- Piper Perabo, Coyote Ugly, 1999. January tried for Violet, songwriter-cum-bartender at a women-run New York bar that teases the menfolk.
- Elizabeth Moss, Mad Men, TV, 2007-2015. “I came in for Peggy Olson. Twice.” However, creator Matthew Weiner had already fallen for Moss, although she didn’t look at all like Peggy in her test. “I’m 23, blonde, tan,” recalled Moss, “like I just walked off of the beach.” Weiner then told Jones about another role that wasn’t fleshed out as yet. “He didn’t have any scenes for me, so he quickly wrote a couple.” That’s how for the similarly maltreated Peggy Betty Draper was born. (The Madison Avenue series was set in the sexist 60s). Weiner wrote a special test scene for January and screen hubby Jon Hamm (used later in the season). “It was one of the most remarkable auditions I’ve ever seen… Acting a very sophisticated way… she was that person. Restrained… a bit child-like – the childishness of Betty Draper, that’s from her. I didn’t write that. She was judgmental… catty… kinda full of herself, stuck in high school At the same time she had this passion. She’s not a cliché – the frigid wife. She married that man for a reason, because he’s fucking handsome… because it’s amazing to fuck him.”
- Scarlett Johansson, Under The Skin, 2012. Many of the same faces from the late 2010 casting season – GemmaArterton, Jessica Biel, Abbie Cornish, Megan Fox, Eva Green, Blake Lively, Amanda Seyfried, Olivia Wilde – were up for novelist Michel Faber’s alien visiting Earth. “Disguised,” said Film4, “as the perfect aesthetic form of a mesmerising woman… looking to use her greatest weapon to snare human prey – her voracious sexuality.”
- Nicole Kidman, Grace of Monaco, 2012. “It would be career suicide,” said the Mad Men TV star, often compared to Hollywood’s Monaco princess… “I’ve been offered a couple of movies [about her]… there’s no way I’d touch them with a seven foot pole.No one would watch them and come away saying anything other than: ‘She’s so not Grace Kelly.’ Cat Blanchett got it right as Katharine Hepbiurn [in The Aviator]but generally it doesn’t matter how much you look like that person or how good an actor you are…it’s impossible!” Agreeing or otherwise were the others in the royal frame: Amy Adams, Elizabeth Banks, Emily Blunt, Jessica Chastain, Kate Hudson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Rosamund Pike, Charlize Theron, Reese Witherspoon. None of them resembled Her Serene Highness, but then nor did Tim Roth look like Prince Rainier. Ironically, people kept seeing Jones as a Hitchcockian blonde…
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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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Jessica 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).
- Jessica Biel, Hitchcock, 2012. As Janet Leigh was just two years older than the dowdier Vera Miles, most actresses were up for either role. Including January (who more resembled Grace Kelly), Diana Agron, Camilla Belle, Abby Cornish, Emilie de Ravin, Natalie Dormer, Sarah Gadon, Ashley Greene, January Jones, Kate Mara, Brit Marling, Gwyneth Paltrow, Chloe Sevigny, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Evan Rachel Wood.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 7