There are TV series seasons that are so far apart in time that between the end of one and the beginning of the next, actors who were practically unknown can become stars. This is what has happened with Euphoria, whose third season has just arrived on HBO. Neither Sydney Sweeney nor Jacob Elordi have much in common with the people who said goodbye to their characters in 2022. Elordi is perhaps the one who has seen his fame increase the most, since, unlike Sweeney, who has been involved in a good number of extra-cinematic affairs, he has made headlines for his work. The actor has returned to his character of Nate Jacobs with an Oscar nomination for Frankenstein, a role that came to him by chance, as he was never in Guillermo del Toro’s mind to embody the monster created by Mary Shelley. The Mexican director had bet on Andrew Garfield. He sought to break away from the usual representation of the creature and present it in a more human and vulnerable way. A tragic figure that fit the actor from Spider-Man and Hacksaw Ridge. The problem arose when Garfield’s projects overlapped due to the 2023 writers’ strike and he had to leave the project two months before filming began.
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With everything prepared, he had to be replaced by an actor with similar characteristics, and the challenge was complex. Finally, Jacob Elordi was chosen, in whom Del Toro saw certain similarities. Elordi did not hesitate to embark on the biggest challenge of his nascent career. It was an extremely complex role in which he goes from behaving like a baby to being an angry god who decides on the lives of others, and it also required express learning. To prepare for the character, Elordi studied butoh, a Japanese dance inspired by the nuclear horror suffered during World War II, and also the movements of his dog Layla, a golden retriever, in which he sought to express innocence. In addition, he had to undergo exhausting makeup sessions of up to ten hours every day — his closeness to the makeup and hair department was evident from his enthusiasm when they received the Oscar — and act with dentures and contact lenses. He had barely two months to prepare the role, and the result makes it clear that it was enough.
His is not the first case in which an actor has to come to the rescue of a production after a dismissal, a desertion, or “creative differences.”
Jodie Foster for Nicole Kidman in Panic Room (2002)
The first choice: Panic Room was a small event from the moment it was first discussed. It brought together David Fincher after the success of Seven and Fight Club, and Nicole Kidman, a rising star after Eyes Wide Shut and Moulin Rouge. The Australian was beginning to shine beyond her marriage to Tom Cruise, and both projects and media attention on her multiplied. Filming for Fincher’s movie had been delayed after Kidman injured her knee during the shooting of Moulin Rouge! But the director didn’t even consider replacing her: he thought she was perfect to play a woman who hides in a reinforced room with her daughter when a group of thieves breaks into her house. But he finally had to face it without her after the actress realized she was emotionally exhausted and couldn’t carry out her work.
Who finally played it? The project needed a star and found one: Jodie Foster. Foster was free at the time because her work as a director on Flora Plum had been halted (it never resumed) after its star, Russell Crowe, was injured. Foster did not match the image of the cold Hitchcockian blonde that Kidman was going to embody in Fincher’s thriller, but perhaps that makes her presence more intriguing and enhances the film. The actress had barely nine weeks to prepare a very physical role in which she had added difficulties: everything was prepared for an actress twenty centimeters taller, even her daughter, a nearly debutante Kristen Stewart, who has since maintained a great friendship with the actress and who had been chosen for her resemblance to Kidman. To add to the difficulties, she was pregnant, something that had to be disguised with costumes. “Jodie came in and was brilliant,” she told Variety. Kidman did not completely abandon the production; she plays a voice heard over the phone.
Viggo Mortensen for Stuart Townsend in The Lord of the Rings (2001)
The first choice: Bringing J. R. Tolkien’s work to the big screen was no easy task due to the colossal nature of the project and the possibility of disappointing the work’s vast fan base. Something that especially affected the cast, as every reader of the original work had a face in mind. Even Peter Jackson, who dreamed of signing Sean Connery to play Gandalf, but the Scotsman stated that he didn’t understand the script and disengaged from the project. He also thought of a very different Aragorn from the one we finally knew: Irish actor Stuart Townsend, then an emerging star who graced covers for his romance with Charlize Theron. However, just before filming began, Jackson fired him, and we still don’t know exactly why. It was mentioned how problematic it was for the actor who years later was also fired from Thor, and also that Jackson had reconsidered the appropriate age for the King of Gondor. “I was there rehearsing and training for two months, and I was fired the day before filming began,” Townsend told Entertainment Weekly. “I have no appreciation for those responsible, I really don’t. The director wanted me, but then, apparently, he changed his mind because he actually wanted someone twenty years older than me and completely different.”
Who finally played it? That age was relevant became clear when Viggo Mortensen, 42, 14 years older than Townsend, was chosen as his replacement. A very fortunate idea given the results, although the actor had his doubts before taking on a role that involved a very tough shoot far from home. It was his son, a fan of Tolkien’s novel, who encouraged him. “When they told me I was going to replace someone, I felt uncomfortable,” Mortensen said. “I wondered if I would know him, but he was already gone when I arrived. They threw me right into the role and I had to do my best.” He arrived late to the set, but he got more involved than anyone else.
