Casting What-Ifs
Denzel Washington was offered Michael Clayton and turned it down; Mark Wahlberg as Michael Clayton (floated as a joke, rejected); Chris Cooper as Marty Bach (rejected, allowed as Barry)
In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 00:25:04Read transcript
- The one really interesting casting what-if: the role was originally offered to Denzel Washington, who in a GQ interview named Seven and Michael Clayton as the two roles he most regretted turning down, and who was scared off by Tony Gilroy being a first-time director.
- Denzel later played a lawyer for the other Gilroy brother, Dan Gilroy, in last year's Roman J. Israel, thought underrated or misunderstood and remembered mostly for his Best Actor nomination.
- Denzel is really good at playing exasperated, so his version would have been a different take: Clooney is not exasperated but conflicted in a repressed way, whereas Denzel would have been much more 'what do you want me to do?' — Justin Charity
- Asked for a Michael Clayton line in a Denzel voice, the request gets a flat no, but the 'I'm not the guy you kill. I'm the guy you buy' line is delivered anyway and called incredible.
- Denzel is thought better in films like Crimson Tide or Malcolm X where he leans into his charisma, though his choices show he likes playing downtrodden, beaten-down, morally compromised people, as in Inside Man from around the same time, the film one participant watched right before seeing Michael Clayton for the first time.
- Asked who else could be imagined as Michael Clayton, the answer is that this is a very hard one to recast because everybody seems really well cast. — Lindsay Zoladz
- Mark Wahlberg as Michael Clayton is floated and knocked down: he would try to play the hero too much, whereas Clooney's performance is never triumphant, dejected and tired in the cab at the end rather than smiling, and Wahlberg would look for the noble firefighter element; the proposer confesses the suggestion was meant partly as comedy, since Wahlberg's weird, confused tone could have made a funny alternative take.
- Chris Cooper as Marty Bach: there is a running list of aughts films that either have Chris Cooper in them or are defined by the fact that they should have, and this people-in-suits, corruption-everywhere, racing-to-do-the-thing film is a classic Chris Cooper movie. — Justin Charity
- Chris Cooper would be allowed as Barry but not as Marty, because Pollack in that role is a classic look.