- Ashley Judd, Bug, 2005. William Exorcist Friedkin first wanted Jodie Foster for his latest stab at horror – more intense on-screen than at the box-office. Next? Jennifer Lawrence – called by some, The New Jodie (!). He settl3d for Judd. Hardly an equal talent. Not even close.
- Blake Lively, Gossip Girl, TV, 2007-2012. Five years before busting through with Hunger Games, Lawrence auditioned as Serena Celia van der Woodsen. So did Ashley Green and Rumer Willis. Just not as serenely as lovely Lively. The 121 episodes were based on the books by Cecily von Ziegesar. Think Beverly Hills 90210 with a new number in Upper West Side Manhattan. In 2014, Lawrence won another Serena, Bradley Cooper’s troubled wife… in a most troubled movie.
- Kristen Stewart, Twilight, 2008.
JLaw, as she would soon be known, lost Bella Swan. “I didn’t really know what [Twilight] was,” she told radio shock-jock Howard Stern. ”When you audition when you’re, like, a run-of-the-mill actor, you know, we’re all auditioning for all sorts of things, you just get like five pages and they’re like, ‘Act, monkey!’ When it came out, I was like, ‘Hot damn! Whoa!'” And so she won the X-Men and Hunger Games franchises, 2012-1015, plus her first Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook on February 24, 2013. First? Oh, there should be more. - Mia Wasikowska, Alice in Wonderland, 2009. “The one thing that really killed me, like the only time I’ve ever been truly devastated by losing an audition- ’cause most of the time you’re like, ‘Ah, wasn’t meant to be, move on, what can you do?’- was Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland,” she told Stern, “That one devastated me.” Mia, she praised, was perfect and amazing. “I couldn’t have had a British accent,” she added.
- Emma Stone, Easy A, 2009. “I auditioned for Easy A… one thing that I was dying for.” Instead it went to her pal, Stone. ” You didn’t get it,” laughed Stone, “because you suck!”
- Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 2010.
- Juno Temple, Killer Joe, 2010. Lawrence was straight with director William Friedkin: “I’m the only actress in America who could play Dottie.” But she could not wait until he raised a budget (well, the Tracy Letts play was called “a hideous carnival of brutality and degradation that leaves you feeling dirty”) and she went off to school in X-Men: First Class.
- Juno Temple, The Dark Knight Rises, 2011.
- Brie Larson, 21 Jump Street, 2011. Jennifer was none too upset at losing Molly – when she won The Hunger Games trilogy. Larson was known as Toni Collette’s rebellious daughter in United States of Tara, TV, 2009-12.
- Robin Lively, Savages, 2011. Once again, The Hunger Games ruled Lawrence out of Oliver Stone’s drama about two pals growing such great pot that a Mexican drug cartel threatens to kill their girl unless they work for the drug lords.
- Maria Juan Garcias, Incarceron, 2011. Hollywood latest divas were humbled by the girl from Majorca winning her second big movie (for co-star Taylor Twilight Launter’s combine). Jennifer also lost The Dragon Tattoo battle – no matter, she won a herself a franchise: the dystopian post-America teen-triogly, The Hunger Games.
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Rachel Weisz, The Bourne Legacy, 2011. Three was enough for Matt Damon. (Until 2015…!) The studio did not agree and kept the franchise alive by rebooting Jason Bourne as Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) – another victim of US secret service’s Program. Weisz won Dr Marta Shearing from a dozen other hopefuls: Eliza Dushku, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Milla Jovovich Kristin Kreuk, Diane Kruger, Jennifer Lawrence, Blake Lively, Michelle Monaghan, Elizabeth Olsen and three Kates: Beckinsale, Bosworth and Mara. Why? Because as Chicago critic Roger Ebert pointed out she spends more time on-screen than is usual for women in actioners, is not just around for sex and “her performance stands up strongly beside Renner’s.” Bravo!
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Ambyr Childers, The Master, 2011. To her own surprise, the lovely blonde daytime soap alumna of All My Children (she was Colby Chandler for 139 episodes, 2006-2008) beat off such stellar opposition as Lawrence, Amanda Seyfried and Emma Stone to become Elizabeth in director Paul Thomas Anderson’s first outing since his 2007 double-Oscar-winning There Will Be Blood.
- Eva Green, Dark Shadows, 2011. Anne Hathaway, the fast rising Lawrence and fast imploding Lindsay Lohan auditioned for Angelique – Green called her a mix of Bette Davis and Janis Joplin. That’s some cocktail!
- Eva Green, Sin City: A Dame To Kill For, 2013. Ava Lord in Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez’ Sin Citysequel was written for Angelina Jolie with 14 back-ups: Green, Lawrence (too busy promoting… and winning her best actrsss Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook), Amy Adams, Elizabeth Banks, Kate Beckinsale, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Salma Hayek, Elizabeth Hurley, Scarlett Johansson, Rose McGowan, Sofia Vergara, Rachel Weisz, Michelle Williams. Variety critic Justin Chang was unmoved by the movie. “Rare indeed is the movie that features this many bared breasts, pummeled crotches and severed noggins and still leaves you checking your watch every 10 minutes.”
