Surprises

Some Casting Calls considered some pretty unusual actors. Click here to discover who are the famous names behind the professions considered for some memorable acting roles.

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WELCOME

to a unique directory of what you never saw on-screen. The films the stars did not make. The movies that never were. The most definitive collation of casting stories. Check up on all the films - of yesterday, today and tomorrow - that your favourite stars never made... A cast of thousands - 8,063 actors - to click on... More than 40 years in the making! And 2,777,633 words of spirited text.

The ultimate in movie trivia ... Better! Exactly the kind of history that Hollywood deserves. Back to front. Upside-down. Inside out. Full of flashbacks, close-ups, tracking shots (and, alas some badly edited sequences - sorry about that!) forming a fascinating, new and often bizarre flip-side perspective on your treasured movies and stars

HE SAID

“Her audition was amazing. She’s like Taylor Swift meets Princess Diana there.” – White Lotus creator Mike White on Lalisa Monobal as Mook.

“All I want to do is work - and get better.” – Guy Pearce. As proved by LA Confidential, Memento, The Hurt Locker, The King’s Speech, The Brutalist. etc.

“I’m not Brad, I’m not Leonardo, I’m not a typical movie star.” – Benedict Cumberbatch.

“The scene becomes passionate, as we choreographed it. And we get into it, as it were, and we go a little further than we were meant to just because we never heard ‘cut’!” – Andrew Garfield on the We Live in Time love scene with Florence Pugh.

“For me, cinema is a blessing or a curse. I can’t think of any other way of life if it’s not writing or directing.” – Pedro Almodovar, after his first film in English, The Room Next Door.

“Stand-up is like you’re a cabinetmaker, and everybody needs a guy who’s good with wood.” – Jerry Seinfeld.

“He sent me this script about 12 years ago, and I read it, and it was one of the best scripts I ever read. It all takes place in real time. It’s 90 minutes in 1943. I said: “We got to make this movie,” And director Richard Linklater said: “No, no, yeah, cool, cool. We’re going to make it, but we need to wait a while… until you’re a little less attractive”! – Ethan Hawke on Blue Moon.

“The only time I was awake was between Action and Cut.” – Robert Downey Jr remembering(?) Natural Born Killers, in 1993.

“I didn’t leave the movie industry, it left me.” – Francis Ford Coppolis. (Followed by the public).

“My mother’s father was born Vincenzo Giovanni Gerardi, and he came from an old Sicilian town whose name, I would later learn, was Corleone” – Al Pacino, The Godfather’s Michael Corleone.

Richard Gere believes his Pretty Woman character was “criminally” underwritten. “It was basically a suit and a good haircut.”

“Showing dong is my genius.” – Mr White Lotus, Mike White.

TOLDJA

Remember me telling you (and complaining) about how, because of Barbie, a load of movies were being based on other Mattel Toys. The deluge has begun. John Cena is driving the Matchbox cars…

CCClips

Henry Cavill, ex-Superman, ex-Sherlock, ex-Napoleon Solo, ex-Witcher, ex-non-Bond, ex -way-too-often, is heading Voltron, based on the 80s Japanese series, Voltron: Defender of the Universe. (It’s a ginormous flying robot thingie). Like his Supie director Zack Snyder once stated: “I always think you could have more Henry.” And his fans (known as The Cavillry) would agree. So he’s into a second Guy Ritchie movie, In the Grey, then re-hashes Highlander… while helping to produce Warhammer 40,000…

Kristen Stewart is flying high in her TV debut as physicist Sally Ride, first US woman in space in 1983. Titled The Challenger as it also covers her work on the presidential commission investigating the horrible Challenger shuttle tragedy of 1986.

Anthony Hopkins is the financier backing a pair of Italian car-makers in Maserati: The Brothers, produced by car nut Andre Iervolino, already responsible for Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend and Ferrari.

