- Charlie Sheen, Platoon, 1986.
- Craig Sheffer, Some Kind of Wonderful, 1986. Auteur John Hughes hated his 1985 Pretty in Pink ending (as much as Molly Ringwald hated the dress). He respun it for yet another teen triangle. However, Ringwald cut loose. The star discovery of his first three hits wanted out of schooldaze. “I can’t be 16 forever.” Hughes was furious and never worked with her again… Later, Eric Stoltz recommended Thompson – and she fell for their director Howard Deutch, wed him, and had two daughters. Loving her freedom, Molly sent up the Hughes canon in Not Another Teen Movie, 2001.
- Sean Bean, Stormy Monday, 1987. Bean’s breakthrough… Debuting UK director Mike Figgis voted Bean. Or, to tell the truth, the film’s star, Melanie Griffith, did. She had the last word. About who would be her screen lover. Makes sense…
- Bill Pullman, The Serpent and the Rainbow, 1987. Horrorsmith Wes Craven offered it to every leading man “as far down as Kyle MacLachlan.” Charming!
- James Spader, sex, lies and videotape, 1989. The David Lynch oddity was too obvious an idea. Spader won Best Actor in the Best Film at the ’89 Cannes festival.
- Val Kilmer, Top Gun, 1986. Just too straight a role!
- Kevin Costner, JFK, 1991.
- Campbell Scott, The Innocent, 1992. Director Jon Amiel’s choice – Willem Dafoe-Lena Olin – became John Schlesinger’s Scotty, quite a MacLachlan lookalike. Ironically, Kyle made Kafka’s The Trial at the same time – also with Anthony Hopkins.
- Craig Sheffer, A River Runs Through It, 1992. Movieline magazine critics said MacLachlan sure looked the part. The director wanted more than looks. He knew all about that – he was Robert Redford.
- Gary Oldman, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, 1992. Director Francis Coppola decided to make the old legend “younger, very erotic, very romantic and very horrific.” Losing his favourites – Jeremy Irons, Daniel Day-Lewis – he looked at everyone else, mainly during auditions at his Napa Valley estate… MacLachlan, Armand Assante, Antonio Banderas, Nick Cassavetes, Nicolas Cage, Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Andy Garcia, Hugh Grant, Ray Liotta, Costas Mandylor, Viggo Mortensen, Dermot Mulroney, Michael Nouri (a long way from Flashdance), Adrian Pasdar, Jason Patric, Aiden Quinn, Keanu Reeves, Alan Rickman, Christian Slater and Sting.
- Patrick Swayze, To Wong Fu, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar, 1995. Drag was respectable after Terence Stamp traversed that route in Australian’s Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, 1994. So, why make something less impresssive?
- Paul McGann, Doctor Who (The Movie), TV, 1996.
- Eric Roberts, Doctor Who (The Movie), TV, 1996. Hollywood goes Who. Why? For the pilot of a USeries to exhume the BBC science-fiction cult, buried since it ran out of puff after 26 seasons in 1989. As if to prove this was big deal LA in action (!), some 63 actors were listed for Doc8 and a further 71(well, some were on both lists, MacLachlan included) for his foe, The Master. Such as… James Bond, Caligula, Dracula, Gandhi, Freddy Krueger, Magnum, Jean-Luc Picard, Han Solo, Spock and – hey, they’re doctors! – Emmett Brown and Frank-N-Furter. Aka… Timothy Dalton, Malcolm McDowell, Christopher Lee, Ben Kingsley, Robert Englund, Tom Selleck, Patrick Stewart, Harrison Ford, Leonard Nimoy, Christopher Lloyd. Tim Curry. And a certain FBI Agent Dale Cooper!
- Michael Douglas, The Game, 1996. Jodie Foster pissed off director David Fincher and his star, Michael Douglas, by wanting to play Michael’s daughter rather than his sister….which is why she became a brother (offered to Jeff Bridges and Sean Penn). But it had been all so peaceful three years earlier when Jonathan Mostow was due to direct MacLachan and Bridget Fonda.
- Liam Neeson, Star Wars – Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace, 1997.
- Hugh Laurie, House, MD, TV, 2004-2012. David Cross, Patrick Dempsey, Denis Leary and Rob Morrow were in the medical mix for the extremely anti-social doctor. Plus MacLachlan. But, he said, “it was one of the worst auditons of my life.”
- Ben Affleck, Hollywoodland, 2005. How TV’s first Superman, George Reeves, lived – and died. Also in the supermix: MacLachlan and Hugh Jackman. Kyle sure had the hair for it… and had already been The Spirit of Cary Grant in Touch of Pink, 2004.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 17