- 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. James Cameron auteured 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: Rosanna 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, Jane Seymour, 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, 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.
- Glenn Close, Fatal Attraction, 1986.
- Sinead Cusack, Waterland, 1991. Miranda was first choice for Jeremy Jrons’ wife – finally played by… Jeremy Irons’ wife. In their first film together, Sinead and husband Jeremy Irons separated to get into the right mood. He stayed home with their sons, she moved into a hotel. “It was important that we arrived as actors on the set,” he said, “not a couple who had just left a warm bed together.” Miranda was his next wife in Damage.
- Emma Thompson, Howards End, 1991. Miranda and Joely Richardson (no kin; Joely is Vanessa Redgrave’s daughter, Miranda is not) were also considered for Margaret Schlegel before actor Simon Callow suggested Emma. To the Indian producer Ismail Merchant and US director James Ivory.
- Vanessa Redgrave, Young Catherine, TV, 1991. Dabbling in TV, top UK producer Michael Deeley wanted Lee as Empress Elizabeth of Russia – ”I imagine nothing, I suspect everything. An Empress with no enemies is no Empress.” She was dying of cancer. (Deeley said the titular Julia Ormond, deserved The Greatest Pain in the Ass award).
- Joan Collins, Decadence, 1993. Steven Berkoff’s original sexy stage partner, Linda Marlowe, was rejected by the money men. Miranda and Helen Mirren refused, allowing Joanie to move “effortlessly between the high-born, bored socialite queen and lower middle-class slag.”
- Jessica Lange, Rob Roy, 1995. Already booked in and for Kansas City.bythefavourite director of all actors. Robert Altman. “Acting is just a job,” she told The Times. “The seriousness with which my profession takes itself sometimes goes over the top. I’m not denigrating it in any way, but it’s not like we’re saving lives.”Ouch!
- Jane Horrocks, Bring Me The Head of Mavis Davis, 1997. An odd choice – though no more odd than Bette Midler, Whoopi Goldberg – for a British music-world satire in need of a polished scenario. It remained a one-woman show from the Absolutely Fabulous Jane!
- Julianne Moore, The End of the Affair, 1999. Miranda was in the frame until Julianne wrote to Irish director Neil Jordan asking for the role. Letters to directors have always worked since Ingrid Bergman pernnes a missive to Italian Roberto Rossellini in 1948. (They don’t all result in scandal and a baby, though).
- Renée Zellweger, Bridget Jones’s Diary, 2001. Among the dozen nearly-Brendas – from outrageous ideas like Nicole Kidman, and Catherine Zeta-Jones (like Miranda, far too beautiiful for a dumpy dowdy) to more sensible Rachel Griffiths and Emma Thompson.
- Juliet Stevenson, Nicholas Nickleby, 2002. Miranda gave up Mrs Squeers to concentrate on not one but three demanding roles in David Cronenberg’s Spider.
- Annette Bening, Being Julia, 2003. Quitting Julia Lambert meant Miranda lost a shoo-in Oscar nomination.Then again, she wasn’t Mrs Warren Beatty. “I’d rather do many small roles on TV, stage or film than one blockbuster that made me rich but had no acting.”Owch II!
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Eva Green, Casino Royale, 2005.
- Meryl Streep, Into The Woods, 2013.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 14