- Rosamund Pike, Jack Reacher, 2012. Losing a Tom Cruise movie – part one.
- Olga Kurylenko, Oblivion, 2012. And losing a Tom Cruise movie – part two.(Also losing Julia were: Kate Mara, Brit Marling, Noomi Rapace. Olivia Wilde, Mary Elizabeth Winstead).
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Scarlett Johansson, Hitchcock, 2012. Thirty-two years after his death, Alfred Hitchcock’s back in business! With two films headlined by UK actors (Anthony Hopkins, Toby Jones) in bad impressions and fat suits. This is the first before the cameras – Hopkins making Psycho. And telling Scarlett’s Janet Leigh: “You can call me Hitch. Hold the cock.” As Janet Leigh was just two years older than the dowdier Vera Miles (played by Jessica Biel), most actresses were up for either role…
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Jessic Biel, Hitchcock, 2012. …the candidates included Dianna Agron, Camilla Belle, Abbie Cornish, Emilie de Ravin, Natalie Dormer, Sarah Gadon, Ashley Greene, Kate Mara, Brit Marling, Gwyneth Paltrow, Chloe Sevigny, Mary Elizabeth Winstead., Reese Witherspoon, Evan Rachel Wood… plus Jessica Biel (chosen for Vera Miles) and January Jones, who was also up for the role of Tippi Hedren in the Hitch-making-The Birds TV drama, The Girl, seen first in October 2012. (Timothy Spall was booked as her Hitchcock, finally portrayed by Toby Jones opposite Sienna Miller).
- Rachel McAdams, True Detective 2, TV, 2014. The second season could never match the impact and huge viewership – averaging 11.9m – of the first HBO season. They were both written by exec producer Nic Pizzolatti and even if the second show was better, no one would say so as the first had long since entered the pantheon alongside The Sopranos, Oz, The Wire, Mad Men and Breaking Bad. Locale changed from Southern to West Coast noir, still owing everything to Elmore Leonard. Last time, two cop guys; this time, guy and gal. They were considered a flop. Marling, Malin Akerman, Jaime Alexander, Jessica Biel, Cate Blanchett, Oona Chaplin, Jessica Chastain, Rosario Dawson, Elisabeth Moss, Kelly Reilly, Abigail Spencer were all up for the role of Detective Ani Bezzerides…. opposite Colin Farrell.
- Annie Starke, The Wife, 2017. The first announced 2015 cast included Marling as the younger version of the titular Glenn Close, wed to new Nobel Prize-winning Jonathan Pryce.. The prize is for literature – certainly not for peace! As she wrote all his books… Starke is Close’s real daughter. Sorry about that, Brit.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 6