On occasion, some Hollywood stars have auditioned for roles and ultimately don’t get them, mostly because it just wasn’t meant to be. This happened to Jennifer Lawrence when she auditioned for the role of Bella Swan in Twilight, a role that was ultimately awarded to Kristen Stewart. Other times, actors have the luxury of turning down a movie and end up regretting it, as happened to Sean Connery, who turned down the role of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings.
Another similar story involves the film Brokeback Mountain, which at the time generated a great impact by presenting the story of two homosexual cowboys.a topic that, unlike today, was little covered in cinema and that no one else dared to address. Due to the controversy surrounding the project, many actors refused to play the protagonists. However, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal believed in Brokeback Mountain, going down in history by winning three Oscars.including Best Director for Ang Lee, with a total of eight nominations.
Despite the great reception of Brokeback Mountain, the production faced all kinds of problems before its premiere on the big screen. First of all, The Lee was not the first choice to direct the project, but Gus Van Santwho finally left it to take charge of another LGBTQI+ themed film titled “Milk: A Man, a Revolution, a Hope.” According to Van Sant, the initial plan was to have big Hollywood names star in the film; However, all the actors they were looking for chose to reject the Brokeback Mountain project.
“Nobody wanted to do it. I was working on it and I felt like we needed a really strong cast, a famous cast. That wasn’t working”said Gus Van Sant in an interview for the magazine Variety in 2018. In addition, Van Sant revealed that he asked the usual stars, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Ryan Phillippe; However, they all rejected his offer. Finally, Ledger and Gyllenhaal arrived to do an exceptional job giving life to Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, the two cowboys who become involved in a passionate romance at a difficult time in their lives. The director who abandoned the Brokeback Mountain film acknowledged years later that he worried too much about having a cast made up of big Hollywood stars, instead of focusing on the richness of the story. “I wasn’t ready. I’m not sure why.”Van Sant said in the same interview.
2023-09-21 04:10:20
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