Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
#1Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/9/14 at 10:48am
What are the some of the greatest missed opportunities that almost happened?
The two that stick out the most to me:
Patti LuPone as The Witch in Into the Woods. She was offered the role but declined it because she wanted to play Cinderella. really??? Patti would have been a killer Witch.
Elaine Stritch as Mama/Madame Rose. Almost happened in London. Could've been brilliant, regardless of her vocal ability.
What else?
#2Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/9/14 at 6:50pm
Judy Garland in the film Gypsy. They were so close to casting her, but it just wasn't meant to be.
That would have been EPIC
#2Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/9/14 at 6:55pm
Donna Murphy in ANYTHING GOES. She was offered the role but turned it down because she was not interested in revivals. Her Reno Sweeney would have been extraordinary.
Also, wasn't Kim Cattrall supposed to be Phyllis at the Kennedy Center's FOLLIES? Jan Maxwell was great, but I'd have loved to see Cattrall.
And I have no idea how Patti LuPone would have been as Cinderella, but that sounds like the missed opportunity to me.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
LarryD2
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/1/14
#3Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/9/14 at 6:57pm
Carolee Carmello as Mother in Ragtime
Toni Collette as Sally Bowles
#4Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/9/14 at 7:13pmI don't think I'll ever get over Toni Collette as Sally Bowles or Toni Collette as Mrs. Wilkinson in BILLY ELLIOT (though at least we got Collette's beautiful work in US OF TARA in favor of the latter).
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
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theeatah
Leading Actor Joined: 1/31/10
#5Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/9/14 at 7:31pm
"Judy Garland in the film Gypsy. They were so close to casting her, but it just wasn't meant to be."
I've never read that before. Didn't Roz Russell's husband buy the rights as a movie vehicle for her? I think I've even read that they considered doing it without the songs a la Irma La Douce.
Sondheimite
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/5/14
#6Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/9/14 at 7:41pmI had no idea that Toni Collette was up for Sally and Wilkinson. Damn. She also also got Roxie in the Chicago film and was granted a screentest for Mrs. Lovett in the Sweeney Todd film.
Broadway World's Fireman.
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#7Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/9/14 at 8:06pm
Patti LuPone was offered Passion but she had to turn it down because she was doing Sunset.
There's a rumor that they wanted John Lennon was Jesus on the Jesus Christ Superstar concept album but John won't sign unless Yoko was Mary.
#8Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/9/14 at 8:20pm
Remember when someone on the board said Meryl Streep was offered SWEENEY TODD and turned it down "to do another musical" (she was announced for MAMMA MIA soon after)? Was that rumor ever confirmed?
What happened with Collette as Roxie if she was offered the role?
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
#9Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/9/14 at 8:24pmSome people seem to be posting their fantasy casting, not performers who actually were close to playing a specific role.
#10Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/9/14 at 11:42pmAlice Ripley as Audrey in Little Shop. She got to do it out of town, but I'm sad that she never got to do it in New York. The is (very poor quality) video of the out of town tryout and Alice is fantastic.
Brick
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/21/06
#11Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/10/14 at 2:28amI believe Meryl has said she wanted to do SWEENEY but was booked, and feared that would be her last chance at a Sondheim film. I'm not sure if that was MAMMA MIA, though.
#12Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/10/14 at 2:42amTammy Grimes in the original "A Little Night Music" as a replacement for Glynis Johns.
#13Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/10/14 at 2:46amI have it on good authority that Meryl Streep was offered Mrs. Lovett and turned it down.
#14Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/10/14 at 4:19am
Collette as Mrs. Wilkinson almost happened but TARA took priority for Collette, and the rest of history. DistinctiveBarotine, I recall you and maybe another EDITED: poster (not poser) at the time saying this about Streep with confidence, and it made a lot of sense.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
Updated On: 12/10/14 at 04:19 AM
#15Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/10/14 at 4:39am
I'm sure it has been stated before that Bernadette screen tested for Mrs Lovett and was down to the last 2 or 3 possibles.
