15 Near Miss Villain Castings That Would Suck More Than Eisenberg's Luthor

4. Julia Roberts - Catherine Tramell (Basic Instinct)

There's no need to discuss Julia Roberts' list of accomplishments, because we all know she's an Oscar winner (as well as multiple Oscar nominee), and one of the most bankable actresses in the history of cinema. Still, all the acting talent wouldn't have made her right for the role of Catherine Tramell in Paul Verhoeven's erotic thriller Basic Instinct, because Roberts is uncomfortable with nudity (even having nudity clauses written into many of her contracts), and the role naturally required Sharon Stone to strip down to nothing. It would've been a horrible, horrible idea, and probably ended up in a lawsuit with producers suing Roberts for refusing to strip down, or Roberts actually does the nudity and then regrets it for the rest of the career. More to the point, Roberts is obviously an attractive woman, but she doesn't have the icy sex appeal that Stone used to make the role one of the most iconic of the 1990s. With Roberts in the part, there's no way the film would have become as popular as it is, though thankfully she turned it down anyway.