- Elizabeth Olsen, Godzilla, 2013. JLaw, Emilia Clarke, Hilary Duff, Aly Michalka, Imogen Poots, Margot Robbie and Emmy Rossum were up for the (somewhat improved) second Hollywood reboot set for releases in the creature’s 60th birthday year of 2014. Olsen played the wife of hero Aaron Taylor-Johnson, her brother in The Avengers franchise.
- Alicia Vikander, Seventh Son, 2013. Passed on the medieval thriller. Dianna Agron, Felicity Jones, Imogen Poots were also seen by the Russian director Sergey Bodro v before he settled upon the lovely Swede.
- Daisy Ridley, Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, 2014.
- Margot Robbie, Focus, 2014. First, Kristen Stewart and Emma Stone passed, then Lawrence, Jessica Biel, Rose Byrne, Olivia Munn, Rosamund Pike, Michelle Williams were assessed for Jess, the beauty being coached in grifting techniques by an adoring Will Smith. Robbie was on holiday on a Croatian island when called to an New York audition. She packed in 20 minutes, and by catamaran, bus, two planes (waiting six hours for each), losing her luggage at JFK and wearing only denim shorts, shirt and no make-up, she got to the audition on time. Smith did not. “Hey, I was coming from Queens.” “Yeah?” snapped Robbie, “Well, I just came from an island off Croatia and I’m here on time.” She reckoned that outburst won her the movie.
- Dakota Johnson, Black Mass, 2014. Lindsey Cyr was the doting lover of the infamous Whitey Bulger, the South Boston crime boss with a US Senator brother – and FBI help in avoiding jail and tackling the Italian Mafia muscling in on his territory. Also up for Lindsey in the damn near black-comedy were the too busy Lawrence, plus Anne Hathaway, Scarlett Johansson, Felicity Jones, Anna Kendrick, , Blake Lively and Margot Robbie.
- Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight, 2014. On the list for Daisy Domergue were Davis, Demi Moore, Katiee Sackhoff, double Oscar-winner Hilary Swank, Michelle Williams, Evan Rachel Wood, Robin Wright and well, “I’m a huge Jennifer Lawrence fan,” Quentin Tarantino told Entertainment Weekly. “I can see her doing a good job with this rôle. . She was just doing me a courtesy to see me, I think. She was doing Joy. She had to do all this publicity on the Hunger Games movies. There was just no fucking way that she was available.” Besides Lawernce was 25 and JJL was a better fit at 53. “She’s a leader and she’s tough, she’s hateful and a survivor… [Quentin] writes very brave, bold, insane, fabulous women. Nobody writes women like he does.”
- Kate McKinnon, Ghostbusters, 2015. “Ain’t no bitches gonna hunt no ghosts,” said an on-line video in the film – and zillions of Ghostfans across the planet. And try as it did (with too many Hot Shots!gags), the “comedy” failed rather than the ladies. Last thing JLaw required was another flop.(Eliza Dushku, Anna Faris, Alyssa Milano, Emma Stone, Rebel Wilson were potential ‘busterettes before the project became a reboot).
- Elle Fanning, Live By Night, 2015. Although going older for most of his Boston gangsters, writer-producer-director-star Ben Affleck went eight years younger for the Southern belle Loretta Figgis, the religious nutter daughter of Chris Cooper’s police chief.
- Brie Larson, The Glass Castle, 2016. JLaw was attached to produce and star as Jeanette of the highly dysfunctional, nomadic family Walls. (Dad being Woody Harrelson tends to say it all). Tney are soul sisters… They won their Oscars in independent movies (Winter’s Bone, Room), both have played Amy Shumer’s sibling and joined tentpoles with X Men, The Hunger Games for J Law, Kong: Skull Island, Captain Marvel for BLar.
- Alicia Vikander, Tomb Raider, 2017. Lara Croft is the girls’ James Bond. Many tried to succeed Angelina Jolie from her 2000 version – she won it from 20 candidates. Two dozen lost to the Swedish Vikander, on a roll with her 2016 Danish Girl Oscar and Ex Machina obot…The Franchise Brigade was represented by two from the Percy Jackson flicks (Alexandra Daddario, Rosario Dawson), two Terminators (Emilia Clarke, Summer Glau), two Underworlders (Kate Beckinsale, Rhona Mitra) and three Twilighters (Ashley Greene, Nikki Reed and Kristen Stewart who simply refused). Plus 007’s Gemma Arterton, Harry Potter’s Emma Watson, Marvel’s Wanda Maximioff (Elizabeth Olsen), Star Wars’Daisy Ridley, Transformers’ Megan Fox, TRON’s Olivia Wilde, X Men’s Jennifer Lawrence, Other also-rans were: Jessica Biel (as perfect as Dawson), Emily Blunt, Emily Browning, Cara Delevingne (Vikander’s co-star in Tulip Fever,2017), Nina Dobrev, Anne Hathaway, Sienna Miller (too mild, surely), Saoirse Ronan and Moon’s Kaya Scodelario.
- Rooney Mara, Nightmare Alley, 2020. Mexican director Guillermo del Toro said also looked over Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lawrence for Bradley Cooper’s slow burning carny thriller, He had co-starred with both before: Lady G in the 2017 directing debut, A Star Is Born – and JLaw in three films: Silver Linings Playbook, 2011, Serena, 2012, and American Hustle, 2013. Maybe that’s why De Toro voted Blanchett.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 26