- David Wenham, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, 2001-2003.
- Charlie Cox, Stardust, 2006. Paramount wanted a star as Tristan Thorn – Bloom, for example. Director Matthew Vaughn wanted a newcomer – Cox, for example. The studio agreed after Vaughn obtained Claire Danes, Robert De Niro, Sienna Miller, Michelle Pfeiffer to inhabit Neil Gaiman’s fantasy kingdom of Stormhold.
- Jake Gyllenhaal, Zodiac, 2006. First reserve. If David Fincher’s first choice refused to be Robert Graysmith (author of the book), Bloom was second choice for the bearded, chain-smoking, alcoholic San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist in what critic Roger Ebert called the All The Presidents Men of serial killer movies.
- Dominic Cooper, An Education, 2008. Orlando refused to blossom a matter of days before shooting started. Cooper had been in talks, earlier, about the same role of Danny. Carey Mulligan still stole the romance from everyone. (Bloom and Cooper later co-starred in the 2013 thriller Cities).
- Bradley Cooper, Valentine’s Day, 2009. Bloom, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sam Worthington passed on Holden – in the 21-star-jammed LA take on Love Actually. Karina Longworth’s Village Voice review was headlined: Garry Marshall’s Valentine Day Massacre! But Marshall struck gold – then re-made it (badly) as New Year’s Eve in New York.
- Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Albert Nobbs, France-Ireland-UK-US, 2010. Bloom and Amanda Seyfried were first cast as the young lovers caught up in the sad,vsad world of Albert – a woman in a man’s identity and waiter’s job 19th-century Dublin. Glenn Close first played Albert in a 1982 off-Broadway play and won an Obie award. She’d tried ever since to film the story. She co-wrote the script, penned the song and, naturally, won an Oscar nod. She always does. This was her sixth nomination. As of 2021, her toal is eight and she’s never won.
- Eddie Redmayne, Birdsong, TV, 2011. It took the one-time 007 book writer Sebastian Faulks more than a decade to get his WW1 novel into cinemas.. In 2006, he reported: “All the original actors are now too old – Ralph Fiennes and before him Daniel Day-Lewis. More recently they were talking about Orlando Bloom… By the time it gets made, the star of Harry Potter could end up being old enough for it – is he a good actor?” Hollywood even insisted upon Jake Gyllenhaal for the UK hero. Finally, Working Title TV made it with BBC and NBC as a mini-series with the Old Etonian of the hour – from Tess of the D’Urbervilles, The Pillars of the Earth, My Week With Marilyn.
- Hamish Linklater, Lola Versus, 2011. Changed his mind about sharing Greta Gerwig ‘s “boho Manhattan life tailspins” (Village Voice critic Karina Longworth.
- Ben Drew, The Sweeney, 2011. In 2008, Bloom was short-listed for Detective Constable George Carter (with Ray Winstone his boss, Detective Inspector Jack Regan) when the suits were (correctly) going younger in the totally unnecessary re-hash of the 1975-1978 Thames TV series about the Metropolitan Police’s Flying Squad. (Or, Sweeney Todd in Cockney rhyming slang). Daniel Craig, Damien Lewis, Ewan McGregor were also up for Carter – but far too expensive. Drew, aka rapper Plan B, was also a director.
- Ben Affleck, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, 2015.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 10