Christopher Mintz-Plasse – Kick-Ass To Red Mist!
Superbad star Christopher Mintz-Plasse played the role of Chris D’Amico, aka Red Mist, in the Kick-Ass movies. But he, too, auditioned for the role of the titular superhero of the film series. He lost the role to Aaron Taylor-Johnson, but he did manage to grab the role of Red Mist instead. And he has a quite humorous explanation of that! Here’s what he said to Examiner back in 2010:
“Yeah, I read for the role of Kick-Ass, and he (Matthew Vaughn) hated it. He hated everything I did in the audition, but he gave me the role of Red Mist.â€
However, later that year, Mark Millar revealed that even though they had decided initially to alter the fate of this character from a friend to a foe of the superhero, they wanted it to be ‘a more minor character’. But they were so impressed with Mintz-Plasse that they decided to go for something big with him. Millar added (via ComicBookMovie):
“We couldn’t have got away with that with another actor. The minute we saw his performance, we were looking at each other and realised how good he was and what we could do with him in the future.â€
Heath Ledger – Batman To The Joker!
Heath Ledger played one of the most insanely popular comic book supervillains – The Joker – in Nolan’s The Dark Knight. This role was so epic that that he posthumously received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. This was the first time an actor won an Oscar for acting in a superhero movie.
But interestingly, Heath Ledger was one of the actors Nolan had approached for the role of Bruce Wayne. Well, the director reached almost every young actor to discuss the role initially, but Ledger was one of the few who didn’t hesitate to express their lack of interest! Here’s what Nolan said about the meeting in 2012 (via MTV):
“He was quite gracious about it, but he said, ‘I would never take a part in a super hero film.â€
However, after the release of Batman Begins, the actor realized that a superhero film by Nolan is very different from what an average superhero flick is. That actually changed his mind in taking up the role of the Clown Prince of Crime even before the script was written!
On the next page – someone who turned down a superhero role over a supervillain role!
