There are actors who were born for a role, or so we say when the former does an incredible job. It’s not uncommon to even recall an iconic movie and have a hard time imagining how one character could be played by somebody else; was there ever an alternative to begin with?

Arnold Schwarzenegger is the Terminator and Viggo Mortensen is Aragorn, as if the role was made for them and there was no script or book to base it on.

There are countless scenarios in which the above is true, and the one thing we can say for sure is that casting directors did an incredible job in all of them. Often, though, that is not the entire picture of what truly happened behind the scenes.

There’s a story to be shared in the movies about when you never expected an actor to succeed but, still, they did; when major stars who no one dared say no to where plainly refused for a role or when the gut feeling of a director won over logic and an unknown teenager from the other side of the world got to star in a major Hollywood production.

There’s nothing that a director wants more than to put forward his vision to life, whatever the cost; and there’s nothing more that a studio hates more than the unexpected. Instinct, experience and sometimes a moment’s gut feeling are all it takes for the former, while hard, cold numbers are everything for the latter.

The above illustrates that every casting curveball faced resistance from the studio and the directors who had to fight it out. Finding the middle ground is truly challenging, but in some cases, the toxic dynamic between vision and monetary pressure led to some of the most iconic performances in movie history.

Here’s a list of those iconic moments and what turn of luck, unfortunate circumstance, or a very misunderstood cast director in charge led to them.

Casting an actor after shooting and last-minute calls happen more often than you would think, and for roles you never imagined it would be the case.

Whether the director had a second thought or the unexpected happened during shooting, it takes a lot of courage to call the shot of replacing a leading character role once the contracts are signed, cameras are rolling, and the budget is burning away.

Michael J Fox was the perfect Marty McFly, and that was clear to director Robert Zemeckis. Yet, you don’t get what you ask for, even if you’re a major Hollywood studio, as there are only so many hours per day an actor can work…at least, in principle.

Fox was at the time shooting the iconic sitcom Family Ties, which wouldn’t allow Zemeckis to even reach out to Fox for the role. Eric Stolz was cast instead, and a big chunk of the way through shooting the movie, it became apparent it wouldn’t work out, so back it was to hunting for Fox until they managed to get him in.

For two months, Fox rehearsed for Family Ties from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and then headed off to the set of Back To The Future until early morning. The actor showed incredible dedication, and the director had paramount trust that the young actor would somehow pull off the humour despite having barely 5 hours of sleep every night.

Hicks would not be the interesting character he ended up being if it weren’t for Biehn’s taking it out of the straightforward authoritative leader type. Remove the human element that makes both his and Ripley’s characters hesitant to take control in the face of hell, and the movie surely loses its impact.

All of the above is what fans have said after the movie’s success, but we will never know how the movie would have turned out if James Remar hadn’t been fired mid-shooting. Remar would have surely given a stronger, more serious look to Hicks, entirely changing the movie dynamic.

In this scenario, it was not a change of heart by the director, but with an actor who caused havoc on set. Forced to act, Cameron needed to call the shot.

Imagine an actor finishing a movie entirely, months of hard work waiting to finally be rewarded, only to have all your parts replaced by another actor. Unfortunately for Samanta Morton, her role as the AI girlfriend in Her suffered such a fate.

‘It was only in post-production, when we started editing, that we realized that what the character/movie needed was different from what Samantha and I had created together,’ said the Director Spike for Vulture.

Although the movie was a success, and Johansson’s voice acting is undeniable, was it a good thing for everyone to recognize the actress once the anonymous operator started speaking? Not implying Morton was not recognizable, but Johansson at the time was the one female actress you saw and heard everywhere.

As hard as it is to believe, Viggo Mortensen was actually not the first choice for the role. Russell Crowe, who was thought to be the perfect ‘safe bet’ for Aragorn at the time, was offered the role but refused, and young Irish actor Stuart Townsend eventually got it, with shooting starting all according to plan.

In retrospect, you would question what they were thinking of not casting Mortensen first. No one knew then what would become of Aragorn, but it took four days into shooting for Peter Jackson to realize the young actor could not deliver the battle-weary Aragorn, no matter how good his acting was.

A tough call from Jackson that likely didn’t leave the best impression on the studio that had trusted the unknown director with three movies, but a call we’re all lucky he made.

Actors, as many other creatives, often get put into a box. If you played a couple of back-to-back iconic comedies or action movies, then you are forever the actor who can only pull that off. Think of when Jim Carrey played his first major drama, or when Daniel Radcliffe was ‘free’ of being Harry Potter. But the potential that the public can’t see from the screen, a director can sniff out in an actor.

Tom Cruise fell exactly into the category of ‘he’s only good for action movies,’ and not only did the public think so, but Anne Rice, who wrote the book, didn’t like Cruise as he found he was too ‘American’ for the role.

