Kaley Cuoco has been in the spotlight lately after sharing her disappointment for not getting a part in the sequel of the brilliant Knives Out: the part went actually to the great Kate Hutson, however, Cuoco expressed her sadness for the lost opportunity and the excitement the role could have given her. In a recent interview, she stated that she was devastated and that: "I cried and I cried all night long," she said. "It went to Kate, who’s great”.
Like Cuoco, many actors auditioned and ended up not getting a role that could have been iconic for their careers. Here are a few of them!
Jennifer Lawrence as Bella Swan: JLaw doesn’t need any introductions, much less a teen movie to get attention; however in her early days Jennifer Lawrence was indeed interested in the leading role of what became one of the most successful trilogies of all time, Twilight. She auditioned for the role of Bella that obviously went to Kristen Stewart, and although she later admitted that it was a release because she could have not stood the mediatic impact Stewart had to deal with, we can’t help but wonder how the iconic romance would have been with Jlaw on Robert Pattinson’s side.
Eddie Redmayne as Bilbo Baggins: Oscar-winning actor Eddie Redmayne has become one of the most serious and respectable figures in show business today. So you would never imagine him completely bombing an audition. However, he did. The British actor admitted at the Graham Norton Show to have tried to get into the Lord of The Rings prequel, The Hobbit, auditioning for the role of Bilbo Baggins. Redmayne came prepared for the audition, trying to do something original and not boring, in the attempt to secure the role and show his talent: he searched for the performance by the original actor, Ian Holm, studied him, and tried to copy his mannerism. However, after he started putting on the fake voice and gesture, the casting director immediately stopped this obvious failure: “I never got a callback” he said.
Jake Gyllenhaal as Frodo Baggins: the Lord of the Rings casting director has seen all sorts of things: Jake Gyllenhaal’s drastic failure is one of them. The actor shared in an interview with Jimmy Fallon his audition story of when he tried to get the role of Frodo Baggins in, at the time unknown, the Lord of the Rings adaptation. Even though he was indeed really excited to get into the project he was not at all prepared for the role: for starters he didn’t have a British accent and didn’t put any emphasis on the acting, cause his agents didn’t tell him at all what the audition was going to be. At the end of the meeting, Peter Jackson himself told him it was the worst audition they had done.
Will Smith as Neo: Although this really wasn’t a bad audition, it was still a lost opportunity. In fact, Will Smith shared on his Youtube channel one of the biggest regrets of his career, dropping the role of Neo in The Matrix. He actually talked to the producer but admitted that their description of the movie and the new special effects made no sense to him, and from the perspective of someone who has never seen a man dodging a numerous amount of bullets in slow-motion, no one can blame him. However, he did admit that Keanu Reeves was a perfect choice for the role and for the sake of the movie.