Meryl Streep for Madonna in Music of the Heart (1999)
The first choice: The pop diva wanted to succeed in cinema from her first album. There are Desperately Seeking Susan, Shanghai Surprise, and Who’s That Girl, attempts with varying degrees of success. But her big break came in 1996 with Evita, where she was able to demonstrate her acting ability and work under a great director, Alan Parker. Wes Craven was to be next. The master of horror was going to direct a project very far from what was expected of the author of A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream, the story of Roberta Guaspari, a violin teacher who juggled a difficult divorce with teaching violin to children from marginalized neighborhoods. A kind of Dangerous Minds with string instruments. But after three months of learning to play the violin, Madonna abandoned the project. According to rumors, the singer, who had spent a lot of time getting to know Guaspari, didn’t like how her story was reflected in the script, and her demands had led Craven to decide to do without her. But the production company Miramax preferred to avoid a controversy that would affect the film and stated that it had been a mutual decision.
Who finally played it? To replace Madonna, the names of Sandra Bullock and Meg Ryan were mentioned, but finally the chosen one was Meryl Streep, who had been Craven’s original wish. Streep had many doubts before accepting the role because the preparation time was very short, but after all, Madonna had stolen her coveted role of Evita, and this was a good time to get even. In addition, her son, a big fan of Craven, encouraged her. She played the violin for six weeks and the usual happened: although the film received a lukewarm reception, she got her Oscar nomination.
Mark Wahlberg for Ryan Gosling in The Lovely Bones (2009)
The first choice: Peter Jackson already knew what it was like to fire an actor before filming began, so Ryan Gosling’s situation was not new to him. Gosling, who had become a star after his role in The Notebook, was chosen to play Jack Salmon, the father of a murdered girl unable to accept what had happened. The role was already his, but then he made a strange decision: he decided that this man had to be corpulent and dedicated himself to eating Häagen-Dazs to gain weight. “We had a different idea of what the character should look like,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “I really believed he should weigh a hundred kilos.” When he arrived on set with a long beard and a considerable weight gain, neither Jackson nor the producers took it too well. Gosling says the problem was that there hadn’t been much communication during pre-production. Jackson fired him, and Gosling found himself “fat and unemployed.” Years later, Fran Walsh, Jackson’s wife and the film’s screenwriter, said that Gosling had never felt too comfortable with the role because he thought he was too young. Jackson and she were so convinced that he was the right fit that they assured him everything could be solved in the makeup room, but Gosling decided to act on his own.
Who finally played it? Mark Wahlberg joined just one day before filming began. He had been one of the actors considered by Jackson, as was Hugh Jackman, the first to be offered the role. Wahlberg had just finished filming The Happening and accepted without hesitation a role that he found very traumatic. As he confessed, when he saw it, he couldn’t stop crying thinking about his own daughter. Critics also cried, but for other reasons: the film was not very well received by anyone, much less by fans of Alice Sebold’s book on which it was based.
Margot Robbie for Emma Stone in Babylon (2022)
The first choice: The epic Babylon, Damien Chazelle’s love letter to cinema that narrated the excesses and glamour of early Hollywood, was meant to reunite the director with Emma Stone after the success of La La Land, which earned the actress an Oscar. The filmmaker had reserved the role for her because he couldn’t imagine anyone else playing it, but shortly before filming began, Stone’s departure from the project was announced. This time it wasn’t a dispute over different visions of the character, but something more prosaic: the pandemic disrupted many schedules due to production halts, and Stone’s was one of them. Unable to juggle projects, she had to leave Babylon.
Who finally played it? Again, one star was replaced by another. Australian Margot Robbie was tasked with playing Nellie LaRoy. Chazelle was pleasantly surprised by Robbie and seems even grateful for Stone’s absence. “Now that I see Margot in the role, it’s hard for me to imagine anyone else playing it,” he declared. “So I think things happen for a reason.” We don’t know if Stone could have elevated a film with great pretensions that ended up flopping with the public, critics, and the Academy, which this time didn’t buy Chazelle’s product.
Michael J. Fox for Eric Stoltz in Back to the Future (1985)
The first choice: On this occasion, the dismissal occurred when a good amount of footage had already been shot. In fact, it’s easy to find videos of Stoltz playing Marty McFly, as filming continued, although everyone in the production was clear that he was not the right fit. Everyone except Stoltz. They didn’t tell him for fear that if he left the film, it would convey the impression that it was a failed project, and there was a lot of interest in it working, which is why Universal kept the alternative plan they were hatching to replace him a secret. Stoltz was an excellent actor, but he understood the film in a completely different way from Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, director and screenwriter of Back to the Future. He didn’t see a teenage summer comedy, but an almost existentialist film about a boy whose memories would never correspond to his true past. The actor gave his all for the project, dressed like his character, and wanted to be called Marty even when they weren’t filming, but his spirit was not in tune with the film. When he was told the news, he was devastated. He was a young and promising actor about to play a role in a blockbuster and saw glory vanish before him before he could taste it. That is an existential drama.
