the 60s, teenage babysitter Chris Parker was set for Jane Fonda. By the 80s, her logical heir, her neice Bridget, was just not interested. Julia Louis-Dreyfus was signed, followed by Jodie Foster, then it became a battle between Kathleen Turner (the fourth #1 choice), Stone, Justine Bateman, Valerie Bertinelli, Judy Davis, Melanie Griffith, Andie MacDowell, Kelly McGillis (spurned by director Christopher Columbus), Tatum O’Neal (who simply refused), Michelle Pfeiffer (quit for The Witches of Eastwick), Brooke Shields.
- Jennifer Grey, Dirty Dancing, 1986.
The “million dollar title” was dreamt up by Eleanor Bergstein before starting her script about her earlier years – ”a porno title,” complained Patrick Swazye! MGM, Miramax, Orion, Warner, Universal, they all rejected the project as “too girly.” Hadn’t they seen Flashdance? (Even Paramount passed and it had made Flashdance!).Deciding to make movies, Vestron Video supplied the meagre budget after falling for the story among 4,999 other dumped scenarios. Mindy Cohn (Velma ‘s voice in the Scooby-Doo! toons) was an unavailable first choice for Baby Houseman. Next? Sarah Jessica Parker, Winona Ryder, Sharon Stone, while Bergstein (who’d picked Swayze) saw Pia Zadora as her younger self. Off to her audition, Jennifer Grey said to her father, Cabaret star Joel Grey: “Wish me luck, Daddy.” She didn’t need it. Although ten years older than Baby, she nailed it. The girls and guys (Benicio Del Toro, Patrick Swayze, Billy Zane, Adrien Zmed among the Johnnies), interchanged in further tests to find The Couple. Jennifer Grey begged: “Anyone but Patrick!” They had a good/bad history filming Red Dawn, 1983, but put their differences aside. After all… “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.” Vestron was not sure what it hard and asked The Rose producer Aaron Russo to take a look. His advice: “Burn the negative and collect the insurance”! The little film that grew is still making $1m per year… The fllm’s hit song – (I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” – led to something new at weddings: You can now lift the bride… (Oh and Swayze turned down $6m or the sequel). - Victoria Tenant, Flowers in the Attic, 1986. Director Jeffrey Bloom (Wes Craven had quit) interviewed many actresses, but no stars, for “My favourite was a very, very young and delightful new actress, Sharon Stone… but couldn’t convince the many producers.” Then, to please the book’s teenage fans with a PG rating, the suits – seven producers, two studios! – re-cut the true story (apparently with a chainsaw), killing all scenes of incest and of Corrine stripping in front of her father to be whipped by her mother… Tenant refused to shoot the crappy new ending and stormed out. Author Virginia C Andrews’ first sequel book, Petals on the Wind, was made for TV as late as 2014, with Heather Graham as Corrine.
- Glenn Close, Fatal Attraction, 1987.
- Kirstie Alley, Cheers, TV, 1987-1993. Kim Cattrall, Marg Helgenberger and Sharon Stone auditioned as Rebecca Howe. Their day would come. Cattrall in 94 chapters of Sex and the City, 1998-2004; Helgenberger solving 265 cases CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, 2000-2015 (her last boss being Mr Cheers, himself, Ted Danson); and Stone going commando in Basic Instinct in 1992.
- Sean Young, The Boost, 1987. Seen for the luckless wife, Linda, in an anti-drug treatise seen as an updated Death of a Salesman by Chicago critic Roger Ebert. “Not simply about drugs. It is also about the hedonistic lifestyles of the 1980… with James Woods out there on a smile, a shoeshine and a line of cocaine.” Sharon loved to kid James Woods: “You didn’t cast me in The Boost!” Jimmy replies: “Look, I paid the price!” – in a notoriously bad-ending affair with Young.
- Jodie Foster, The Accused, 1988.