“I was particularly stunned by the casting of Cruise, who is no more my Vampire Lestat than Edward G. Robinson is Rhett Butler,” said Rice for the Los Angeles Times, followed a year later by “The charm, the humor and the invincible innocence which I cherish in my beloved hero Lestat are all alive in Tom Cruise’s courageous performance.”

A change of heart indeed by the author, but an even greater courage by Neil Jordan, who saw in Cruise the Lestat that the author couldn’t.

“The dude from 10 Things I Hate About You?!” was the reaction of every Batman fan when Ledger was announced as the Joker. Even when the trailer was released and hints of the greatness to come were leaking, the overshadowing thought of wrong casting loomed over.

All Batman movies historically had some casting resistance from the public, no matter who ultimately played the role. Just think of how much hate Val Kilmer got, or pretty much anyone who played Batman to this day. For Ledger’s case, though, there’s not much to say, as we all know how it went down.

It’s lost now as a thought, considering how famous the actor is after Iron Man and The Avengers, yet back in 2008, no major studio considered him a reliable choice. Long-time drug addiction and self-destructive behaviour had taken him off the A-list of actors for big-budget movies.

Fortunately for him, he had sort of made a comeback with Zodiac, and to seal the deal, director Jon Favreau thought his glibness, arrogance, passion and showmanship were the exact thing that Iron Man needed to bring him out of the ‘plain’ superhero of the comics.

Imagine the scenario in which Tom Cruise, who didn’t see the potential in the movie, actually ended up being Tony Stark. Nothing against Cruise, but very few fans would want him leading the Avengers!

You often hear about actors denying roles that later become iconic with either an unexpected choice or an ‘unknown actor,’ a topic I want to touch on for a moment and bust a common myth.

In reality, there are very few actors who are complete nobodies in the scene when they get picked for a significant role. We might not know them, yet they have been active for years, sometimes decades, many of them working with quality agents. It doesn’t mean the director isn’t taking a chance in casting them.

To wrap up, here are some wonder stories where faith in the ‘unknown’ made movie history and launched a stellar career.

Let’s talk about a literal unknown, someone who never acted in Hollywood before and was immediately nominated for an Oscar at the first shot he got. Barkhad Abdi played the iconic pirate antagonist in the movie, where both he and Tom Hanks put in stellar performances that wouldn’t work without the duo’s dynamic.

“There was an open casting call on TV and I went,” says Abdi for The Guardian, who at the time was driving a Limo and just after a year ended up in one heading to the premiere of a major studio movie he starred in.

Although a lot of marketing was directed towards portraying Abdi as someone who had never acted before, not just in Hollywood, he still doesn’t fit the mould of an overnight success. He had previously directed music videos and had been trying to make his own film for years. This, though, doesn’t take away anything from his performance and the guts it took to convince the studio the young actor-to-be was the right match for Tom Hanks.

Harrison Ford in Star Wars

So long has passed since the first Star Wars that we take for granted that Harrison Ford was always a big star, while in fact he was an ‘accidental’ hire for the role of Han Solo.

Ford was working as a part-time carpenter for casting director Fred Roos, who eventually landed him a role in the Lucas movie American Graffiti. Even a few roles after, things were not working well for the 34-year-old Ford, who relied on carpentering and occasional roles to support his family.  As Roos plainly put it ‘‘He (Ford) needed money, he had kids, he wasn’t a big movie star yet’

One day, while building a door at the offices of American Zoetrope, George Lucas happened to be there doing casting calls. Due to a lack of options, Ford was offered the opportunity to feed lines from the script to the actors, but he was never considered for the audition. In the end, he ended up winning the role over Kurt Russell!

Sam Worthington in Avatar

There’s no real overnight success, but the story of homeless Sam Worthington, who auditioned for roles and eventually landed the part of Jake Sully over Channing Tatum and Chris Evans, proves that it makes you truly doubt that.

As it often happens with these stories, a major actor turned down the role, and so James Cameron took the call to cast Worthington, practically changing his life with one decision.

‘I am ready for anything, anything that could happen, irrespective of good or bad. I can still live in my car and I am not at all trapped with stardom.’ said Sam, in his humble testimony of how the career and life of anyone in acting can be.

As with much happening now in Hollywood, there is little desire left in big studios to take a chance on anything. Repeated scenarios, regurgitating old movies and stories from the past in a modern fashion, and sadly, not as much courage in casting as you would expect.

But as the stories above all show, at times, good and bad luck sometimes leave studios with no choice but to go for the unknown. While too much now relies on formulas, typecasting remains the safest bet in Hollywood, and efficiency is valued above everything, there’s always one director fighting the good fight and setting an example others follow.

Altin J.