- Rose Huntington-Whitely, Transformers: Dark of the Month, 2010. In the running to replace – not the Mikaela role, but the actress Megan Fox… after her hassles with the franchise director Michael Bay. She compared him to Hitler (and Napoleon) and producer Steven Spielberg told him to sack her. The Victoria’s Secret model became Carly, Shia LaBeouf’s new love interest. Also considered: Hale, Camilla Belle, Katie Cassidy, Brooklyn Decker, Ashley Greene, Amber Heard, Julianne Hogue, Anna Kendrick, Miranda Kerr, Blake Lively, Heidi Montag, Bar Refaeli and Sarah Wright.
- Samantha Barks, Les Misérables, 2012. Many were called – Lucy, the Pretty Little Liars TV find, 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 roleof Eponine. “Most incredible moment of my life!!!!”
- Dakota Johnson, Fifty Shades of Grey, 2013. Social networks were full of kinky ideas for the porn novel’s BDSM heroine, Anastasia Steele – from Jennifer Lawrence to Emma Watson. Few suggestions led to talks, auditions or tests. Auditioning was most uncomfortable, Hale told Ellen Degeneres on TV. It included reading a four page monologue from Ingmar Bergman’s Persona. After which, the suits said the Memphis beauty looked too young. (Hadn’t they seen her series, Pretty Little Liars, 2010-2015?). Emily Browning, Felicity Jones, Elisabeth Olsen, Danielle Panabaker, Imogen Poots, Margot Robbie, Alicia Vikander, London model Suki Waterhouse, Shailene Woodley were all lucky to escape the turgid, totally un-erotic enterprise. Only 14 minutes and 17 seconds of sex, no orgasms – and pubes added digitally to actors’ genital patches!
- 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.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 4