- Max Irons, Red Hiding Hood, 2010.
Claflin and Irons battled for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Sam won) and also for Red Hiding Hood (Max won). “I felt so dirty afterwards,” said the titular Amanda Seyfried after testing – ie kissing – so many competitors for the role of Peter (and Henry). “It’s gross actually,” she told the BBC. “I was required to make out with each of them – and you don’t know what they’re going to do. I wanted to give each guy the best. I didn’t want to give Shiloh Fernandez more than I gave Max Irons or any of the other guys. I was trying to be so good. I was just exhausted – so was my mouth.” - Eddie Redmayne, My Week with Marilyn, 2010. Destiny… Claflin auditoned for Colin Clarke, author of the memoir of the making of The Prince and the Showgirl with Monroe and Laurence Olivier in London, 1956. A certain Laura Haddock also tested for Marilyn. The two hopefuls met up, went out, wed in 2013 and had a child by 2018.
- Kit Harrington, Game of Thrones, TV, 2011-2017. “I auditioned for Jon Snow but then I got Pirates of the Caribbean.” The Hunger Games star and Welsh musician Iwan Rheon were also in the mix for the main GoT hero, Jon Snow. Shakespeare without the words.
- Harry Lloyd, Game of Thrones, TV, 2011. Claflin was also seen for Viserys Targaryen – won by another Brit, Lloyd of London… in the HBO colossus based on George R R Martin’s fantasy novel series, A Song of Ice and Fire, following the bloodthirsty family battles for the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdomsfive.
- Armie Hammer, Mirror Mirror, 2011. Having lost Prince Andrew in this fairy tale reboot, Claflin won William in the rival project, Snow White and the Huntsman.’Twas vice-versa for this film’s Ms White, Lily Collins, who had lost the Huntsman gig.
- Ben Barnes, The Seventh Son, 2012. When Alex Pettyfer changed his mind, Russian director Sergey Bodrov tested Claflin, Shiloh Fernandez, James Frecheville, Caleb Landry Jones… for the medieval apprentice to the seventh son of a seventh son (Jff Bridges) protecting all from witches, boggarts, ghouls and… maybe even film critics.
- Douglas Booth, Romeo and Juliet, Italy-Switzerland-UK-US, 2013. Forty-six years after the Franco Zeffirelli version another Italian’s take – from TV director Carlo Carlei. “So what fresh meat does this 2013 rehash bring to the table?” asked Austin Chronicle critic Kimberley Jones “Startlingly little, unless you favour the flavour of staggering insipidness,” was her reply. “Where,” she concluded, were the full-bodied “violent delights” of Shakespeare’s play (adapted by scenarist Julian Fellowes, Oscar-winner for Gosford Park, Emmy-winner for creating all those Crawleys in Downton Abbey). Booth won Romeo from fellow Brits Sam Claflin, Benjamin Gur and Hollywood’s Josh Hutcherson and Logan Lerman.
- Sam Reid, Belle, 2012. Change of lawyer – and indeed, suitor – for the Royal Navy Captain’s daughter, Dido Belle, “blessed with freedom twice over, as a Negro and as a woman” in 18th Century Britain. In an asinine WGA union farce, the script was officlly credited to Misan Sagay, who never wrote a word of it. The London actress-auteur did it all.
- Dane DeHaan, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, 2013.
- Charlie Hunnam, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, 2015. On Warner shelves almost as long as Justice League, David Dobkins’ Arthur & Lancelot, churned into Guy Ritchie’s Knights of the Roundtable: King Arthur as the first of a possible sextet (but there are no Hobbits!). During which time, the guy pulling the sword from the stone was to be Claflin, Dominic Cooper, Colin Farrell, Kit Harington, Liam Hemsworth, the Scottish Hans Matheson (from Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, 2009), Jim Sturgess or Benjamin Walker. Then, Hunnam promised director Ritchie he’d recover his Sons of Anarchy weight loss and then some. Furthermore, dude, he was ready to rumble with the his final rivals, Henry Cavill (Ritchie’s Man From UNCLE) and Jai Courtney. “Bring ’em both in here. I’ll fight ’em both. The one who walks out the door gets the job!”
- Diego Luna, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, 2015. Candidates for Cassian Andor also included Sam Claflin (Hunger Games’ Finnick Odair), Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad’sJesse) and Edgar Ramirez (aka Carlos). Buit it was Donnie Yen as Chirrut Îmwewho finally spoke the line as first penned by George Lucas in 1976: “May the Force of others be with you.”
- Freddie Thorp, Overdrive, 2016. Cast and curious… The car-stealing brothers went from Matthew Goode and Alex Pettyfer to Karl Urban and Ben Barnes to Urban and Sam Claflin to, finally, Scott Eastwood and Freddie Thorp. If only as much timee had been spent on changing the script, a cut-and-paste copy-cat giving B-movies a bad name.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 12