Casting What-Ifs
Jason Patric turned down Mitch; Meryl Streep was wanted for a gender-swapped Avery until Grisham objected; Robin Wright turned down Abby; Halle Berry auditioned for the woman on the beach
In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 00:48:49Read transcript
- Jason Patric turned down Mitch two years before Speed 2; Cruise was probably Plan B and expensive, the biggest star in the world at the time.
- Gene Hackman joined late because the producers wanted to gender-swap Avery and cast Meryl Streep until John Grisham objected; one host thinks it might be a better movie without the beach scene, but another says Hackman is why the film makes sense, and Streep never played that older, divorced, sexualized, secretly bad character.
- Robin Wright turned down Abby, as she seemed to for every movie, and Halle Berry auditioned for the woman on the beach, which one host would have preferred.