Casting What-Ifs
Kate Winslet was approached for Mal before Marion Cotillard; Evan Rachel Wood, Emily Blunt, Rachel McAdams, Emma Roberts, Jesse Schramm (as transcribed), Taylor Swift and Terry Mulligan (as transcribed) were considered for Ariadne; James Franco was offered Arthur; Don Johnson was considered for Peter Browning
In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:05:50Read transcript
- Kate Winslet was approached for Mal before the part went to Marion Cotillard; the hosts think Cotillard, who often plays a stormy femme fatale, is a very different actress, and that a French rather than English woman is what the crazed dream wife needed, since Winslet would not have been as frightening.
- Nolan's films are said to keep returning to a dead woman who lets the leading man discover his emotional vulnerability; the casting is seen as letting him pretend something more complex was going on with the character, and a joke in a producer voice notes that Kate with Leo would have added twenty million.
- For Ariadne the considered names were Evan Rachel Wood, Emily Blunt, Rachel McAdams, Emma Roberts, Jesse Schramm (as transcribed), Taylor Swift and Terry Mulligan (as transcribed), to disbelief around the table; Ellen Page is judged perfect for combining intense intelligence with wide-eyed vulnerability, something clinical and nurse-like, where Evan Rachel Wood would be too tall, beautiful and imperious.
- Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Arthur was also offered to James Franco, who turned it down over scheduling; JGL's blankness and deadpan are liked for the part.
- Don Johnson was considered for Peter Browning, the part Tom Berenger took; Johnson's ruined-man quality might have worked, Berenger was a shock to recognize, and Browning is not an essential character so Johnson would have been fine.