“That killed me”: The role Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone both desperately wanted but didn’t get
Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone have a lot in common.
Not only are they close in age, but they both rose to prominence in teen-oriented roles, the former morphing into the rebellious Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games and the latter starring in high school comedies like Superbad, and they’ve often been up for the same roles, with Lawrence still a little bitter that she missed out on Easy A.
The pair have often had to battle it out for roles against each other, but luckily, this hasn’t affected their friendship, holding onto their professionalism at the end of the day. In a Hollywood Reporter interview, the pair demonstrated a rather lovingly teasing relationship, with Stone telling Lawrence, “Well, guess what? You didn’t get it. You didn’t get it because you suck”.
The pair have both become young Oscar winners, and they now stand as two of Hollywood’s most impressive talents, seemingly capable of any role thrown their way, whether that be a psychological drama or a rom-com, yet, behind every good actor is a collection of parts they were once crushed to miss out on, and while Lawrence counts Stone’s Easy A role in that, she also shares a missed opportunity with the star.
Both really wanted to be in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, but the leading role in his adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s classic surreal children’s tale went to Mia Wasikowska, with Stone revealing to Variety how devastated she was to miss out on the part: “Tim Burton’s a crusher. Oh my God, when I auditioned for Alice in Wonderland, and not getting a Tim Burton movie is really devastating.”
Still, she added, “This is a pretty esoteric conversation; working at all is fantastic, you’re exactly right”. She clearly took the rejection in her stride, but it’s pretty interesting to imagine what would’ve become of Stone’s career if she had starred in Burton’s bizarre take on the story; perhaps it would’ve led her to Yorgos Lanthimos sooner.
Lawrence also wanted the part, and in 2018, she told Howard Stern how she was similarly distraught not to win the leading role. “Emma Stone and I actually had this conversation once, because we used to always audition for the same thing, which now seems silly,” she began, “But the one thing that really killed me, like the only time that I’ve been truly devastated by losing an audition because most of the time you’re like, ‘Aw, wasn’t meant to be, move on, what can you do?’, was at Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland.”
While Wasikowska was a great Alice, starring alongside the likes of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen, Stone and Lawrence both had to walk away empty-handed, and to this day, neither has worked with Burton, despite it seemingly being a lifelong dream for both.
Clearly, some things just aren’t meant to be, even if it really hurts to admit that, but both of their careers have worked out for the best, and maybe the opportunity to work with Burton will come knocking in the future.
