Casting What-Ifs
Tobey Maguire trained for the Hawke role but Fuqua was never sold on him; Davis Guggenheim was set to direct Sam Jackson and Matt Damon; Eminem and Christian Bale turned down Jake Hoyt; Mickey Rourke was Fuqua's first choice for Roger; Bruce Willis turned down Alonzo; Gary Sinise and Tom Sizemore were attached
In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:29:11Read transcript
- Woven through the ZipRecruiter read: casting Tobey Maguire in the Ethan Hawke role would have been disastrous; Maguire spent two months on undercover narcotics runs, lost weight and got in crazy shape, but Anton Fuqua (as transcribed) was never 100% sold; he would have crushed Smiley in the poker scene holding pocket rockets.
- Davis Guggenheim was set to direct with Sam Jackson and Matt Damon as the stars; that movie wins no Oscar, and Jackson would have been almost a parody of Denzel, red meat and meta where Denzel feels real and cinematic, though one host would have watched it and thinks it could have worked.
- Eminem and Christian Bale allegedly turned down Jake Hoyt; Eminem is really good in 8 Mile and very funny in Funny People, and his career would differ if he had gone Will Smith and left music, but he could not have played this role, and it is hard to imagine him punked for 90 minutes or fighting Denzel, since he is pretty skinny.
- Mickey Rourke was Fuqua's first choice for Roger but the studio turned it down; Bruce Willis allegedly turned down Alonzo, which had the potential to be awful; Gary Sinise and Tom Sizemore were attached, with Sizemore basically making Training Day on his own, driving around L.A. with PCP.
- Earlier, Will Smith in Training Day is imagined as just weird; nobody else could have played Alonzo, and the what-ifs are promised for later.