An awful thing to say. Except it is true. Jodie Foster would never have won her (first) Oscar for this trenchant drama – if actress Kelly McGillis had not been raped in 1982… At first, the role of the rape victim Sarah Tobias was written for Andie MacDowell. She passed. The Paramount suits then saw 34 other young actresses for the (real life) victim. Or, for their own rape bait fantasies – including 16-year-old Alyssa Milano! Foster was refused a test because she was “not sexy enough”! And, anyway, the studio had decided upon McGillis, a high flyer in Paramount’s Witness and Top Gun. And, naturally, she refused point-blank! She knew what it was to be brutally raped and Kelly had no wish to revisit the horror and pain of her own assault six years earlier. The suits were annoyed. They needed her. She was hot at the box-office, their box-office. They had made her a star!! Eventually, McGillis agreed to play Sarah’s defence attorney – on condition that unsexy Jodie played Sarah! The suits caved, tested Foster and the rest is Oscar history… So is the huge list of talent also seen for Sarah. Starting with the Fatal Attraction also-rans: Stone, Rosanna Arquette, Ellen Barkin, Kim Basinger, Jennifer Beals, Jennifer Grey, Melanie Griffith, Linda Hamilton, Darryl Hannah, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Diane Keaton, Demi Moore, Kelly Preston, Meg Ryan, Jane Seymour, Meryl Streep, Debra Winger. And moving on to the younger Justine Bateman, Valerie Bertinelli, Phoebe Cates, Jennifer Connelly, Judy Davis, Kristin Davis, Bridget Fonda, Annabeth Gish, Mariel Hemingway, Virginia Madsen, Brigitte Nielsen, Tatum O’Neal, Molly Ringwald, Mia Sara, Ally Sheedy, Brooke Shields, Uma Thurman. Oh, and Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, said the suits, was “too nice.” Rape victims shouldn’t be nice? Oh, Hollywood! - Kim Basinger, Batman, 1988.
- Nicole Kidman, Days of Thunder, 1989. Dr Claire Lewicki was aimed at all the usual misses. Stone, Kim Basinger, Sandra Bullock Jodie Foster, Heather Locklear, Madonna, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michelle Pfeiffer, Molly Ringwald, Julia Roberts, Meg Ryan, Ally Sheedy Brooke Shields, Robin Wright. And a newcomer in Alison Doody. They all passed what was a formulaic Tom Cruise movie – ie, all about Cruise as a cocky young talent, with an older mentor, older (even taller) woman, and surpassing his enemies… literally, in this chapter, as a Daytona NASCAR driver. He chose Kidman, after seeing Dead Calm, and promptly married her: 1990-2001 And she learned about superstar formulas. When she begged time to study neurosurgery for her surgeon’s role, she was told, basically, not to be so silly.
- Madonna, Dick Tracy, 1989. High on the list of the titular star and director Warren Beatty for chanteuse Breathless Mahoney were Kim Basinger, Michelle Pfeiffer and Sharon Stone. Thery did not stand much chance when Warren Beatty, the square-jawed hero and director, was (as usual) grooming his latest lover for the role of… Breathless Mahoney. When told Madonna wanted to kiss her, Stone commente d: “Not in this lifetime. Why? Because I’m the only one she hasn’t done it to.”
- Penelope Ann Miller, Dead Bang, 1990.
Looking for a partner for Don Johnson, director John Frankenheimer told me how he was “just bowled over by this beautiful girl who can act” on TV’s War and Remembrance – Sharon. “I had a terrific fight with my producer. ‘You can’t use her. She looks exactly like Don Johnson!’ I said: You’re crazy. If Don Johnson looked like that, I’d be married to him!” She made Frankenheimer’s next film, The Year of the Gun. “I never offered it to anyone else.” - Lena Olin, Havana, 1990. Robert Redford and director Sydney Pollack’s seventh (and worst) film came from a Judith Rascoe script, shelved since the 70s. Now it was touted as a 90s’ Casablanca, teaming Redford with…. Well, he wanted Michelle Pfeiffer (he had to wait until 1995’s Up Close and Personal) or Brazilian Sonia Braga from his second directing gig, The Milagro Beanfield War, 1987. Sharon Stone was also seen until some suit said, “Hey, wasn’t the Casblanca dame Swedish?” Enter: Olin of the Ingmar Bergman “family.” And like Braga before her, Lena immediately had an affair with Redford.
- Madonna, Dick Tracy, 1990. Not quite Sharon’s year… She did not stand much chance when Warren Beatty, the square-jawed hero and director, was (as usual) grooming his latest lover for the role of… Breathless Mahoney. When told Madonna a said she wanted to kiss her, Stone commented: “Not in this lifetime. Why? Because I’m the only one she hasn’t done it to.”
