- Keira Knightley, Doctor Zhivago, TV, 2001. Garai and Andrea Corr were offered Lara Antipova in Granada’s totally unnecessary re-tread, directed by Italian Giacomo Campiotti.
- Keira Knightley, Pride and Prejudice, 2005. UK director Joe Wright longed for Romola as Elizabeth Bennett – until Keira auditioned. And two years later, she was Knightley’s sister in Atonement, 2006. So it goes…
- Jodie Whittaker, Good, UK-Germany, 2008. University came first. That didn’t affect her career. By the end of the year she was playing Cordelia… and Jackie Kennedy.
- Lily Cole, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, 2007. Never good at picking actresses, director Terry Gilliam voted in the flame-haired model (to be promised to the Devil at 16) over the BBC’s 2009 Emma – plus Gemma Arterton, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone and Mia Wasikowska.
- Krysten Ritter, Killing Bono, 2010. The first title tells all: I Was Bono’s Doppelganer… Garai, Charlie Cox and Bill Nighy were set to enact the tale of two wannabe Irish rockers. One is Paul Hewson, who becomes Bono – the othewr is Neil McCormick, who wrote this book but not, alas (perhaps) the tepid film… starring Ritter, Charlie Cox and Pete Postlethwaite’s finale as “a lovable, double-entendre-spewing queen,” said Village Voice critic Michael Atkinson.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 5