Who finally played it? The truth is that Michael J. Fox had always been the first choice to play the protagonist of Back to the Future, but his commitment to the series Family Ties made his participation impossible. Finally, NBC agreed to negotiate, and Fox juggled both shoots: he filmed the series from ten in the morning to six in the afternoon, and then drove to Universal to shoot with Zemeckis from seven in the evening to three in the morning. With him on the project, everything worked. His chemistry with Christopher Lloyd was instantaneous, he was the Marty Zemeckis dreamed of, and even a last-minute idea, the red padded vest he put on one morning because it was very cold on set, ended up becoming an iconic garment.
Eddie Murphy for Sylvester Stallone in Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
The first choice: Originally, Beverly Hills Cop was a very different movie from the one we know. The story about a tough Detroit cop in Beverly Hills had Mickey Rourke as the protagonist, and the names being considered to direct it were Martin Scorsese and David Cronenberg. When Rourke dropped out of the project, the producers thought of Al Pacino, but they also sent the project to one of the highest-grossing stars of the decade: Sylvester Stallone. It wasn’t the type of movie he usually got involved in, but his agent encouraged him. The script had humor, something usually associated more with his great rival Arnold Schwarzenegger, which was an incentive for Stallone to want to participate in it. In fact, he got so enthusiastic that he ended up rewriting it. They couldn’t deny him: after all, he had earned an Oscar nomination as a screenwriter for Rocky. The result was an ultraviolent movie that had little to do with the original. Stallone’s action-packed and explosive script made the movie so expensive that the producers considered it more practical to change the protagonist.
Who finally played it? Once Stallone was out, the producers opted for Eddie Murphy, a star thanks to his time on Saturday Night Live who had tested himself in action films in 48 Hrs. As soon as he arrived on set, they realized he was the perfect Axel Foley. According to director Martin Brest, most of the comedic moments were the actor’s work, who not only contributed them from the script but also with his improvisations. The film was an instant success that led to three sequels. Stallone didn’t do badly either; he took the script he had written and transformed it into Cobra.
Scarlett Johansson for Samantha Morton in Her (2013)
The first choice: As in the case of V for Vendetta, in Her we never see the protagonist, but we do have something as important as her face: her voice. Samantha Morton, star of Sweet and Lowdown and Minority Report, plays exactly that, a voice, that of a virtual assistant. She is the her of the title and, to make her performance more credible, at the director’s request, she never met Joaquin Phoenix. However, once filming was completed, Jonze realized that it was not what he wanted in his film and decided to re-record it completely. It was a devastating blow for Morton and, to compensate her, Jonze made her an associate producer of the film and, as a tribute to her work, named the voice Samantha.
Who finally played it? The solution came with Scarlett Johansson, the star of Lost in Translation, a film directed by Jonze’s ex-wife, Sofia Coppola, which was inspired by their divorce and in which the actress played the partner of a stand-in for the director. Gossip aside, Johansson’s husky voice provided the warmth and carefree sensuality that Jonze was looking for and turned the film into a small classic.
Hugo Weaving for James Purefoy in V for Vendetta (2005)
The first choice: A singular case, since, despite the popularity of James McTeigue’s adaptation of Alan Moore’s comic and the fact that the irreverent V is its main protagonist, few viewers put a face to the person under Guy Fawkes’ mask. James Purefoy, a British actor we saw in Blood Diamond and Rome, where he played Mark Antony, was initially planned by McTeigue, but the problem arose as soon as he had to put on the famous mask that Anonymous turned into its symbol. “Purefoy was uncomfortable with it,” the director told Collider on the film’s 20th anniversary. “You’re taking away someone’s tool, their face, which they’ve used for 40 years, and that’s difficult.” Playing the masked anarchist was especially complex: unable to show facial expressions, he had to express his emotions solely with his body, and to that was added the difficulty of doing so with a mask throughout the filming.
Who finally played it? The director didn’t have to go far to find the right replacement. As soon as Purefoy left the production, he called Hugo Weaving. McTeigue had been assistant director to the Wachowski sisters (who served as producers on V for Vendetta) in which Weaving played the stoic Agent Smith. He was also not unknown to the general public; the Australian had already been seen as one of the drag queens in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and as Elrond in The Lord of the Rings. Weaving accepted the challenge of the mask because it was something he had already worked on in drama school and he didn’t feel uncomfortable, which made him the perfect choice. “As soon as I saw him film the first scene, I felt like he had saved me,” McTeigue said.
