Amanda Seyfried

Posted on by Tony CrawleyCategories:Actors

 

  1. Rachel McAdams, Mean Girls, 2003.     For her movie debut, she was up for,  respectively, Regina and Cady, and became  Karen.
  2. Lindsay Lohan, Mean Girls, 2003.     Never mind, Amanda  beat Rachel to the role of Meryl  Streep’s daughter in Mamma Mia, 2007.
  3. Kristen Bell, Veronica Mars, TV, 2004-2006. The ex-child model from Allentown, Pennsylvania, and various  daytime  soaps, lost the titular role  and was given  Lilly Kane, Veronica’s best friend –  murdered on October 3, which thereafter became Mean Girls Day.
  4. Katie Cassidy, Black Christmas, 2006.     Katie won the auditions for the lead role of Kelli in what The Guardian critic Philip French called “a remake of a better acted and better-scripted 1974 film” – aka Silent Night, Evil Night.
  5. Megan Fox, Transformers, 2006.     Both Amanda and Emma Stone auditioned for the role of Mikeala Banes – named after director Michael Bay.
  6. Isla Fisher, Confessions of a Shopaholic, 2008.      For once, the prerequisite outsider won as Disney chose an unknown (cheaper, sure, but hilarious) after seeing everyone from the Jessicas (Alba and Biel) to Lindsay Lohan (!) and  Reese Witherspoon, who rightly felt Rebecca Bloomwood was too close to her Elle Woods creation in the two Legally Blonde films. in the mix: Seyfried, Emily Blunt, Kirsten Dunst, Anne Hathaway, Katie Holmes, Rachel McAdams.
  7. Mia Wasikowska, Alice in Wonderland, 2009.     Mia and her gravity – so brilliantly revealed  in the psychological In Treatment TV series, 2009 – beat such rivals as Amanda, Anne Hathaway  and Lindsay Lohan and the too young Dakota Blue Richards. Burton also kept Hathaway – as The White Queen.
  8. Sarah Lind,  What Goes Up, 2009.     Amanda was all set to be Peggy in New Jersey writer-director Jonathan Glatzer’s delayed second movie when – “excuse me, guys!” – she won the role of Sophia in Mamma Mia! 2008,
  9. Emily Browning, Sucker Punch, 2009.    Amanda, Olivia Thirlby and Mia Wasikowska all quit auteur Zack Synder’s “swords-and-corsets fantasy” (Washington Post) following  Baby Doll into  three differing worlds,  er, levels of consciousness. It’s that kinda movie – One Flew Over the Matrix.  
  10. Emma Stone, Marmaduke, 2009.    First choice voice for  Mazie, the energetic Australian Shepherd tomboy proved unavailable for the  screen version of  the comic-strip  – in 600 papers across more than  20 countries. Owen Wilson  voiced   “the world’s most lovable Great Dane”  – which never talked in  the funny pages.

  11. Mia Wasikowska, Albert Nobbs, France-Ireland-UK-US, 2010. Seyfried  and Orlando Bloom were first cast as the young lovers caught up in the sad, sad world of Albert – a woman in a man’s identity and waiter’s job 19th-century Dublin. Glenn Close first played Albert in a 1982  off-Broadway play and won an Obie award. She’d tried ever since to film the story. She co-wrote the script, penned  the song and,  naturally,  won an Oscar nod. She always does. This was her sixth nomination. As of 2021,her ttoal is eight and   she’s never won.  

  12. Jessica Alba, The Killer Inside Me, 2010.     As directors changed from Andrew Dominik and Marc Rocco to Michael Winterbottom, so did the favourites to play the much beaten hooker Joyce Lakeland. From Amanda to Emily Blunt, Anne Hathaway and, finally, Jessica.

  13. Carey Mulligan, The Great Gatsby, 2011.     Australian director Baz Luhrmann said he was privileged to explore the manipulative Daisy Buchanan “with some of the world’s most talented actresses, each one bringing their own particular interpretation, all of which were legitimate and exciting”  – Amanda  Jessica Alba, Abbie Cornish, Rebecca Hall, Keira Knightley, Blake Lively, Rachel McAdams, Natalie Portman, Michelle Williams and the girl up for six films that autumn, Scarlett Johansson.  Yet it  was Carey he called –  “Hello, Daisy!” – when she was on the red carpet at the The Fashion Council Awards in New York. She immediately burst into tears… in front of Karl Lagerfeld and Anna Wintour.
  14. Shailene Woodley, The Descendants, 2011.     Meryl Streep’s Mama Mia screen child auditioned to be  George  Clooney’s older daughter.
  15. Mia Wasikowska, Albert Nobbs, 2011.      Seyfried and Orlando Bloom were chosen, then  replaced by Wasikowska  and AaronTaylor-Johnson opposite the titular Glenn Close’s sixth (failed) Oscar nomination.
  16. Ambyr Childers, The Master, 2011.  To her own surprise, the lovely blonde daytime soap star of All My Children (she was Colby Chandler for 139 episodes, 2006-2008) beat off such stellar opposition as Amanda, Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Stone and Deborah Ann Woll to become Elizabeth Dodd, daughter of the titular Philip Seymour Hoffman, head of a religioso cult called Scient… er, The Cause… indirector Paul Thomas Anderson’s first outing since his 2007 double-Oscar-winning There Will Be Blood.
  17. Emma Stone, Gangster Squad, 2011.   The City v Public Enemy #1, circa ’49. Apart from Sean Penn’s uproarious make-up Mickey Cohen (befitting his worst rôle), we’d seen it all before. Only better. Stone won (and wasted) his moll from Seyfried, Camilla Belle, Lily Collins, Maggie Grace, Ashley Greene, Aly Michalka, Teresa Palmer, Emmy Rossum.
  18. Scarlett Johansson, Under The Skin, 2012.     Many of the same faces from  the late 2010 casting season – Gemma Arterton, Jessica Biel, Abbie Cornish, Megan Fox, Eva Green, January Jones, Blake Lively, Olivia Wilde – were up for for the voracious  alien hanging around Glasgow… originally the wife of an alien Brad Pitt, but he couldn’t wait for director Jonathan Glazer to get started on his  “chilling masterpiece” (The Guardian). Often rivals for the same roles, Amanda and Olivia Wilde made two films  together, Alpha Dog, 2005,  and In Time, 2011.
  19. Rooney Mara, Side Effects, 2012.       “My last film,” said Steven Soderbergh. Hardly surprising when he wasn’t allowed to select his own leading lady! Despite his track record, his producers refused his Blake Lively choice – like Lindsay Lohan before her. He searched on through Seyfried, Emily Blunt, Alice Eve, I mogen Poots, Olivia Wilde and Michelle Williams before the suits agreed on Rooney. She quit Zero Dark Thirty, 2011, to take over as Emily. Happily, Soderbergh returned to directing for the cinema with Logan Lucky, 2017.
  20. Svetlana Khodchenkoiva, The Wolverine, 2012.        After Jessica Biel fled, Amanda  was up, momentarily,  for Viper. the alien friend-turned-foe of the titular Marvel mutant, played (for the sixth time) by Hugh Jackman.

