- Claire-Hope Ashitey, Children of Men, 2006. Harry Potter’s Hermione passed on being the first mother in 2027, when no child has been born for 18 years… The film’s director, Mexican Alfonso Cuaron, had made Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban with her in 2004.
- Maria Juan Garcias, Incarceron, 2011. Emma was humbled by the girl from Majorca winning her second big movie- for co-star Taylor Twilight Launter’s combine.
- Amanda Seyfried, Les Misérables, 2012. Hermione auditioned for Cosette in Oscar-winning director Tom Hooper’s version of the global hit musical.
- Samantha Barks, Les Misérables, 2012. She was also among the many called – Lucy Hale, Scarlett Johansson, Lea Michele, Hayden Panettiere, Taylor Swift, Evan Rachel Wood – before producer Cameron Mackintosh went on the Manchester stage of her Oliver! gig to announce Samantha had won the role of Eponine. “Most incredible moment of my life!!!!”
- Sophie Cookson, Kingsman: The Secret Service, 2013. Change of Roxy in Matthew Vaughan’s cracking spy number, alongside Michael Caine, Colin Firth, Mark Hamill, Sam Jackson, Mark Strong and makinbg a star of Taron Egerton, Bella Heathcote was also short-listed.
- Lily James, Cinderella, 2015. On the pumpkin list for Disney’s live-action version were Watson, Bella Heathcote, Imogen Poots, Margot Robbie, Saoirse Ronan, Vikander, Gabrielle Wilde. (Amanda Seyfried’s previous role obviously counted against her at Disney – Linda Lovelace!). And the slipper went to Downton Abbey’s bright young Lady Rose, Natasha Rostova in the BBC’s 2016 War and Peace. And, indeed, Juliet opposite her Prince Charming, Richard Madden, as Romeo. Three years later, Emma was Belle in Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast.
- Margot Robbie, The Legend of Tarzan, 2014. Loin-clothes were tested, with six possible ape-men in them. But eleven women were seen to be Jane Porter, from the Irish Sarah Bolger, American Lucy Boynton, Australian Georgina Haig and British Gabriella Wilde to Lyndsy Fonseca, Lucy Hale (from Memphis and Scream 4), the way too busy Emma Stone and Emma Watson. Plus Eleanor Tomlinson, the sole redhead among the blondes, and Prince Harry’s ex-lover Cressida Bonas… Ultimately, Margot Robbie quit A Bigger Splash in Italy to go on-vine with Swedish hunk Alexander Skarsgård as the first 21st Century Tarzan… in a major flop when finally released in the summer of 2016.
- Brie Larson, Room, 2015. When her best-seller came out, author Emma Donoghue said every young actress in town wanted to the resilient Ma, protecting her young son when locked-up kidnap victims. From Mara and Mia Wasikowska to Watson and Larson’s good friend, Shailene Woodley. Director Lenny Abrahamson fell for her home-made tape, talking with an off-screen son. “She conjured up that child. I really felt the child was there.” She then lost 15 lbs and avoided sunlight for for a pale, gaunt look. “She doesn’t do that showy intensity thing that we overpraise in film actors. There’s just this truthfulness about her and a delicacy to what she does.” And so, after 20 years of often nearly quitting, Larson broke through and how – Best Actress Oscar, February 28, 2016.
- Emma Stone, La La Land, 2016. A clash of bookings – La La’s Mia and Belle in Disney’s revamped live-action Beauty and the Beast. “It’s one of these frustrating things where names get attached to projects very early on as a way to kind of build anticipation or excitement for something… before anything is really actually agreed or set in stone,” Watson explained to Vanity Fair, March 2017. For Disney, she knew she had horse training, dancing, three months of singing “And I knew I had to be in London to really do that. This wasn’t a movie I could just kind of parachute into. I knew I had to do the work, and I had to be where I had to be. So, you know, scheduling conflict-wise, it just didn’t work out.”
- 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: Watson, Alison Brie, Emily Browning, Lily Collins, Zooey Deschanel, Rooney Mara, Sara Paxton, Imogen Poots, Amanda Seyfried, Olivia Thirlby, 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.”
- 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 Machinarobot…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.
- Florence Pugh, Black Widow, 2020. Scarlett Johansson was the titular Natsha Romanoff, of course. But there was a battle for Yelena Belova between the favourites, Saoirse Ronan, and Emma Watson. Plus newer-comers Australian Alice Englert (from Jane Campionl’s Top of the Lake serries) and the Israeli actress and model Dar Zuzovsky. The win for Oxford’s Pugh came at the end of a magical two years in films and TV: Lady Macbeth, King Lear, The Little Drummer Girl, Midsommer and Amy in Little Women.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 12