Blake Lively   Carey Mulligan, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, 2009.    The Gossip Girl TV star came close to winning Winnie Gekko. Like the Glee TV star, Lea Michele. The sub-title stems from a Michael Douglas-as-Gordon-Gekko line in the first, 1987film. Mila Kunis, Black Swan, 2009.  Reminiscent (in places) of the 1947 classic, The Red Shoes, here’s an erotic study of the bleeding art that ballet can be. With Winona Ryder as an already over-the-hill star, Natalie Portman ((never better - hence her Oscar and 37 other best actress trophies) as a star on the rise (being pushed by ex-ballerina mother Barbara Hershey) and a smouldering Mila Kunis, as Nat’s rival for Swan Lakelead and the bed of choreographer Vincent Cassel. (Portman later wed the film’s French choreographer, Benjamin Millepied). Sandra Bullock, Gravity, 2010.     Once Angelina Jolie passed (twice), they all wanted the 3D sf special written by Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron and his son, Jonas - Blake, Abbie Cornish, Marion Cotillard, Rebecca Hall, Scarlett Johannsson Sienna Miller, Casey Mulligan, Natalie Portman, Naomi Watts, Olivia Wilde...Because the female astronauts is aloneon-screen for most of the movie. (Sorry about that, George Clooney).In a hectic casting season, Blake also lost... Rose Huntington-Whitely, Transformers: Dark of the Month, 2010.   In the running to replace - not the Mikaela role, but the actress Megan Fox... after her hassles with the franchise director Michael Bay. She compared him to Hitler (and Napoleon) and producer Steven Spielberg told him to sack her. The Victoria’s Secret model became Carly, Shia LaBeouf’s new love interest. Also considered: Lively (committed to Gossip Girl), Camilla Belle, Katie Cassidy, Brooklyn Decker, Ashley Greene, Lucy Hale, Amber Heard, Julianne Hogue, Anna Kendrick, Miranda Kerr, Heidi Montag, Bar Refaeli and Sarah Wright.  Rooney Mara, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, 2011. Michelle Williams, Oz: The Great and Powerful, 2011.   Lively was lovely  but split for Oliver Stone’s Savages. She found familiar faces in the casting halls. Those of: Amy Adams,  Kate Beckinsale, Rebecca Hall, Keria Knightley, Blake Lively, Rachel Weisz, Olivia Wilde. Maria Juan Garcias, Incarceron, 2011.     Hollywood latest divas were humbled by the girl from Majorca winning her second big movie movie- for co-star Taylor Twilight Launter’s combine. Anne Hathaway, The Dark Knight Rises, 2011. Carey Mulligan, The Great Gatsby, 2011.    Australian director Baz Luhrmann’s hunt for Daisy in the fourth Gatsby movie since 1926 matched all the season’s other major auditions.As if the only actresses left on planet earth were: Lively, Jessica Alba, Abbie Cornish, Eva Green, Rebecca Hall,  Anne Hathaway, Scarlett Johansson, Keira Knightley, Rachel McAdams, Natalie Portman, Amanda Seyfried, Olivia Wilde, Michelle Williams. And Mulligan... soon sobbing on a red carpet, after  being  handed a phone. “It was Baz:  Hello  Daisy!” (Except, sadly, she wasn’t). Scartlett Johansson, , Under The Skin, 2012.     Many of the same faces fromthe late 2010 casting season - Blake, Gemma Arterton, Jessica Biel, Abbie Cornish, Megan Fox, Eva Green, January Jones, Amanda Seyfried, Olivia Wilde - were up for novelist Michel Faber’s alien visiting Earth. She lost three biggies, yet Blake still managed to win CinemaCon's Breakthrough Performer of the Year awardin March 2011. Rachel Weisz, The Bourne Legacy, 2011.  Three was enough for Matt Damon. (Until 2015…!)  The studio did not agree and kept the franchise alive by rebooting Jason Bourne as Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner)  - another victim of US secret service’s  Program.  Weisz won Dr Marta Shearing from a dozen other hopefuls: Eliza Dushku, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Milla Jovovich Kristin Kreuk, Diane Kruger, Jennifer Lawrence, Blake Lively, Michelle Monaghan, Elizabeth Olsen and three Kates: Beckinsale, Bosworth and Mara.  Why? Because as Chicago critic Roger Ebert pointed out she spends more time on-screen than is usual for women in actioners, is not just around for sex and “her performance stands up strongly beside Renner's.” Bravo! Scarlett Johansson, Under The Skin, 2012. Many of the same faces from  the late 2010 casting season - Blake, Gemma Arterton, Jessica Biel, Abbie Cornish, Megan Fox, Eva Green, January Jones, Amanda Seyfried, Olivia Wilde - were up for for the voracious alien hanging around Glasgow… originally the wife of an alien Brad Pitt, but he couldn’t wait for director Jonathan Glazer to get started on his  “chilling masterpice” (The Guardian). She lost three biggies, yet Blake still managed to win CinemaCon's Breakthrough Performer of the Year award  in March 2011. Jennifer Lawrence, The Silver Linings Playbook, 2012.    “If you really want to go back and do an archeological dig,” laughed director David O Russell, “I wrote it for Vince Vaughn. And Zooey Deschanel.” Then, Jennifer dida reading on Skype with “an enormous amount of confidence that was beyond her years…toughness and a sweetness and charisma… I hadn’t seen anything like that.” JLaw won an  Oscar.  Her rivals - Blake, Elizabeth Banks, Kirsten Dunst, Rachel McAdams, Rooney Mara, Andrea Riseborough, Olivia Wilde  - had been well and truly Skyped! Sandra Bullock, Gravity,  2012.   Once Angelina Jolie passed (twice), they all wanted the 3D sf special written by Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron and his son, Jonas - Lively, Abbie Cornish, Marion Cotillard, Rebecca Hall, Salma Hayek, Scarlett Johansson, Sienna Miller, Casey Mulligan, Natalie Portman, Naomi Watts, Rachel Weisz, Olivia Wilde... Because the female astronaut is alone on-screen for most of the movie. (Sorry about that, George Clooney). Margot Robbie, The Wolf of Wall Street, 2012.   Blake and Rosie Huntingdon-Whiteley were considered for Nadine Belfort, wife of Leonardo DiCaprio’s titular eco-criminal - his fifth collaboration with Martin Scorsese. Robbie won because she was the only one to get so worked up in a test improv that she slapped DiCaprio. “We were stunned,” said Scorsese, “because she was as surprised as we were. But when she made that move, she claimed Naomi.” And Leo told her: “That was brilliant. Hit me in the  face again!” Rooney Mara, Side Effects, 2012.     “My last film,” said Steven Soderbergh. Hardly surprising when he wasn’t allowed to select his own leading lady!    Despite his track record, his producers refused his Lively choice - like Lindsay Lohan before her. He searched on through Emily Blunt, Alice Eve, Imogen Poots, Amanda Seyfried, Olivia Wilde and Michelle Williams before the suits agreed on Rooney. She quit Zero Dark Thirty, 2011, to take over as Emily. Happily, Soderbergh returned to directing for the cinema with Logan Lucky, 2017.   Emma Stone, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), 2013.    Margot Robbie passed Michael Keaton’s daughter Sam on to LIvely, Emilia Clarke, Lily James or Stone. A movie that bitterly annoyed as many millions as it pleased… even more so after it inexplicably won the Best Picture Oscar on February 22, 2015.   Lily James, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, 2014.       Natalie Portman was set for the revisionist Elizabeth Bennet until delays clashed with her schedule. Portman remained as one of seven producers while Lively, Lily Collins, Anne Hathaway, Scarlett Johansson, Mila Kunis, Rooney Mara, Emma Stone and Mia Wasikowska were rung up Jane Austen flagpoles. But the winner was Downton Abbey’s Lady Rose and the screen’s latest Cinderella!   Dakota Johnson, Black Mass, 2014.  Lindsey Cyr was the doting lover of the infamous Whitey Bulger, the South Boston crime boss with a US Senator brother - and FBI help to avoiding jail and tackling the Italian Mafia muscling in on his territory.  Also up for Lindsey in the damn near black-comedy were Lively, Anne Hathaway, Scarlett Johansson, Felicity Jones, Anna Kendrick, the too busy Jennifer Lawrence and Margot Robbie. Jurnee Smollet-Bell, Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), 2019.  Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn has quitSuicide Squadto build  her own all-gals gang. And for Black Canary/Dinah Lance, it a battle royal b etween… Killing Eve’s Jodie Comer; Vanessa Kirby, Princess Margaret in The Crown, 2016-2017; the 2007-2012 Gossip Girl’s Blake Lively; Belle‘s  Mbatha-Raw; or Hidden Figures’ Janelle Monae v the winning star from  Underground star, JSB. Unlike Marvel, when a DCharacter is called Black Something (Black Mask, Black Canary), he or she isn’t. Halle Berry, Bruised, 2020. No matter what they said, this is more, much more than a female Rocky.  Blake was director Nick Cassavetes’ choice for the MMA fighter hitting  rock bottom.  Until the 23 producers swung it Halle‘s way. She  said: “Sure…  as long as I direct as well.” And she sure did.  (OK, yes, to the Stallone manner born). “If I don’t do this,” she said, “I’ll never forgive myself. I got to see what I’m made of…. There are so many times where we, as women, don’t think we have the right to direct We can only be the dancing fucking bear. Well, you know what? We can be more than the dancing fucking bear! We can be in charge. We can tell our stories from our point of view and if you don’t get it, so what. Listen and learn…”     Copyright © 2023 Crawley's Casting Calls. All Rights Reserved. Joomla! is Free Software released under the GNU General Public License.