20 Wild Horror Movie Casting Choices We Almost Got
These INSANE horror movie casting choices almost happened.
Casting is perhaps the most underappreciated discipline in the world of filmmaking, and that's as true in horror as it is in the most serious piece of awards-baiting drama.
It's often said that 90% of directing is casting, because you can have the best script and most skilled filmmaker in the world, but if the casting fundamentally doesn't work the film doesn't either.
But great casting can compensate for slack writing, bad direction, and so many other issues, a captivating performance helping downplay or even downright trivialise these problems.
And sometimes a piece of casting is so perfectly on-point that it's tough to picture anyone else playing the part. Sometimes it seems like the actor cast was basically born to play it in their bones.
But where these 20 horror movie roles are concerned, we almost ended up with these actors playing them instead.
In some cases it's easy to see what the filmmakers and producers were going for the first time, while in other instances it's extremely difficult to picture the other actor doing the job at all. Either way, it almost happened...
20. Meryl Streep - Ellen Ripley (Alien)
There are few horror roles more enduring than that of Alien's Ellen Ripley, which eventually went to Sigourney Weaver.
But Ridley Scott initially had another on-the-rise actress in mind - Meryl Streep.
Streep, who was on the eve of a major career breakout with The Deer Hunter, was eyed by Scott but he ultimately never made contact with her due to the passing of her partner John Cazale during pre-production in early 1978.
And so, Scott went on a wider casting call, considering the likes of Helen Mirren before finally settling on Weaver, whose audition blew away Scott and producers David Giler and Walter Hill.
As brilliant an actress as Meryl Streep is, it just isn't easy to picture her in the role of Ripley.
Above all else, her general aversion to action and horror roles makes this feel like a bad fit, even if it's certainly interesting to consider how different Streep and Weaver's careers might've been if the former had played Ripley instead.