When looking at some of the biggest stars in Hollywood history, it is easy to assume that in the entertainment industry talent matters above all else. After all, when you take note of the fact that Tom Hanks has starred in so many beloved and successful films, it certainly doesn’t seem like a coincidence especially since he is such a great actor. The same holds true for other huge stars like Denzel Washington, Julia Roberts, Tom Cruise, and Meryl Streep.
While it certainly is true that acting talent played a major role in all of those actors’ careers, the fact that they were incredibly lucky often gets underreported. After all, every major star has come close to starring in some really bad films, and headlining a film that flops hard can decimate an actors’ career pretty much overnight. Conversely, there have been loads of actors who were unlucky enough to miss out on the role of a lifetime. For example, following the initial success he enjoyed, Adrien Brody was almost cast in one of the most acclaimed films of all time.
Adrien’s Strange Career
Considering the fact that at any given time there are millions of people who have dreams of making it big in Hollywood, anyone who becomes a legitimate movie star has accomplished something truly incredible. After all, they had to overcome a staggering amount of competition. With that in mind, it is abundantly clear that Adrien Brody can rest easy at night knowing that he accomplished more than most actors ever will.
After starting his career during the late-‘80s, Adrien Brody spent years working consistently under most people’s radars. Then, in 2002 everything changed for Brody following the release of The Pianist. An almost universally critically acclaimed film, The Pianist was a biopic that told the amazing story of Polish-Jewish pianist and composer Władysław Szpilman’s fight to survive the holocaust.
Even though many people contributed to the acclaim that The Pianist enjoyed, on an acting level there is no doubt that Adrien Brody’s performance in the main role carried the film. As a result, Brody became a famous actor overnight and Adrien went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. Sadly, a lot of people think that winning that award cursed Brody’s career as he was never able to live up to the potential his career seemed to have following The Pianist's release.
After he first became a movie star, Adrien Brody landed several notable roles. For example, Brody starred in films like Peter Jackson’s King Kong remake, The Darjeeling Limited, Predators, and Midnight in Paris. However, even though Brody has continued to work consistently, his career has seemingly been sliding downhill for years at this point. Amazingly enough, a lot of people think Brody torpedoed his own career by going off-script while hosting Saturday Night Live thus offending one of the most powerful people in entertainment, Lorne Michaels.
Adrien Almost Played This Legendary Character
Throughout Hollywood history, there have been many examples of notable recastings. For example, everyone remembers Don Cheadle taking over playing War Machine, Michael Gambon becoming Albus Dumbledore, and Julianne Moore replacing Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling. Despite all of those examples, there still are a handful of performances that were so amazing that it is hard to imagine anyone else taking replacing the actor in the role.
Of course, everyone knows that several different actors have played The Joker on the big screen. As a result, some people may think that it would be easy to recast The Joker in any film the character appeared in. However, there are a lot of people who feel that following Heath Ledger’s incredible performance as The Joker in The Dark Knight, nobody will ever be able to surpass what he did with the role. For that reason, it is staggering to realize that if things had played out differently, Adrien Brody could have been cast as The Joker in The Dark Knight.
In 2010, an MTV News reporter spoke to Adrien Brody while the actor was in attendance at the South by Southwest Festival. During the resulting conversation, Brody confirmed that he tried hard to be cast as The Joker in The Dark Knight and he got far enough in the process that he met with director Christopher Nolan. "I met Chris on that. Heath was tremendous in that, but yeah, I would've loved to have done that. It was an amazing role. Amazing."
Later during the same interview, Adrien Brody explained why he was so interested in playing The Joker in the Dark Knight. "It's not one specific thing that attracts me, it's... bringing truth to something that had this impact on you in your youth, and basically growing up and have that inside of you — stored away with all the memories you have of it."
Considering that Adrien Brody was excellent in several roles during his career, it is somewhat interesting to think about the idea of him playing the Joker on the big screen. However, given how stunning Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker in The Dark Knight was, it clearly is a great thing that Brody didn’t land the role in that film at least.
