- Michael Massee, The Crow, 1994. No actor likes losing a role. But when the news broke on March 31, 1993, Mabius was relieved he hadn’t won Funboy. That was the character who shot dead the titular hero – and it happened for real. Blanks or not, when Massee pulled the .44 Magnum’s trigger, the shot killed Brandon Lee. The traumatised Massee quit acting for a year and was still having nightmares 12 years later. He has since won 75 screen credits. In 1999, Mabius took over Lee’s role in The Crow 3 – Salvation.
- James Marsden, X-Men quartet, 1999-2013. “Mutation: it is the key to our evolution.” Producer James Cameron and his then wife, director Kathryn Bigelow, chose Michael Biehn for Scott Summers/Cyclops in the early 90s – and never made the film! James Caviezel won this version before prefering to be Dennis Quaid’s son in Frequency. (Nobody’s perfect). To be free for Cyclops, Marsden shut the door on Soul Survivors and slipped the key to Casey Affleck – after director Bryan Singer looked at pals Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, Ethan Hawke, Thomas Jane (who became Marvel’s The Punisher, in 2003, and opposite Rebecca Romijn, X-Men’s Mystique), Edward Norton (already turned down as Logan/Wolverine), DB Sweeney (he cameoed as a Statue of Liberty guard), Luke Wilson… and Edward Burns, except the last thing a young and opinionated director like Singer wanted on his set was another young and opinionated director.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 2