12. Simon Pegg - Archie Hicox (Inglourious Basterds)
The Role: Michael Fassbender ultimately played (and completely owned) the role of film-critic-turned-soldier Lt. Archie Hicox, but it was originally offered to Tarantino's buddy Simon Pegg. What Happened?: Scheduling conflicts caused Pegg to choose between starring in Basterds and Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin, and after holing up in a hotel room on his own to decide, he went for Tintin, a decision he described as excruciating. Would It Have Worked?: Probably, but Pegg's interpretation would have been markedly different. For one, he just doesn't have the suave, handsome appeal of Fassbender, and given that there's a whole long scene that revolves around Hicox trying to pass for German, there's little doubt that Pegg would have been less believable than the German-Irish Fassbender.