Rachael Leigh Cook

  1. Reese Witherspoon, Pleasantville, 1997.   Or Nerdville, said the Jennifer she didn’t play in the year’s most original US movie.  Shot in  colour and  black-and-white.  Sometimes both. Another triplet, Melissa Joan Hart, was also tested. 
  2. Rebecca Gayheart, Jawbreaker, 1998. She read for Julie – using the scene where she discovers Liz is dead in the Heathers-Clueless-Carrie cocktail.
  3. Anna Paquin, X-Men  quartet, 1999-2013.    “Mutation: it is the key to our evolution.”  RLC and the Canadian Katharine Isabelle were the main contenders for Marie D’Ancanto/Rogue. Followed by Kirsten Dunst, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Christina Ricci. Natalie Portman rejected the rôle… but  changed her mind about comix as Jane Foster in the Marvelverse Thor and Avengers movies. (RLC and Paquin  were co-starred in She’s All That, 1999).
  4. Jodie Foster, Inside Man, 2005. She rejected Spike Lee’s invite to be Madeleine White. With good reason. She’d read the script, Chicago critic Rogert Ebert never understoodwho or what Madeleine was. “She’s one of those characters who is all buildup and no delivery” in a thriller “that’s curiously reluctant to get to the payoff.”
  5. Katherine Heigl, Knocked Up, 2006.
  6. Christa Campbell, Hero Wanted, 2007. Luckily for her, RLC fell out oif this direct-to-DVD number.Everyone has a guardian angel. 
  7. Ashley Greene, Twilight, 2008. Hit novelist Stephenie Meyer cast the film version her way- and very well. Including the Dawson’s Creek TV findas Alice Cullen. Then,Hollywood got intothe (inevitable) franchise… and went younger. 

 

 

 

 Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls:  7