Bernadette was also to star in the London "Passion" but didn't want to commit to a run over there at the time.
Not theatre but Babs was offered the role of the mother in The Exorcist - now that is something I can't imagine at all.
LarryD2
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/1/14
#16Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/10/14 at 6:08am
Some people seem to be posting their fantasy casting, not performers who were actually close to playing a specific role.
Such as...?
#17Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/10/14 at 6:16am
"I'm sure it has been stated before that Bernadette screen tested for Mrs Lovett and was down to the last 2 or 3 possibles."
I'm so glad she was considered, and hope that she can perform it on stage one day (as I've been harping on now for over 5 years lol https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.php?thread=995481)
Ray, when was Donna Murphy offered ANYTHING GOES?
"You can't overrate Bernadette Peters. She is such a genius. There's a moment in "Too Many Mornings" and Bernadette doing 'I wore green the last time' - It's a voice that is just already given up - it is so sorrowful. Tragic. You can see from that moment the show is going to be headed into such dark territory and it hinges on this tiny throwaway moment of the voice." - Ben Brantley (2022)
"Bernadette's whole, stunning performance [as Rose in Gypsy] galvanized the actors capable of letting loose with her. Bernadette's Rose did take its rightful place, but too late, and unseen by too many who should have seen it" Arthur Laurents (2009)
"Sondheim's own favorite star performances? [Bernadette] Peters in ''Sunday in the Park,'' Lansbury in ''Sweeney Todd'' and ''obviously, Ethel was thrilling in 'Gypsy.'' Nytimes, 2000
#18Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/10/14 at 8:13am
Judy Garland. Mame. (Angela's first replacement)
Judy Garland. Mame. (The movie--instead of Lucy)
#19Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/10/14 at 8:51am
Angela Lansbury was originally cast in The Visit but between the time she was announced and rehearsals began her husband became seriously ill and she withdrew to take care of him.
And I've heard that years before that, Sondheim had considered adapting The Visit as a musical for Lansbury but he decided against it before any work was begun. I don't know how much of that is true.
Updated On: 12/10/14 at 08:51 AM
#20Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/10/14 at 8:54am
There's a rumor that they wanted John Lennon was Jesus on the Jesus Christ Superstar concept album but John won't sign unless Yoko was Mary.
The rumor was based on a London tabloid stirring up gossip about this new "rock opera" about Jesus. I'm told a columnist thought of John Lennon's "bigger than Jesus" remarks and thought, "Wouldn't it be a laugh if they offered him the part?" So they got in touch with Tim Rice and said something like "Hey, would you be interested in Lennon playing the part?" Naturally, he was enthusiastic, thinking he was talking to someone working for Lennon and perhaps feeling the album needed the publicity such a casting would lend, using superlatives like "ideal." The columnist then called Lennon, and said something like "Hey, would you be interested in playing Jesus in a pop musical?" and John laughed it off with a "Yeah, sure." Hello, news story, which then got inflated by other periodicals for whom John and Yoko amounted to a running joke at the time (read any of the British press about their peace efforts or their lives as a couple circa 1969) into "John will do it, but only if Yoko is Mary Magdalene." By the very next day after the news story hit, Tim and Andrew Lloyd Webber were compelled to make a press statement, its wording presumably using the news story to get some ink, that they had decided not to offer John the role because it was felt his star presence would draw too much attention away from the project itself. Other name stars were on the docket at one point or another, but John was never seriously in the running.
Now, Bette Midler as Mary Magdalene... that was a very real prospect, and it's a story I've told here before, but is best told by the Broadway production's casting director, Michael Shurtleff, in his book Audition, where he uses her story as a lesson in why the best performer sometimes doesn't get the role. The relevant excerpt is reproduced here:
"Why Didn't You Get the Role?
