The role that both Leonardo DiCaprio and Sandra Bullock turned down
One of the biggest challenges that directors face in the modern age of filmmaking is casting. Especially when the big names that they initially approach, like Leonardo DiCaprio, end up turning them down.
This has become especially challenging in the age of internet fancasting. Now, directors face major struggles when it comes to making the right casting decisions, especially if their vision is inspired by a text that’s already cherished and well-known. Take the forthcoming Beatles biopics, for instance – people are still warming up to the idea of Barry Keoghan playing Ringo Starr, and his involvement was announced months ago.
This is a common theme across the board, especially with studios assuming that people have an appetite for countless remakes of things that sometimes didn’t even come out that long ago, like Moana, or Hollywood versions of beloved theatre shows, like Wicked. Casting choices are crucial to bringing audiences in or turning them off, and with social media still a forerunner in online forums, this has never been a more active topic.
From the perspective of the filmmaker, this discourse only serves to add to the countless hoops they often have to jump through to make something work and if an actor they’re vying for ends up turning them down, not only can this change the entire vision of the piece, but it can also push them back to square one.
One such case was The Matrix. Most people could never imagine what it would be like without Keanu Reeves occupying the lead role, but before him, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura had difficulty finding the right person for the role, especially after pressure from the studio pushed for someone with a big name. Di Bonaventura even considered Sandra Bullock, willing to change the main character accordingly if she’d said yes.
Of course, Bullock turned down the offer after receiving the script and deciding it wasn’t for her. The producers would go through a series of other major names – including DiCaprio – before landing where they felt they needed to be. “The casting process more often than not leads you to the right place,” Di Bonaventura told The Wrap.
“The first movie star who says yes is Brad Pitt, he’s doing Seven Years in Tibet, and then he’s coming out of it, and he’s like ‘I’m way too exhausted to take this on,’ so he’s gone,” he continued. “Then we go to Leonardo [DiCaprio]. He says yes, we have meetings with him, and then he goes, ‘You know, I can’t go do another visual effects movie having just finished ‘Titanic,” and he drops out. Then Will Smith joins it, and he drops out.”
Di Bonaventura also reflected on the natural process, especially with something like The Matrix, which had to fight for backing from the studio at every turn. With the casting, he said that they started big and then kept going, before eventually landing on the one person who ended up turning the entire project into something iconic.
When it comes to casting, sometimes that’s the thing that makes something worthwhile: ending up somewhere you’d have never predicted, somewhere unexpected after a series of setbacks and mounting pressure about taking on a big industry name to get people to buy tickets. As Di Bonaventura reflected, “I don’t think I would change anything. The bigger the star, the more likely the studio was to say yes. So we started with the very biggest and got to Keanu, and he gave us the momentum.”
