- Juliette Lewis, Cape Fear, 1991. In Martin Scorsese’s mix for Danielle Bowden. Jessica Lange’s daughter. Robert De Niro’s prey. Neve had refused to be a red swimsuited babe on Baywatch, TV, 1989-2001.
- Liv Tyler, Armageddon, 1998. The Scream films made her hotter than the TV series she was stuck in: Party of Five.
- GretchenMol, Rounders, 1998. Committed to Scream 2.
- Amanda Schull, Center Stage, 2000. Hey, she’d already done herballet drama – and co-produced it with her iconic director, Robert Altman.
- Jennifer Connelly, Requiem for a Dream, 1999. Campbell refused because nudity was necessary as Marion spiraled downwards from wannabe designer to hooker to pay for her drugs. Maybe Campbell (or her agent?) did not know what another of novelist Hubert Selby Jr’s characters – Tralala in Last Exit to Brooklyn – had done for Jennifer Jason Leigh in 1988 or had never seen Pi, the hallucinatory 1997 debut of auteur Darren Aronofsky. Connelly was, as always, superb in a cast where, as Roger Ebert neatly put it, “”we recognise the actors, but barely.” finally made it – with most of their US cast doing its best to sound like De Niro.
- Kate Hudson, Almost Famous, 2000. Looking for his Penny Lane groupie in his semi-autobiographical look back to his Rolling Stone reporter daze, auteur Cameron Crowe saw 48 of LA’s bright young things… Christina Applegate, Selma Blair, Lara Flynn Boyle, Neve Campbell, Jennifer Connelly, Claire Danes, Cameron Diaz, Kirsten Dunst, Eliza Dushku, Jenna Elfman, Jennie Garth, Maggie Gyllenhal, Alyson Hannigan, Angie Harmon, Anne Heche, Katherine Heigl, Jordan Ladd, Kimberly McCullough (busier as a TV director these days, High School Musical: The Musical – The Series, etc), Rose McGowan, Bridget Moynahan, Brittany Murphy, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laura Prepon, Lindsay Price, Christina Ricci, Rebecca Romijn, Winona Ryder, Chloë Sevigny, Marley Shelton Tori Spelling, Mena Suvari, Uma Thurman, Liv Tyler, Lark Voorhies. Plus the English Saffron Burrows, Anna Friel, Thandiwe Newton and Rachel Weisz, Madrid’s Penélope Cruz, the French Charlotte Gainsbourg, Canada’s Natasha Henstridge, Ukrainian Milla Jovovich, Scottish Kelly Macdonald, Israeli Natalie Portman, German Franka Potente, Australian Peta Wilson and Welsh Catherine Zeta-Jones. And the winner, Canada’s Sarah Polley, simply split. (Silly girl). Crowe then chose Kate (previously booked for Anita) because “she seemed more like a free spirit.” But, but, but… Chloë was the freest spirit in all Hollywood. As she proved two years later in The Brown Bunny… in a way the others would never have dared.
- Nicole Kidman, Moulin Rouge! 2001. Among the many auditioning to be Satine: from Courtney Love to Catherine Zeta-Jones. “They didn’t have to be big singers,” director Baz Luhrmann explained about his stars, “but they had to be able to move you emotionally. Basically, Ewan [McGregor] and Nicole were the best for the job. That’s the bottom line of it.”
- Julia Stiles, Save the Last Dance, 2001. But hey (again), she’d already done herballet drama – not inthe Chicago ghetto but…
- Kate Beckinsale, Pearl Harbor, 2001. She has forgotten most of the films she turneddown.
- Kirsten Dunst, Spider-Man, 2001.
- Jennifer Garner, Daredevil, 2003. Jennifer Garner, Daredevil, 2002. “How did I become Action Girl?” asked Garner. Because 22 other girls were not punching their weight in TV’s Alias every week. They were Jessica Alba, Jolene Blalock, Neve Campbell, Penelope Cruz, Portia de Rossi, Eliza Dushku, Claire Forlani, Angie Harmon, Salma Hayek, Katie Holmes, Milla Jovovich, Nicole Kidman, Lucy Liu, Mia Maestro, Rhona Mitra, Bridget Moynahan, Natalie Portman, Kyra Sedgwick, Charlize Theron, Reese Witherspoon. Plus the Norwegian ballet dancer Natassia Malthe, who became Typhoid in Garner’s 2004 Elektra spin-off. Garner reportedly KOed the blind hero, Ben Affleck, accidentally in one scene – he still married her three years later!
- Rachel McAdams, Red Eye, 2004. Horrorsmith Wes Craven also saw Neve Campbell, Jennifer Connelly, Claire Danes, Amanda Peet, Rachel Weisz, Robin Wright – and made the right choice.Chicago critic Roger Ebert praised McAdams.Highly. “When she’s stalking a terrorist with a hockey stick, she seems like a real woman stalking a real terrorist with a real hockey stick. It’s not as easy as it sounds.”
- Jodie Foster, The Brave One, 2006. When Foster rushes to the rescue, her price is altering her role… After Kate and Portia De Rossi passed, Neve Campbell and Jose Davis auditioned for Erica – a newspaper reporter until Jodie said that “wasn’t as compelling in terms of the narrative” and made her… a radio reporter. In 2001, she inherited Nicole Kidman’sheroine and immediately changed her from an icy Hitchcockian blonde to a grittier political animal.
- Emily Blunt, Gnomeo and Juliet, 2010. Campbell and Anna Faris were surprise early ideas for Juiietin this red vblue garden gnomes’ take on Shakespeare (voiced by Patrick Stewart) with, of course, producer Elton John’s songbook: Benny and the Jets, Rocketman, Your Song, et al.Bard jokes included houses number 2B and Not 2B and the Rosencranz & Guildenstern moving company,
- Mia Kirshner, The Vampire Diaries, TV, 2010-2011. Canadian beauty for another… No, no, the Party of Fiveseries star was sticking with cinema, thank you very much. Particularly whenthe offered role lasted six weeks.
- Tamsin Egerton, The Lovers (UK: Time Traveller), Australia-Belgium-India, 2013. A most fortuitous pregnancy enabled Campbell to quit what Slant Magazine’s Clayton Dillard put down as “a shamelessly derivative and preposterous would-be blockbuster that goofily fashions itself as a sweeping romance, time-travel sci-fi tale, and gallant period piece all at once.” There was even a character namcd Egerton. The nadir of UK director Roland Joffé’s career was originally called… Singularity. Sez it all.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 16