Who was really meant to play Victor Meldrew? How your favourite TV characters could have been very different
The idea is incomprehensible to anyone who watched Fleabag. Creator and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge was leaned on by studio executives to ditch Andrew “Hot Priest” Scott just days before filming of its second series started, it has been revealed.
Shane Allen, the BBC’s former director of comedy, said that bosses at co-producer Amazon read the scripts and “proceeded to tear the show apart and demand Andrew Scott was recast with only four days until the shoot started”.
Waller-Bridge managed to resist — “anyone less effervescently charming and smart than Phoebe would have buckled,” according to Allen — and thank goodness she did. It is hard to imagine anyone else in that role.
Meanwhile, S Club 7 star Rachel Stevens has used her new memoir to reveal that she was almost cast as The Doctor’s companion in the 2005 reboot of Doctor Who, but lost out to Billie Piper. Piper then played Rose opposite Christopher Eccleston and, most notably, David Tennant.
The near-miss is nothing new, of course. Here we look at some of the other Sliding Doors moments that changed telly history.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge in Mr & Mrs Smith
Waller-Bridge found herself at the centre of her own “what if?” moment in September 2021, when she abruptly pulled out of an Amazon Prime series remake of Mr & Mrs Smith, alongside Donald Glover. She was replaced by Maya Erskine in the Angelina Jolie role of “Jane Smith”, and the chemistry between Erskine and Glover was one of the best things about the show.
It appears that Waller-Bridge clashed with Glover. “I worked on that show for six months fully in heart and mind and really cared about it—still care about it,” Waller-Bridge said last year.
“And I know it’s gonna be brilliant. But sometimes it’s about knowing when to leave the party. You don’t want to get in the way of a vision.” Creative collaboration is like a marriage, she added, “and some marriages don’t work out.”
The actress has a $60 million (￡47 million) deal with Amazon, though we are still waiting to actually see any of her productions.
Richard Hearne as The Doctor
Hearne is best remembered for playing the hapless Mr Pastry in 1950s, when he is widely regarded as one of the first recognisable TV stars. Mr Pastry, a madcap character with walrus moustache, bowler hat and coat-tails, was developed by Hearne as a stage character who migrated to the BBC. The theme tune to his children’s show was Pop Goes the Weasel.
After Jon Pertwee concluded his stint as The Doctor in 1974, the third actor to play the role, Doctor Who producer Barry Letts considered Hearne for the role after his latest regeneration.
Considered him, that is, until it became clear that Hearne wanted to play the Time Lord as Mr Pastry. One suspects that this was slightly out of step with the bold, rather violent vision for the future of the show, and the role eventually went to Tom Baker.
Bing Crosby as Columbo
Peter Falk brought a lot of himself to the role of Lieutenant Columbo — including his own clothes. The shabby suit and crumpled overcoat were the actor’s own and that, combined with his habit of slapping his hand to his forehead in exasperation, helped make the detective show a hit.
So it is hard to imagine a star as smooth and refined as Bing Crosby as the bumbling cop. Yet it was his to turn down — and turn it down he did. Crosby, then in his 60s and two decades older than Falk, said being on a TV serial would have interfered with his ability to play as much golf as he liked. So fans of Columbo have his handicap of two to thank for what came later.
Les Dawson as Victor Meldrew
I don’t believe it! Richard Wilson originally turned down the part of Victor Meldrew in BBC One’s One Foot in the Grave, because he thought he was too young in his early 50s to play the cantankerous security guard.
Les Dawson, who was best known for hosting Blankety Blank and hosting his eponymous variety show, was the second choice of writer David Renwick. “It would have been a different character; he would have taken it in a different direction. But he had the lugubriousness and the attitude which would have worked,” said Renwick.
Wilson eventually changed his mind and the character became iconic over more than a decade. Whether Dawson’s Meldrew would also have become synonymous with grumpy old men, we can but wonder. Wilson described Dawson as “a very funny man – but I don’t know if he could have played Victor” in 2016.
