- John Cusack, Say Anything…, 1988. Robert Downey Jr refused to be the quirky Lloyd Dobler. Richard Dreyfuss wrote to debuting auteur Cameron Crowe after reading his script: “Great script, want to play Lloyd.” Instead, Crowe auditioned Kirk Cameron, Loren Dean (switched to Joe), Christian Slater – and two future directors Peter Berg and Todd Field – before settling (rightly) on Cusack. Chicago critic Roger Ebert helped save the film from flopping by hailing it as one of the best of 1989. “A film that is really about something, that cares deeply about the issues it contains [honesty, etc] – and yet it also works wonderfully as a funny, warmhearted romantic comedy.”
- Jared Leto, The Thin Red Line, 1998. Along with Kevin Costner and others in March 1995, Berg joined the first reading of Terrence Malick’s comeback scenario – 21 years after Days of Heaven! Sidney Lumet had come close to filming “the best novel of war.” Berg never made the film but contracted the bug and soon directing his own, Very Bad Things, 1998.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 2