10 Characters Cruelly Recast Before They Made It Big

7. Emperor Palpatine (Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi)

Originally Played By: Elaine Baker, the wife of legendary make-up artist Rick Baker, portrayed Emperor Palpatine first in The Empire Strikes Back, albeit with some heavy digital manipulation, namely superimposing chimpanzee eyes over her own to give the character a more disturbing look. The voice work, meanwhile was provided by character actor Clive Revill. Recast As: Apparently realising the difficult practical issues with bringing Baker and Revill back for future iterations of Palpatine, the role was recast outright for the next movie, Return of the Jedi. Stage actor Ian McDiarmid was brought in to play Palpatine, and was fortunate enough to be able to also play the same character in George Lucas' prequel trilogy, as without the "really old-guy" make-up, McDiarmid just resembled a kinda old guy by the time The Phantom Menace rolled around. McDiarmid was lucky to be able to take the character in such a fresh direction (whatever you make of the prequel trilogy), and of all the changes Lucas made to his original movies, replacing Baker and Revill with McDiarmid in Empire is one of the ones that makes the most sense, especially given its brevity.