Thomas Jane as Don Draper
Matthew Weiner, the creator of Mad Men, thought that Jon Hamm was “too handsome” to play Don Draper. So it may have been hurtful for Thomas Jane, star of The Predator, that Weiner gave serious consideration to casting him as the advertising mogul.
Jane rejected the role and Weiner had to fight to get network bosses to give relative unknown Hamm a chance.
“Nobody knew who I was. The casting directors didn’t know who I was. I wasn’t on anybody’s lists,” Hamm later said.
“The funny thing was, I think they went to Thomas Jane for it, and they were told that Thomas Jane does not do television.” Jane has since had long-running leading parts on TV shows including Hung and The Expanse.
Ray Winstone as Jimmy McNulty
Baltimore’s baddest policeman could have been played by an altogether different Brit. Old Etonian Dominic West still surprises some Americans who do not realise that he is from this side of the Atlantic.
Yet it was Ray Winstone, alumnus of the rather lesser-known Edmonton County School, who was originally offered the role by HBO.
“Maybe if I was a young man, I’d think about moving to America,” he said in a 2011 interview. “I was offered a part in The Wire years ago, and it’s probably a good thing I never did it because it turned out to be a fantastic series and I probably would have ruined it.
“The reason for that was my [daughters] were a certain age and at school and I’d have had to be in Baltimore for seven months,” Winstone added. “There’s nothing wrong with Baltimore but I wouldn’t see my kids and it was the wrong time for me. I’ve no regrets at all.”
Ironically, McNulty was almost entirely absent from the fourth series because West wanted to spend more time with his family in the UK by that point.
Bob Odenkirk as Michael Scott
Finding an actor to play the lead in a remake of a popular show is a tricky task, and the producers adapting Ricky Gervais’s The Office thought that they had found their ideal version of an American David Brent in the form of Steve Carell.
Yet Carell disappointed them when he turned down the role in favour of playing a leading role in Come to Papa, an NBC sitcom. So Bob Odenkirk, who later shot to fame as sleazy lawyer Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad and then Better Call Saul, got the part of wayward paper company boss Michael Scott.
There was another twist. Come to Papa bombed, lasting just four episodes, and The Office showrunner Greg Daniels was able to get his original man.
“Bob has an edge to him,” casting director Allison Jones later recalled. “His take on Michael was just as funny as Steve’s, but it was darker . . . The worst thing I ever had to do is tell Bob Odenkirk’s agent that he didn’t get The Office.” Odenkirk eventually got his chance to interact with the folk at Dunder Mifflin, when he guest-starred in a ninth series episode.
Courteney Cox as Rachel Green
It is hard to imagine anybody other than Jennifer Aniston playing Rachel Green in Friends — that haircut! — but Courteney Cox originally auditioned for, and won, the part.
Cox was probably the Friend with the highest profile at the time of casting, having guest-starred in Seinfeld, and her playing Rachel would have been a fillip for a show that had well-documented problems launching. It also conjures the slightly cringe-inducing prospect of her playing Ross Geller’s love interest rather than his sister, Monica.
Cox turned down the chance to be Rachel, and took a punt on the other part. “For some reason, I thought I related more to Monica, which maybe it’s because I do,” Cox said last year. “I’m very similar to her. I’m not as clean as Monica, but I’m very neat. And I’m not as competitive, but still some people like my partner Johnny McDaid, would say I am.”
Alec Baldwin as Mr Big
Chris Noth captured the heart of Carrie Bradshaw, and millions of fans, playing Mr Big on Sex and the City. Yet Sarah Jessica Parker could have had another soulmate entirely as series creator Darren Star originally hoped to cast Alec Baldwin instead.
It is perhaps for the best that they went with Noth. Otherwise, the reboot of And Just Like That, which premiered three months after Baldwin was involved in a fatal shooting on the set of his Western film Rust, may have been hastily re-edited. Not that there would have been much to change: in the first episode Big has a heart attack while riding his Peloton bike and dies.
