10 Movie Roles Obviously Designed For Other Actors

Writer/director Cameron Crowe wrote the script for Almost Famous with Brad Pitt in mind for the pivotal role of Stillwater guitarist Russell Hammond. Not only that, but he also managed to secure Pitt for the role, working with him for over four months in developing the character.

Patrick Fugit, who plays the film’s protagonist, teenage music journalist William Miller, even remembers being introduced to Pitt in Crowe's office, bonding with him over PlayStation and running some scenes with Kate Hudson, who was in the running to play Hammond’s love interest Penny Lane at the time.

However, Pitt pulled out of the film before shooting could begin. Crowe rather frankly admits that he cried when he found out, saying that it was partly that the money wasn’t right, and partly nerves over how it might appear for his career. Russell Hammond, after all, is significantly older than Penny Lane, as was usual with rock n' roll groupies - sorry, 'Band Aids' - in the seventies.

Billy Crudup was cast in his place and did a fantastic job in a career-making role. There's an argument to be made that Pitt, an established movie star by that point with a ridiculous level of cool, wouldn't have been able to deliver the vulnerability or the callousness that Hammond exhibits in the film in the same way that Crudup does.

Nonetheless, there are multiple references in the finished film to Hammond being almost 'too' good looking, and that ‘Golden God’ line was clearly intended to be delivered by the blonde, godlike Pitt.