The girl who gave the most exciting auditions (she did three of them) for the role of Mary Magdalene in Superstar was Bette Midler, already a celebrity at this time. Bette had taken my class on how to audition when she was in Fiddler on the Roof, playing a small role. She was extraordinary even then, and memorable, but she was disheartened at that time by her long tenure hidden among the supporting players of Fiddler. She felt she deserved leads. She was right.
Bette Midler sang "I Don't Know How to Love Him" like no one else: disillusioned, hurt, vulnerable, with the pain of a Mary Magdalene who had been made to believe again after she was determined not to because of the hurts she had experienced. Tom O'Horgan adored her and was strongly tempted (even though Stigwood and the writers were always in favor of the woman who had done the record, Yvonne Elliman), but eventually, I think, he realized this mature, voluptuous, womanly interpretation of the role would not fit in with his cast of hippies and flower children. He couldn't quite let her go, though. I was asked to bring her into the theater to wait for Mr. Stigwood to arrive. 'Miss Midler,' I said, 'if you would be so kind...' And without acknowledging our previous association with each other, I led her to her seat. En route she whispered to me, 'Don't give me away,' and I didn't, for I realized a superlative performance of a celebrity star was being given to surround the audition itself. She was regal and mysterious, this Mary Magdalene, and she revealed not an ounce of the marvelous honky-tonk performer she was to be in her one-woman shows.
I tell this tale to show that actors must not worry about why they don't get a role; they should only concern themselves with doing the best damn audition they know how to do. Midler did brilliant auditions for Superstar, but she was not cast because it would have disrupted the casting of the rest of the show. Many times I have heard directors say about an actor: 'That is the best audition we'll ever see of that role. Too bad we can't cast him.' Their regret is genuine. But there has to be a balance in casting -- the parts must fit like a jigsaw puzzle -- and there are times when the best auditioners don't 'fit.'
An actor cannot concern himself with that; there lies madness. Just go ahead and audition well, cry a little when you don't get the role you want, but never ask why. The why is usually a series of imponderables over which the actor has no control."
Formerly gvendo2005
Broadway Legend
joined: 5/1/05
Blocked: After Eight, suestorm, david_fick, emlodik, lovebwy, Dave28282, joevitus, BorisTomashevsky
Broadway Legend
joined: 5/1/05
Blocked: After Eight, suestorm, david_fick, emlodik, lovebwy, Dave28282, joevitus, BorisTomashevsky
#21Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/10/14 at 11:08am
Then there's Toni Collette being considered for the film of Chicago, which ultimately didn't happen.
I mean, why give the part to someone who could easily keep up with CZJ when you could just hand it to someone who's never done a musical before?
AEA AGMA SM
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/13/09
#22Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/10/14 at 11:26amThere was a long list of actresses who were considered for both Roxie and Velma during the very long gestation period for the film version of Chicago. I don't remember how far into talks Toni Collette really was, but she is on the list with the likes of Liza, Goldie Hawn, Madonna, Charlize Theron and many, many others.
#23Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/10/14 at 11:36am
I think the Toni Collette CHICAGO story essentially goes that Collette was down to the end, and close to receiving an offer for Roxie when Harvey Weinstein suggested Rob Marshall take a look at one last person - who ended up being Rene Zelwegger who landed the role.
That last minute casting scenario plays out all the time in theatre and film casting.
Collette was tapped to replace Natasha Richardson (or perhaps Jennifer Jason Leigh) in CABARET but apparently was denied 'star status' waiver approval by American AEA.
#24Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role
Posted: 12/10/14 at 11:53am
Judy Garland in the film Gypsy. They were so close to casting her, but it just wasn't meant to be.
That would have been EPIC
I would really love to know the source of this myth. I don't believe there is one word of truth in it, and as a big fan of Natalie Wood I have read many accounts on the making of the original 1962 Warner Bros. film.
I *have* read that many (including some of the show's creators) thought she would have made an excellent Rose *but* I've never, ever read anywhere that she even auditioned for the actual film or was even close to being cast in it.
If someone can come up with concrete information from reliable sources to the contrary I would really like to see it.
