- Ralph Macchio, The Karate Kid, 1983. The surprise hit had been aimed at Nicolas Cage, Jim Carrey, Tom Cruise, Jon Cryer, Robert Downey Jr, Kyle Eastwood, Anthony Edwards, Crispin Glover, Sean Penn, Eric Stoltz, brothers Emilio Esteves and Charlie Sheen and the Initialers Michael J Fox, C Thomas Howell, D B Sweeney. At 22, looking 16, Macchio made Daniel LaRusso (ex-Weber) his own in four films and two video-games… and named his son Daniel. The Character is claimed by many but was based on the early life of scenarist Robert Mark Kamen. “It’s a great coming-of-age story,” said Macchio. And 40 years later, and people still stop him in the street to quote dialogue at him.
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Kevin Dillon, Platoon, 1986.
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John Cusack, Hot Pursuit, 1987. “I took my shirt off for the director because he wanted to know what he had to work with in terms of muscle – in my case, nothing. That was unsettling and I didn’t get the part.”
- Matthew Perry, Friends, 1994-2004.
- Joshua Malina, The West Wing, 2002-2006. Rob Lowe wanted out of the series – best take on US politics since Advise & Consent in 1961. Jon Cryer, Dermot Mulroney, Judd Nelson and even Home Aloner Macauley Culkin were in the mix for the new Will Bailey character while Lowe became a US Senator as his get-out storyline. Lowe returned for the final two episodes in 2006, to assist the new Prez, Jimmy Smits. By 2007, Lowe was running for President in TV’s Brothers & Sisters. Malina was a pal of creator Aaron Sorkin – in everything Sorkin had written from A Few Good Men onwards.
- James Callis, Battlestar Galactica, TV, 2004-2009. He was in good time, but this time a Brit beat him to the forever changing role of Dr Gaius Baltar – occupying Callis for 73 hours.
- Michael C Hall, Dexter, TV, 2006-2014. The Showtime cable network shortlisted 14 stars, from the impossible to the plausible (Tom Cruise, Macauley Culkin, Sean Penn, James Spader) for the Miami Metro PD bloodstain pattern analyst moonlighting as a serial killer… of killers escaping justice.
- Dane Cook, Planes, 2012. Flying Cars… Cryer quit early on and for inexplicable reasons, the un-funny Jimmy Fallon was next suggested.. Then, Disney thought again. Wisely. And Cook became Dusty Crophopper a single-engine crop-duster with sky-high ambitions and just one problem. No head for heights.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 7