- Catherine O’Hara, Home Alone, 1990. For the zero roles of Macauley Culkin’s forgetful parents (in a film written for and duly stolen by him), an astonishing 66 stars were considered – including 32 later seen for the hot lovers in Basic Instinct:Kim Basinger, Stockard Channing, Glenn Close, Kevin Costner, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Douglas, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, Linda Hamilton, Daryl Hannah, Marilu Henner, Anjelica Huston, Helen Hunt, Holly Hunter, Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, Christopher Lloyd, Jack Nicholson, Sean Penn, Michelle Pfeiffer, Annie Potts, Kelly Preston, Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, Martin Sheen, Sylvester Stallone, Sharon Stone, John Travolta. Other near Moms were Kirstie Alley, Lynda Carter, Kim Cattrall, Geena Davis, Laura Dern, Jennifer Grey, Gates McFadden, Kelly McGillis, Bette Midler, Ally Sheedy, Mary Steenburgen, Debra Winger… and the inevitable unknown: Maureen McCormick, part of The Brady Bunch for seven 1981 chapters.
- Virginia Madsen, Highlander ii: The Quickening, UK-France-Argentina, 1990. Oh, lucky day for Sharon! Madsen being picked for Louise (she had been up for Heather in the first chapter) saved Stone from “he worst film of 1991, according to top critic Roger Ebert. And being an ”investment” target by all the Argentine swindlers trying to separate Sean Connery, Christophe(r) Lambert, etc, from their money- d succeeding in Lambert’s case.
- Annette Bening, Bugsy, 1991. Warren Beatty hired auteur pal James Toback to pen a script about the Las Vegas creator gangster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. The script arrived six years later! Beatty, also directing, wanted Michelle Pfieffer as his lover, Hollywood starlet Virginia Hill. Michelle passed, Stone was seen, Bening agreed – and against all the odds, after all the major conquests of his amazing sex life (Julie Christie, Joan Collins, Diane Katon, Madonna, Barbra Streisand, Natalie Wood and an ridicoulusly guestimated 12,769 others), Beatty married her in 1992 and they had four children. Love at first sight. “He let out this growl,” Toback told Beatty biographer Peter Biskind. “A primordial yelp of love, lust, desire, enthusiasm…”
- Sean Young, Blue Ice, 1992. Stone rolled – due to a little something that came up called Basic Instinct. Good for her and tough for Young as this first (and last) movie from Michael Caine’s M&M (!) Productions closely resembled the mess left by horses after the Lord Mayor of London’s Parade passed by. Caine was Harry Anders. Not Harry Palmer. ’Nuff said?
- Bridget Fonda, Point Of No Return, 1992. “Every actress wanted this role – the right age or not,” laughed director John Badham, about re-treading Luc Besson’s French Nikita. “I definitely wanted someone young. Otherwise it’s like casting Diana Ross in The Wiz.” Jodie Foster had little hesitation in refusing. Winona Ryder also passed… while director John Badham (!) somehow spurned Halle Berry, Daryl Hannah, Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts and Sharon Stone for the hit-woman.
- Nancy Travis, So I Married an Ax Murderer, 1992. Mike Myers aims to be a poet – and a bachelor – but falls for Harriet. Played by… well, Kim Basinger didn’t want to know. Stone did as long as she could make it a dual role. No way, thundered the studio suits, Why not?
- Amanda Plummer, So I Married an Ax Murderer, 1992. … Because Columbia had already buttered up Myers by letting him double up as Charlie and his Scottish father. Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers was surprised he didn’t play Charlie’s horny Irish mother, as well.
- Rene Russo, In the Line of Fire, 1993. Nobody in their right minds turns down Clint Eastwood! Gossip says she stonewalled for a “major rewrite.” “Clint’s divine but there was nothing to the part.” She suggested the “cool” notion of changing John Malkovich’s villain to a villainess. “Truth is,” she says, “the script, as it existed, was perfect.”
- Meg Ryan, Sleepless In Seattle, 1993. Beaten to it after Julia Roberts quit negotiations. “I never felt like The Project came along after Basic Instinct.” True.
