10 Recent Movie Roles Almost Played By Other Actors
Things almost worked out differently for these big roles.
Casting is perhaps the most underappreciated discipline in all of filmmaking, because no matter how great the script, cinematography, direction, music, sound, and visual effects might be, it can all fall apart if the right actors aren't hired for the job.
Great casting has saved countless so-so movies, and terrible casting has sunk many potentially good ones. And given the mile-a-minute nature of Hollywood, it's not uncommon for actors to be replaced in roles for a multitude of reasons.
The most common need to replace an actor stems from either "scheduling conflicts" or "creative differences," at which point a filmmaker will typically turn to their second choice. For the following ten movies, certain roles were very nearly played by another actor at one point in time.
In some cases, it's near-impossible to see how the original casting choice would've made sense for the film we finally got, while others were clearly a slam-dunk, and perhaps might've been even better than what we ended up with. But again, casting is a delicate process, and while we'll never know precisely how the original actors would've fared in these movies, each would've provided a stark contrast from those who worked the job in the end...
10. Dwayne Johnson - Colt Seavers (The Fall Guy)
The big-screen reboot of 1980s TV series The Fall Guy actually began development all the way back in 2010, but it wasn't until 2013 that the first major star was attached, with Dwayne Johnson signed to star as Hollywood stuntman Colt Seavers.
This version of the film got far enough to also attach a director, McG, but quietly stalled during development, before the project was resurrected in 2020 with an entirely new cast and crew. At this point, Johnson was replaced by Ryan Gosling in the lead role.
Having seen the version of the movie that actually came out, it's tough to picture Johnson fitting in at all - clearly, the final iteration was designed around Gosling's scrawnier build and strengths as a comedic actor, whereas Johnson would've brought a decidedly different energy to it.
Plus, Johnson's enormous stature makes him inherently tougher to believe in the role of an "invisible" stuntman who can blend into a Hollywood set, so it's safe to say that Gosling was 100% the better choice for this.