- Kristen Stewart, Snow White and the Huntsman, 2011. For the first of two revisionist Ms Whites that year, the UK Miranda of Julie Taymor’s The Tempest said: “Sorry, but I’ve agreed to Schiller’s play, Luise Miller.” Her West End director, Michael Grandage, was astonished that she kept the faith “at a time when her career has gone sky-high.”
- Alicia Vikander, Seventh Son, 2011. When Jennifer Lawrence quit for The Hunger Games trilogy, actresses testing for Alice in Russian director Sergei Bodrov’s project included American Dianna Agron and two Brits: Felicity and Imogen Potts. But the gorgeous Swede won. On BBC Radio 4, Jones was Emma Grundy for 10 years on The Archers – the world’s longest running soap – I’ve been listening since it started in 1951. Said Felicity: “I’d be at Oxford finishing an essay late at night, then be on the 6am train to Birmingham the next morning to go and record it. My mum is a huge fan so whenever I go home it’s always playing in the kitchen. I know I’m home when I hear that theme music.”
- Keira Knightley, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, 2012. Tom Clancy’s CIAnalyst hero, Jack Ryan, has been around since The Hunt For Red October, 1989. Time, then, for a third reboot… Following Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck, young Chris Pine became the fourth Ryan. In the mix for his surgeon wife, Cathy– er, no this is a reboot, remember, so she’s just his fiancee – were Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel and Evangeline Lilly… and Jones, the second BBC actress from Aunty’s eternal radio soap, The Archers, to make good in movies (after Tamsin Greig).
- Emily VanCamp, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, 2013. For Captain Steve Rogers’ sequel, announced one year before the first film opened, Agent 13 was also aimed at: Alison Brie, Emilia Clarke, Jessica Brown Findlay, Anna Kendrick, Elizabeth Olsen, Teresa Palmer, Imogen Poots, Mary Elizabeth Winstead. (Olsen was Wanda Maximoff, aka, Scarlet Witch, in a mid-credits scene). 5. – Alicia Vikander, The Man From UNCLE, 2013. Jones v Vikander II… For Gaby Teller, the rose betwixt the thorns of the two heroes (the mismatched Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer), Warner suits looked over Jones, Gemma Arterton, Emilia Clarke, Alice Eve, Sarah Gadon, Teresa Palmer and Mia Wasikowska.
- Alicia Vikander, The Man From UNCLE, 2013. Jones v Vikander II… For Gaby Teller, the rose betwixt the thorns of the two heroes (the mismatched Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer), Warner suits looked over Jones, Gemma Arterton, Emilia Clarke, Alice Eve, Sarah Gadon, Teresa Palmer and Mia Wasikowska.
- Alicia Vikander, ExMachina, 2013. And III… Same result. But then, perhaps, Felicity had no wish to be a beautiful robot – the world’s first true artificial intelligence. Alicia had the experience, having already been a half-human witch in Seventh Son, 2013. The magic came from the UK novelist and auteur Alex Garland in amore Shakespeare than Asimov mode. A futuristic Tempest, in fact. “Ten minutes from now,” declared Garland.
- Dakota Johnson, Fifty Shades of Grey, 2013. Disney would never have OKed her the Star Wars stand-alone, Rogue One, 2015, if she had entered the Red Room… Social networks were full of kinky ideas for the porno novel’s BDSM heroine, Anastasia Steele – from Jennifer Lawrence to Emma Watson. Few suggestions led to talks, auditions or tests. Jones’ increasing fan following after Like Crazy. Breathe In and The Invisible Woman, lobbied hard on her behalf. The studio was interested. Not Felicity. She delivered a a resounding No! How right she was. What a turgid, totally un-erotic enterprise. Only 14 minutes-17 seconds of sex, no orgasms and pubes added digitally to actors’ genital patches…!
- Lily Collins, Rules Don’t Apply, 2014. Jones, Rooney and Evan Rachel Wood turned down the new kid in the mid-50s Hollywood. Jones was snapped up for the first stand-alone Star Warsfilm, Rogue One– while her potential co-star in director Warren Beatty’s Howard Hughes movie that was not a Howard Hughes movie (but a love story treatise on American sexual puritanism, on really?), Alden Ehrenreich became the new (young) Han Solo; another gigantic flop. What Beatty gave us is a cinematic Spruce Goose. It takes off but never really flies.
- Dakota Johnson, Black Mass, 2014. Lindsey Cyr was the doting lover of the infamous Whitey Burger, 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 Jones, Anne Hathaway, Scarlett Johansson, Anna Kendrick, the too busy Jennifer Lawrence, Blake Lively and Margot Robbie.
- Daisy Ridley, Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, 2014.
- Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, 2015. On Warner shelves almost as long as Justice League, David Dobkins’ Arthur & Lancelot, churned into Guy Ritchie’s fist-titled Knights of the Roundtable: King Arthur as the first of a possible sextet (but there are no Hobbits!). A dozen guys were seen for the king. Just just three delicious maidens for Guinevere: true Brit Jones (who transferred to Lucasfilm), American Elizabeth Olsen, Swedish Alicia Vikander (from Ritchie’s Man From UNCLE) and the Catalonia-born Bergès-Frisbey… aka Syrena the mermaid in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, 2010.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 11