- Michelle Pfeiffer, Wolf, 1994. No to Clint Eastwood, now no to Jack Nicholson and Mike Nichols. “I read it when it was about a man who so disliked people, he became a wolf so he didn’t have to deal with them anymore. And he had this veterinarian girlfriend. Then, I read a more recent script that lost its source of humour, where she was sort of a weird hippie kinda chick.”
- Halle Berry, The Flintstones, 1994. Stripping off with Sylvester Stallone in The Specialist prevented her taking on the (one joke) slinky secretary called Sharon Stone. Halle took it on as Rosetta Stone. Berry and Stone had one helluva fight (nine days of shooting) as heroine and villain in Catwoman, 2004.
- Nancy Travis, So I Married An Axe Murderer, 1993. Tri-Star would not agree to her idea of playing both parts…
- Amanda Plummer, So I Married An Axe Murderer, 1993. … the wife and her sister. So, she wasn’t interested.
- Lolita Davidovich, Intersection, 1994.
“I was offered the other part. Several times.” The full team, Richard Gere, director Mark Rydell, scenarist Marshall Brickman, assumed she’d want the sexy mistress. Never assume about Sharon… She insisted on testing to prove she had the depth to play a wife and mother. “She improvised right on the spot,” said Gere. And got the wife – and $3m. “People tend to say it was eroticism and exposure of her pubic hair that made her a star,” said Rydell. “She’s one of the best actresses we have.” Not enough to save this (running on empty) re-make of Les choses de la vie, France, 1970. - Rosie O’Donnell, Exit To Eden, 1994. No SM for SS. Rosie only took the role because Stone refused to visit the hedonistic island resort from Anne Rice’s novel. Director Garry Marshall then prettywomanised it into a (flop) comedy For Chicago critic Roger Ebert, Rosie was akin to fingernails scraping a blackboard. “She’s harsh and abrupt and staccato and doesn’t seem to be having any fun. She looks mean.“
- Bridgette Wilson, Mortal Kombat, 1994. For the (weak) movie of the video-game, Stone, Cameron Diaz and Dina Meyer (from Starship Troopers) were beaten to hardboiled cop Sonya Blade by… well, she was still plain Wilson at the time, five years before marrying a certain US tennis champ and becoming Bridgette Wilson-Sampras
- Gina Gershon, Showgirls, 1995. Aka Thrashdance! Sharon auditioned even after all her pubic-flash complaints about the same Dutch director Paul Verhoeven on Basic Instinct. Writer Joe Eszterhas interviewed 50-plus strippers and, aided by Hawaiian weed, came up with All About Eve in Vegas. Unable to land his dream mix of Madonna and Drew Barrymore as the 90s’ Bette Davis and Anne Baxter, the Dutch director decided to create his own star in Elizabeth Berkley. And failed – ruining poor Elizabeth Berkley’s career. (No A-List film since 2001). Also in the mix for top strip star Cristal Connors were Daryl Hannah, Finola Hughes, Sean Young and in “my worst ever audition,” Jennifer Lopez. Gershon refused to reprise S Stone’s leg-crossing from the previous Verhoven-Eszterhas titillation, Basic Instinct- for which Hannah had been seen.
- Linda Fiorentino, Jade, 1995. Wise to avoid a third Joe Eszterhas script. Particularly one re-honed – ruined! – by director William Friedkin. He made it more plop than flop; a second Eszterhas script eviscerated by the critics within three weeks.
- Uma Thurman, Batman & Robin, 1996.
- Kate Winslet, Titanic, 1997.
- Al Pacino, The Devil’s Advocate, 1997. As the script hung around (hurt by the similar Tom Cruise movie, The Firm), Sharon was suggested as Satan. No comment.
- Jennifer Lopez, U Turn, 1997. Stone vs Stone! A new flavour had hit town and suited auteur Oliver Stone’s wallet. Sharon had wanted more money than J Lo for screwing Sean Penn on a pile of banknotes!
- Cate Blanchett, Oscar And Lucinda, Australia, 1997. Gillian Armstrong defied the Money Men’s advice and stuck to the local girl making good in Bruce Beresford’s Paradise Road. “It’s a testament to the power of Australian directors, who will not compromise their artistic integrity,” praised Cate. “I’m filled with admiration and gratitude.” And talent.
