- Angelina Jolie, Girl Interrupted, 1999. Claire Danes, Rose McGowan also tested. Jolie won and got a jolly support Oscar.
- Julia Stiles, Hamlet, 2000. Had to pass on Ophelia in Ethan Hawke’s update (Denmark Inc., etc) of The Bard due to Woody Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown, 1999.
- Kate Winslet, Iris, 2001. Rejected the younger Iris Murdoch; Judi Dench remained the older Iris, struck with Alzheimer’s disease.
- Martine McCutcheon, Love Actually, 2003. Most keen, like her agent, on the Richard Curtis comedy, but he preferred his own favourites.
- Scarlett Johansson, The Girl With A Pearl Earring, 2003. Seen (with Julia Stiles) for the titular Griet when the Kate Hudson plans fell apart.
- Lena Headey, The Brothers Grimm, 2004. Terry Gilliam’s (and Matt Damon’s) choice was rejected by the brothers Weinstein who were, after all, saving the venture after MGM baled out.
- Sandra Bullock, Infamous, 2006, Julia Roberts was keen, but pregnant – with twins. Morton was then selected but Bullock ultimately played writer Harper Lee in the second (and rather better) film within a year about Truman Capote.
- Nicole Kidman, Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, 2006. Some 20 years after Patrica Bosworth’s biography came out, a biopic was finally happening. Morton was first choice – her agent wanted too much money. When a down-under project went belly-up, Kidman was finally free for the life of photographer Diane Arbus, who killed herself in 1971, at age 48.
- Kelly Reilly, Puffball: The Devil’s Eyeball, UK-Canada-Ireland, 2006. Change of Liffey – and locale from Somerset to Ireland – for what seems like a sequel to Straw Dogs with Sue George’s Amy pregnant after the rape… It was in fact, ex-wizard Nic Roeg’s first film for a decade. “A borderline disaster,” said The Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw, “a preposterous carnal burlesque that catches the one-time visionary looking woozy and exhausted, his pants metaphorically around his ankles.”
- Emily Mortimer, Transsiberian, 2007. Sam was close to death after a bizarre accident -part of her new home’sceiling fell onher in 2006, leading to a severe stroke, leaving her bedridden and unable to walk. Recovery took 18 months and in January 2008, she had a daughter, Edie, with film-maker fiance Harry Holm.
- Scarlett Johansson, Her, 2012. Samantha had completed her role – Samantha, the voice of a sentient smart phone that Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with. That’s when director Spike Jonze had a problem. “We edited the movie for ages and finally realised that what Samantha and I had done together wasn’t working the right way. It was a really hard realisation to come to, and it was really, really hard to tell her about it.” Enter: Scarlett, friends with Spike since first meeting him on the set of his then-wife Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. And Scarlett, never seen in the movie, won best actress at the Rome festival om 2013.
- Christina Hendricks, Dark Places, 2013. “The truly frightening flaw in humanity is our capacity for cruelty – we all have it.” Morton quitting the film of Gillian Flynn’s best-selling 2009 thriller meant promotion for the Mad Men marvel to Charlize Theron’s mother – in flashbacks uncovering the truth of her murder.
- Laura Regan, Minority Report, TV, 2015- . Amblin TV managed to call up Daniel London to reprise Wally The Carertaker, from Steven Spielberg’s 2001 movie version – but could not persuade Morton to continue in the mini-series as Aagtha, foster sister of twins Dash and Arthur. All three can see into the future, Agatha with greater clarity. So maybe Morton could see the pilot (set ten years after the film) would not make a series..?
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 13