The days after the great Heath Ledger died in January 2008 troubled director Terry Gilliam who was contemplating whether to completely cancel production for THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS or gambling on someone to replace Ledger. We all know and obviously from the int’l trailer that Gilliam eventually cast Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell to play the character Tony that Ledger left behind but via contactmusic, turns out those three actors weren’t the first to approach Gilliam about the job. Someone by the name of Tom Cruise was interested. Remember, this was back when Cruise was fixing his reputation after the jumping on the couch stunt, the prescription drug fiasco and getting fired by Viacom. Guess he thought PARNASSUS would be his ticket out of being the butt of late night jokes. The result… Cruise tried and Gilliam turned him down…
“I’m not sure if it was Tom or his agent (who put Cruise forward for the role). I know there was a period when Tom’s agents were keen. The thing is, I was only interested in people who were friends of Heath. Simple as that. I wanted to keep it in the family.”
What a relief! It would be weird to see Cruise in this fantasy adventure movie, I don’t think I could even start to imagine.
This whole situation of Cruise’s agent contacting Gilliam reminds me of what Ari Gold would do for Vincent Chase in the series Entourage.
Ya know, I still think Tom Cruise is a great talented actor, his record shows (Born On The Fourth Of July, Jerry Maguire). His performance in Tropic Thunder last year proves that the man is not ashamed to give his all for his character… but just as much as he is an actor, unfortunately he is also a diva. From what I’ve gathered, Heath Ledger was not the kind of actor who was chasing the spotlight and drawing all kinds of attention to himself, so the idea of Cruise replacing Ledger would be disrespectful, an insult.
At one point, I thought there was no need for Gilliam to hire 3 guys to do one role, Johnny Depp would’ve sufficed and I had my reservation about Colin Farrell but In Bruges redeemed him.
I can understand Terry Gilliam’s reason for casting those who were close friends with Ledger because only those folks would understand what Ledger would do for the character Tony instead of attempting some other tricks.
THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS opens Christmas 2009
