20 Actors You Didn't Know Almost Played X-Men
14. Summer Glau Was Almost Kitty Pryde
Summer Glau has previous with geek properties, and they were almost added to further by a role in the final X-Men movie of the original trilogy: having broke out on Serenity, Glau followed that up with a key role on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Dollhouse, and she has been involved in no less than four superhero projects, from Batman/Superman Apocalypse through The Cape and Alphas, to Arrow, and she could have added the role of Kitty Pryde to her CV had her audition been successful.
After the initial choice for the role pulled out (more of which later) Joss Whedon confirmed that his Firefly and Serenity was up for the role of Kitty The Last Stand, stating that she had spoken to him ahead of her audition to ask about his knowledge of the character:
"So the girl I turned into sort of a superhero in my movie was going to read for the character that most influenced ALL my girl-heroes, Kitty Pryde. Karmically funky. Anyhoo, she called me after and said it was very emotional and kind of like when she read for Firefly, she just got into a very intense groove. She started telling me about the scene she read and thats when I realized why it was kind of like she read for Firefly."
It turned out that the scene they got Glau to read in the audition was a scene that Whedon had written for Astonishing X-Men issue #5.