- Will Ferrell, Saturday Night Live, TV, 1990-1991. Tried out forthe The Not Ready For Prime-Time Players and somehow lost out to the far less funny Ferrell.
- Ken Marino, Party Down, TV, 2009-2010. Veronica Mars writer-producer Rob Thomas first tried to set up the series in 2000 with Carell,co-creator Paul Rudd and Jane Lynch. She alone stayed aboard in 2009 in the group of LA actors moonlighting as caterers.
- Brendan Fraser, Furry Vengeance, 2009. Steve Carell, Jim Carrey, Bryan Cranston, Will Ferrell even Jeremy Piven walked away from the alleged “comedy”. As dumb as Fraser’s earlier George of the Jungle. (They helped ruin his A List career). Not much of a comeback for Brooke Shield, either – as his wife. USA Today critic Claudia Puig did not mince her words. “A slapstick stinker, easily the worst movie of the year… a slight to true environmentalists and, heck, even an affront to animals.” Fraser is ashamed of the film.(Only this one?)
- Mel Gibson, The Beaver, 2010. After Carell and director Jay Roach had schedule problems, Jim Carrey and David O Russell turned up – and off. Finally, Jodie Foster agreed to act and direct if her disgraced buddy could star. Gibson’s name was aleady muddue to anti-Semitic remarks and turned to merde when “profanity-laced” voicemails to his ex-girlfriend hit the fan. Gibson won better reviews than the sudden industry of jokes…about Jodie’s Beaver. The$21m movie made less than $1m in the US.Gibson was deader than John Cleese’s parrot.
- Alec Baldwin, Rock of Ages, 2011. Carell and Will Ferrell were in the mix for Dennis Dupree. Baldwin won but who noticed? All eyes were on Tom Cruise’s staggering rock star Stacee Jaxx – aka Jim Morrison meets Axel Rose. Baldwin called it a horrible movie. “I only did it to work with Tom.” Well, the audition worked. They stayed together for Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, 2014.
- Owen Wilson, The Big Year, 2011. Carell and Dustin Hoffman were first due as the bird lovers out to beat cocky world champ Wilson in a birding – bird-watching – competition. At last, something new from Hollywood! Black and Steve Martin filled in. And should have been.
- Josh Gad, Frozen, 2012. Carell had been first choice for Olaf – first seen as a snowman built by royal kid sisters, Elsa and Anna, then as an anthropomorphic character rescuing them – and joining them again in the inevitable sequel to the $1bn earner. You can’t keep a good snowman down.
- Daniel Henney, Big Hero 6, 2014. “We didn’t set out to be superheroes. But sometimes life doesn’t go the way you planned.” Will Arnett, Steve Carell, Charlie Day, Will Ferrell, Louis CK, Nick Offerman, Jim Parsons and Chris Pratt, were seen (and heard!) for voicing Tadashi, creator of the inflatable Baymax robot in Disney’s first Marvel subject – winning the best animation Oscar. It unfurls in 2023 (we all know that computer battery number, right?) in San Fransokyo (‘Frisco rebuilt by the Japanese after an earthquake) and deals with a super-troupe behind the titular collective name… that nobody actually uses.
- Al Pacino, Danny Collins, 2015. The pet project of Dan Fogelman, writer of top toons Cars, Bolt and Tangled, was inspired by how singer Steve Tilston, learned of a letter written to him 34 years earlier by John Lennon. Hence, when Carell was Warner’s choice, the title was Imagine. Fogelman also directed because “every writer has that one project… the one they feel so strongly about that they can’t bear to turn it over to anyone else. It was a career highlight simply to get a script of mine into Al Pacino’s hands. To have him read it, and then want to star in it – it’s five steps past career highlight.”
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 9