Although Doctor Strange will be played by Benedict Cumberbatch, it looks as though Ethan Hawke almost landed the illustrious role.
Ever since Doctor Strange was first announced, Marvel fans have been desperate to find out who would play the good Doctor. Of course, we now know that Benedict Cumberbatch is set to play Marvel’s Sorcerer Supreme.
But it seems Ethan Hawke may have also been in the running…
During an interview with the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the 44-year-old actor revealed that he “came as close as anybody could” to landing the role of Doctor Strange.
“I would love to work with Scott [Derrickson] and I have a sneaky suspicion that Scott wanted me for that too,” he said. “If people are gonna put up with somebody like me, they wanna make sure you’re gonna put asses in seats, and there’s a lot of actors that are gonna put more asses in seats than me.”
Of course, if anyone is going to put asses in seats right now, it’s Benedict Cumberbatch. After all, his stint as Sherlock Holmes in the BBC Drama Sherlock has made him more than a household name. And after starring in the likes of The Hobbit and The Imitation Game, the 38-year-old actor is hot property right now.
But it seems that’s not the only reason that Ethan Hawke didn’t get the role…
“There’s a problem that comes along whenever Marvel’s gonna approach Joaquin or me or anybody who’s in love with acting,” he said. “Because there’s a tremendous amount of salesmanship that is now really important to a studio like that. It’s a tremendous amount of time of your life where you’re working and you’re not acting.”
“When Daniel Day-Lewis does Lincoln, he works really hard, he preps for that part, he works his ass off, he learns his lines, he comes to set… he finishes the movie, he does press for a few weeks, he collects a trunk full of awards, and he goes home,” he added.
“If he does Doctor Strange, you do all that, then you go on the press tour for a year, and then you have to be online and you have to do this thing and you have to do that thing, and if you don’t do it, you’re seen as being counter to the campaign—you’re not pulling in for the big win.”
Obviously, a project such as Doctor Strange is going to take a lot of work – especially since it’s one of Marvel’s newer properties when ti comes to the big screen. But was Hawke right to walk?
I’m not so sure… but either way, we ended up with Cumberbatch in the title role. And that’s got to be a good thing.
Doctor Strange heads to cinemas on 4 November 2016.
Are you looking forward to Doctor Strange? Was Ethan Hawke right to walk away from the movie? Let us know what you think in the comments below…
