10 Iconic Movie Villains (Almost Played By Someone Else)

Quentin Tarantino loves to create memorable new roles for classic screen actors of the past, so it comes as no surprise to learn that he always wanted to work with New Hollywood legend Warren Beatty.

When originally conceiving of his grindhouse epic Kill Bill, Tarantino only had one name in mind for the title character on the receiving end of the Bride's revenge rampage and it wasn't eventual Bill actor David Carradine. It was Bonnie And Clyde star Beatty.

Tarantino started writing Bill with Beatty in mind. The idea had been that the character would cast a shadow over the movie but wouldn't actually appear until the very end, inspired by Marlon Brando's appearance in Apocalypse Now.

As Tarantino wrote more of the script, however, and one movie spiralled into two, Bill wouldn't stay put at the end of the story. He started appearing more and more throughout. Beatty simply didn't want to play a character that would be in so much of the movie, not wanting to spend so long on location, so left the project and Carradine came in instead.

The character of Bill written for Beatty would have been very different from that played by Carradine, though, with Tarantino later describing the role as originally conceived for the erstwhile Dick Tracy as "basically James Bond as Blofeld". For all that Carradine is a great fit for the Bill that we got, it would have been interesting to see this take as well.