CHAMPION'S LEAGUE

Game over! Recently, we’ve seen Marlon Brando leading Jack Nicholson by one or two movies he chose not to make – and then, almost immediately, vice-versa. The gap is much wider now. We’ve found two more titles for Jack – Wall Street, Scent of a Woman - and just one extra for Marlon (The Killer Inside Me). Result: Jack now tops the league with 179 films compared to Brando’s 173. Unless you’re telling me Marlon refused Churchill, Gandhi, Goldfinger, two Sergio Leones plus Emmanuelle and Carry On Cleo…

Jack Nicholson – 179
Marlon Brando – 176
Paul Newman – 160
Cary Grant – 150
Robert De Niro – 140
Tom Cruise – 135
Dustin Hoffman – 135
Mel Gibson – 118
Sean Connery, Al Pacino – 117

Highest Brit remains, as always, Sir Sean at 117… followed by Laurence OIivier, 93; Richard Burton, 87; Peter O’Toole, 79; Elizabeth Taylor, 73; Peter Sellers, 72; Dirk Bogarde and James Mason, 68; Olivia De Havilland, 58; Gary Oldman and Vivien Leigh, 57.

Highest lady is Bette Davis, 97; Jodie Foster, 84; Michelle Pfeiffer, 81; Katharine Hepburn, 79; Michelle Pfeiffer, 78; Julie Christie, 76; Meryl Streep, 75; Elizabeth Taylor,73; Nicole Kidman, 72; Jane Fonda, 70; Julia Roberts, 68.

Younger Brigade: Johnny Depp,108; Leo, 75; Jim Carrey, 70; Madonna, 62; Natalie Portman, 57; Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, 40; Bridget Fonda, 36; Scarlett Johansson, Angelina Jolie and Uma Thurman, 35;, Jake Gyllenhaal, 33; Ben Affleck, 1.

(You'll find the full list at Champions in the Main Menu)

BOND GIRLS

The new Bond Girls will most likely become known as… Amazons.

Meanwhile Daniel Craig’s partners are fighting fit. As already mentioned, Ana de Armas has switched allegiance to John Wick. And Lashana Lynch - who was never a Bond Girl but Bond-as-a-Girl, the new 007 in No Time To Die - stayed in British Intelligence to steal The Day of the Jackal from Eddie Redmayne. Die Another Day’s Halle Berry is due in a nifty horror-thriller, Never Let Go, followed by Crime 101 with Barry Keoghan and Maud v Maud, or Halle v Angelina Jolie… but her Storm is absent from for Avengers: Doomsday.

SHE SAID

Why did it take thirty-seven years for Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice sequel? “Because Tim had to wait for Jenna Ortega to be born” – Winona Ryder.

Marcia Cross (Dr Kimberly Shaw on Melrose Place in the 90s) had the right attitude about making soap-operas. “I’d just pretend Scorsese was directing and I was Michelle Pfeiffer.”

“I always say I’m not a dumb blonde. I’m just very good at pretending to be one.” – Paris Hilton.

“If all of the people who hate Ishtar had seen it, I would be a rich woman today.” – director (and wit supreme) Elaine May on her almighty flop of 1987.

“It’s a little intimidating. Although he’s more of a goofball than you might expect, he takes his craft very seriously. He’s never on his phone, which is so weird. We’re all in our phones all the time, and he just sits on set and communicates with people. – Chloë Sevigny on working with Javier Bardem on Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.

“I find my voice is so just distinct and annoying.” – Kim Kardashian. (True).

“It’s like, Golly, I’m doing this, and it’s actually now going to be seen by the world. That’s a very weird feeling. This is something you do and hide in your home videos. It is not a thing that normally is going to be seen by the world. What have I just done? Where did I go? What did I do?”. – Nicole Kidman (again) on her “X- ray of kink” Babygirl.

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Watched an old movie then other night. Glengarry Glen Ross, in which a 1992 Al Pacino actually pinched De Niro’s signature 1975 line: “Are you talking to me?”

CongratuIations to Mariska Hargitay – into her 26th season of Law & Order: Special Victim Unit. She now heads that police department, is an exec producer of the show and often directs episodes. And she has surpassed the two previous champs – James Arness and Kelsey Grammar - for staying around longest in the same role. (Taylor Swift named her cat after that role: Olivia Benson!). When we met in Monaco and I praised her accent, Mariska echoed, word for word, what a New York cabby once told me: “And there I was thinking you were the one with an accent.”

It happened in 1982 (during Psycho II) but I only heard about it lately. The original shower head used in Hitchcock’s 1959 classic was found for the sequel. But, wouldn’t you know it just before shooting started… someone stole it!

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