- Julia Ormond, Sibirskiy tsiryulnik/The Barber of Siberia, Russia, 1998. Sharon obviously sensed it would never match the beauteous magic of Dark Eyes by the same director, Nikita Mikhalkov, in 1987.
- Uma Thurman, The Avengers, 1998. The big-screen’s Emma Peel needed some pizzazz. Instead, as one UK critic, it got smug and spacey.
- Sophie Marceau, The World Is Not Enough, 1999.
- Winona Ryder, Mr Deeds, 2002. One of the offers she had to refuse on while waiting for Basic Instinct II. Or, so she claimed when suing producers Andrew Vajna and Mario Kassar. Surely having to miss an Adam Sandler film is something to thank them for!
- Keira Knightley, Domino, 2004. “My agenda is to kick ass.” Domino was the daughter of UK star Laurence Harvey and model Paulene Stone and became a model, herself, before switching to Bounty Hunter of the Year in 2003. Director Tony Scott was a friend and spent ten years searching for a script more inspired by her than wholly based on her short life. (She ODed at 35 in 2005). He thought of Jennifer Lopez Lopez and Sharon Stone, before removing KK from her usual corsets The result was ”fractured and maddening, but it’s alive,” said Chicago Roger Ebert, with, as someone said of one of the characters, “the attention span of a ferret on crystal meth.” (She deserved better).
- Adrianne Palicki. Wonder Woman, TV, 2011. The DC comicbook heroine had not been seen on screens since Lynda Carter ended her four year reign on ABC in 1979. Time then, said Warner, for a new movie. DC’s testosterone duo, Batman and Superman, had cleaned up, now it up to the beautiful superhuman Amazon warrior Princess Diana of Themysacira, her Lasso of Truth, her indestructible bracelets and (honest) her invisible plane. With who…? Across a decade of plans by producers as diverse as Joel Silver (so wrong) and Joss Whedon (so right), 24 beauties were in the frame: from Sharon (in 2000) to Whedon’s favourite, Cobie Smulders. Then, the film morphed into an updated TV series by David E Kelley – that, too, was dead after the rushed pilot. Palicki was the sole actress considered for TV – she was previously seen by George Miller for WW in his aborted Justice League, in 2008.
- Julia Roberts, The Normal Heart, TV, 2013. Stone, Annette Bening, Julia (who passed first time around) and, of course, Barbra Streisand were due to play AIDS researcher Dr Emma Brookner as La Barb spent ten “earnest and passionate” years trying to mount and direct a screen version of the Larry Kramer’s 1985 play. He complained he’d be dead before she managed it – nothing, of course, to do with him insisting on $1m for his script which must be used without changes He next accused Streisand of making Emma the most important role, when she only offered to play her, as well as helming, to help raise a budget. Kramer couldn’t give it away over the next decade, until TV hot-shot Ryan Glee Murphy talked HBO into a deal.
- Joely Richardson, Papa, Canada-Cuba-US, 2014. “Chaotic! Nutty! Every day a new drama. But you know… it’s up there with my best experiences. Fantastic!” Joely on playing Ernest Hemingway’s fourth wife, Mary, in the first US feature to shoot in Cuba since the 1959 revolution. Richardson was seven years Stone’s junior. Veteran Adrian Sparks played Hemingway, his chief stage role since 2005.
- Demi Moore, Corporate Animals, TV, 2019. Scheduling forced Stone to leave the dragon lady bosss to Mooere – taking her staff for a team-building weekend in Mexican caves. It‘s been dcne before. Only better.
- Michelle Pfeiffer, Ant-Man and the Wasp, 2018. Evangeline Lilly reprised her 2014 Ant-Manrole of Hope Van Dyne, and wanted Pfeiffer to be her mother – and predecessor as the Wasp – in this first sequel. Michael Douglas, who played Hope’s father, naturally suggested his wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones, while some Marvel suits voted for Douglas’ most infamous co-star, Sharon Stone. When the role had been in the first film, Ant-Men, 2014, Rashida Jones and Emma Stone had been nominated and Mary Elizabeth Winsatead tried to win the part.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 55