  21. Isla Fisher,  Now You See Me, 2012.     And now you don’t… Change of Henley for French réalisateur Louis Leterrier (The Incredible Hulk, Clash of the Titans) as the FBI and Interpol try to snare some – here’s a first – illusionist bank robbers!
  22. Holliday Grainger, Bonnie & Clyde, TV, 2013.  After five  years as Disney’s Hannah Montana, Cyrus was the hot favourite for Bonnie Parker in the cockeyed two-parter about the murderous 1930s bank robbers.Then, she wasn’t…  Texan Hilary Duff was booked to join Canadian Kevin Zegers as Clyde. When Duffy left, Seyfried was the new hot suggestion. Until the celebrated couple became Utah’s Lindsay Pulsipher and Houston’s Sean Faris… and, finally, the British Grainger and Californian Emile Hirsch. Neither one made us forget Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty!
  23. Margot Robbie, Z For Zachariah, 2014.   Production was halted and by the time all the problems were ironed out, Seyfried had reported to another gig. The blonde Robbie substituted as the brunette Ann,  centre of an eternal triangle – which was just a dystopian couple in Robert C O’Brien’s book… and the 1984 BBC TV version. 
  24. Genesis Rodriguez, Big Hero 6, 2014.  “We didn’t set out to be superheroes. But sometimes life doesn’t go the way you planned.“  Karen Gillan, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anna Kendrick and Amanda Seyfried were in the mix for voicing chemistry geek  Honey Lemon  Lemon  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 behndthe titular collective name… that nobody ever uses. Genesis is no known kin to Gina Rodriguez who was up for Go Go Tamago.
  25. Lily James, Cinderella, 2015.   On the pumpkin list for Disney’s live-action version were Bella Heathcote, Imogen Poots, Margot Robbie, Saoirse Ronan, Alicia Vikander, Emma Watson, Gabrielle Wilde. (Seyfried’s previous role obviously counted against her at Disney – Linda Lovelace!) And the slipper went to Downton Abbey’s bright young Lady Rose, plus Natasha Rostova in the BBC’s 2016 War and Peace. Oh, nd Juliet opposite her Prince Charming, Richard Madden, as Romeo.
  26. Margot Robbie, Suicide Squad,2015.   Warners first offered DC’s Harley Quinn to  Emma Roberts – more keen on heading TV’s Scream Queens. Big mistake. Also up for  three hours a day in make-up for Quinn: Seyfried, Alison Brie, Emily Browning, Lily Collins, Zooey Deschanel, Rooney Mara, Sara Paxton, Imogen Poots, Olivia Thirlby, Emma Watson, Olivia Wilde, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Evan Rachel Wood.“There’s always two characters: Harleen Quinzel and Harley Quinn,” explained Robbie.  “Where Harleen takes over, she can be rational; then Harley takes over, and that’s the more erratic.She loves causing mayhem and destruction. She’s incredibly devoted to the Joker. They have a dysfunctional relationship, but she loves him anyway. She used to be a gymnast – that’s her skill set when fighting.”
  27. Emma Watson, Beauty and the Beast, 2016.     Seyfried, Lily Collins, Emma Roberts, Emmy Rossum, Amanda Seyfried, Kristen Stewart were on Disney’s live-action list.  But only Watson had been Harry Potter’s Hermione!  And collected $18m without passing Go or going to jail. 
  28. Jessica Chastain, It Chapter Two, 2018.    Awkwafina, Karen Gillan, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anna Kendrick, Gena Rodriguez, Amanda Seyfried, Jenny Slate were up for the adult version of the  abused Bev Marsh… in  the 262nd of Stephen King’s staggering 313 screen credits … and his second biggest hit! The first?  It, 2016, of course. (King Kameo: Pawnbroker).
  29. Ariana Grande, Wicked, 2022.   Demi Moore was the first actress to show any interest  in  Gregory Maguire’s book on the life and times of the wicked witch of the West in the land of Oz.  Next, Amanda Seyfried campaigned for Glinda The Good over five years. Producer Marc Platt said Whoopi Goldberg and Laurie Metcalf were just as keen. Ariana Grande won the two-part movie – as previously suggested by Broadway’s Glinda, Kristin Chenoweth.

 

 

 

 

 Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls:  29