Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Posted on by Tony CrawleyCategories:Actors

  1. Julia Duffy, Wacko, 1981.   One Julia for another as Mart Graves in a total send-up of horror movies. The cops are hunting the  pumpkin-headed Lawnmower Killer.  Easy, he’s the director  (and future Vanity Fair editor) Greydon Clark. Some characters pinch the name of horror icns Norman Bates, Dr Moreau and Damien and others attend  Alfred Hitchcock High.  Get out! 

  2. Tawny Kitaen, Bachelor Party, 1983.    A dirty little  comedy that was as dramatic, behind the camera, as the  heavier 1956 film of the same name. After one week, head Fox Joe Wizan sacked the leads (Paul Reiser and Kelly McGillis) during rehearsals for bad (or no)  chemistry and spent  three weeks  testing seven new Richies – er, no, now it was Ricky. Jim Carrey, Howie Mandell, Dean Paul Martin, David Naughton  (An American Werewolf in London) and  Tim Robbins were rejected  by Israel. Director Neal Israel.  Just two for The Girl – JLD and Tawny. while  Reiser headed TV’s Mad About You, 1992-1999.  Oh and Bachelor sequel came out… 24 years later. Never met anyone who saw it. But from  six years later,. everyone saw Juia’s abiding glory: Seinfeld, TV, 1990-1998.where she was known by Jerry & Co as  “Jules”.

  3. 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: Arquette, Kim Basinger, Christy Brinkley, Colleen Camp, 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, Sharon Stone, 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, then 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.

  4. 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). “They all” were… JLD, Rosanna Arquette, Melanie Griffith, Jodie Foster (she was booked into The Hotel New Hampshire), General Hospital soap queen Genie Francis, Diane Lane, Tatum O’Neal, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tanya Roberts (booked for Sheena: Queen of the Jungle), Ally Sheedy, Brooke Shields (studying French Literature at Princeton),  PJ Soles, 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.

  5. Elisabeth Shue, Adventures in Babysitting, 1987.      Back in the 60s, teenage babysitter Chris Parker was set for Jane Fonda. By the 80s, her logical heir, her niece Bridget, was just not intersted. Jules was signed, followed by Jodie Foster, then it became a battle between Kathleen Turner (the fourth #1 choice), Justine Bateman, Valerie Bertinelli, Judy Davis, Jodie Foster, Melanie Griffith, Andie MacDowell, Kelly McGillis (spurned by director Christopher Columbus), Tatum O’Neal (who simply fled), Michelle Pfeiffer (preferring The Witches of Eastwick.. until she made it!), Brooke Shields and Sharon Stone.

  6. Glenn Close, Fatal Attraction, 1986.
  7. Kim Basinger, Batman, 1988.

  8. 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 agony 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: 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, Sharon Stone, Meryl Streep, Debra Winger.   And moving on to the younger Melissa Sue Anderson (trying to break her Little House on the Prairie image), Justine Bateman, Valerie Bertinelli, Phoebe Cates, Jennifer Connelly, Joan Cusack, 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!

  9. Crystal Bernard, Wings, TV, 1990-1997.   Jules, Marcia Cross, Lisa Darr, Gina Gershon, Peri Gilpin, Marcia Gay Harden, Megan Mullally, Julianne Moore, Rita Wilson also auditioned for Helen… who finally wed  Tim Daly’s Joe  at the end of the sixth season.
  10. Sharon Stone, Basic  Instinct, 1991. 

  11. Uma Thurman, Pulp Fiction, 1993.
  12. Lolita Davidovich, Stranger Things, 1995.    The director obviously asked for her – he was her Seinfeld co-star Jason Alexander. However, with a young son to look after, “Little Yum-Yum” had no time during her month’s hiatus for this or for…
  13. Glenne Headley, Mr Holland’s Opus, 1995. Would have been Dreyfus and Dreyfuss (Richard)
  14. Mary McCormack, Private Parts, 1997.     Asked to be shock-jock Howard’s wife, she said she craved more time with her, now, two sons.  Hah!  More like she’d read the script.
  15. Teri Hatcher, Desperate Housewives, TV, 2004-2008.    Creator Marc Cherry insisted on auditions for every role. But his A List choices for Susan Mayer – Jules, Calista Flockhart, Mary-Louise Parkert – refused such readings. (Felicity Huffman also refused until her agents persuaded her – and then Cherry made her Lynette).  In 2006, Julia started winning Emmy awards galore for her own hit series. Two of them: The New Adventures of Old Christine, 2006-2010, and The Veep, 2012-2016.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls:  15