- Jessica Brown Findlay, Winter’s Tale, 2012. The blonde Brit had done a lot in three years – St Trinian’s II, Doctor Who, The Three Musketeers and the Carrie re-make – but lost Beverly to, well, Lady Sybil Branson of Downton Abbey. So did Lily Collins, Sarah Gadon, Bella Heathcote, Elizabeth Olsen. Martin Scorsese called Mark Helprin’s maelstrom of a novel unfilmable. Steven Spielberg gave up in 1983. JBF (and Colin Farrell) tried but could not rescue scenarist Akiva Goldsman’s poor directing debut.
- Nicole Peltz, Transformers: Age of Extinction, 2013. Trans4mers was something of a reboot. With many new characters, such as Mark Wahlberg and his daughter. Also in director Michael Bay’s mix for Tessa, were Isabelle Cornish and Margaret Qualley.
- Lily James, Cinderella, 2014. Downton Abbey wins again .. On the pumpkin list for Disney’s live-action version were Wilde, Bella Heathcote, Imogen Poots, Margot Robbie, Saoirse Ronan, Alicia Vikander, Emma Watson. (Amanda Seyfried’s previous role obviously counted against her at Disney – Linda Lovelace!). And the slipper went to Downton’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.
- 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 Harry Potter’s 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.
- Kaya Scodelario, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, 2015. The fifth one… Once Benton Thwaites was turned into Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann’s son, Henry. he made chemistry tests with New York’s Lucy Boynton, the Belgian Jenna Thiam and three Brits; Alexandra Dowling, Gabriella Wilde and the winning Kaya. Tough job. But someone had to do it.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 3