10 Iconic Movie Roles Almost Played By Totally Different Actors
6. Aragorn - Stuart Townsend
Left behind somewhere in the early noughties, after delivering formidable parts in the deeply flawed League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Queen of the Damned, Irish actor Stuart Townsend's career could have been quite different.
He was the original casting for Aragorn in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, and would have gotten away with it too, except Jackson decided at the eleventh hour that things weren't going the way he wanted. After training and rehearsing with the other cast for two months, Townsend was ditched on the very day before filming began, with Jackson claiming he needed someone older for the part. To add insult to injury, the production then refused to pay him for his time because he hadn't worked long enough.
Viggo Mortensen stepped in to replace Townsend, and ensured the stability of the trilogy, guiding it alongside Ian McKellen and Elijah Wood as the films' triad of dependable leads. It also launched the Dane as an international talent, paving the way for his many collaborations with David Cronenberg and the career and plaudits that followed - all of which must rankle with Townsend no matter how gracious and forgiving he is.