Not Starring In...

Last month I told you about how Howard Stern almost starred in Barry Levinson’s film Man Of The Year. But it’s no secret that actors are linked to films that they never actually appear in. Often, the actor and the production have parted ways before the cameras start rolling. George Raft made a career out of rejecting roles that would make Humphrey Bogart a star. Other times, it’s discovered early in the filming that an actor is not quite suited for a role as hoped and another actor is brought in to replace them as Michael J. Fox memorably replaced Eric Stoltz on Back To The Future (1984) (see picture on right).

Now there’s a new website called NotStarring which features a database of actors and the films they almost appear in. Since the entries are submitted by users, some of the information found here should probably be taken with the same brand of salt grains reserved for the Internet Movie Database. Still, it makes for some interesting reading. Can you imagine Sylvester Stallone as Richard Donner’s Superman (1977) or Toshiro Mifune in Star Wars as Obi-Wan Kenobi?