Humans love to relate to things. Take a coconut, name it Mary-Lou, smash it on the ground, and our hearts break a little bit. And there is nothing that human beings find themselves relating to more than their favourite fictional characters. We hold these classic, beloved, well-known fictional characters closer to our hearts than most members of our real-life families. “I’m sorry, Nana, there is no room for you at the Thanksgiving table. We have to make room for this cardboard cutout of my lord and savior, Max Caulfield.”
Sometimes it feels like I even prioritize my favourite characters over myself. My own person. I know I should love myself and focus on my own joy and needs, but how can I do that when Harry Potter is suffering and needs my attention and protection? I'm kidding of course, or am I? I think there is a bit of truth in all the jokes we make about ourselves. Woah, deep.
But what would you do if I were to told you that some of your most beloved characters that you hold so dear to your heart almost didn’t exist? At least, not in the way that you’ve come to know them. Hair colour changes, species adjustments, questionable casting decisions, and complete personality overhauls await you down below. Read on if you dare.
Get ready to question everything that you’ve ever known as we explore fifteen characters that were almost completely different people.
15 A Face No One Could Trust
I’m sure everyone reading this article is at least vaguely aware of who Han Solo is. That freewheeling, gun slinging space cowboy that won our hearts and warmed other parts of us back in 1977. When George Lucas first considered bringing this beloved character to the big screen, he looked nothing like the gorgeous spaceman that we all know and love. The original Han Solo was a crazy tall, green fleshed, armored alien complete with fish-like gills and a noseless face. But Lucas was steered away from this otherworldly character design when crews felt like a human face (and accompanying body) would be preferred for Han Solo, as it would make it easier for audiences to trust someone they could identify with. You know how that turned out.
14 The King/Queen Of Friend Fiction
I may be biased, but I firmly believe that the friend fiction writing, boy chasing, horse praising Tina Belcher is the best character in the main Bob’s Burgers cast. Dan Mintz’s voice is just absolutely perfect for the character and hearing his deep, awkward, and traditionally masculine voice coming from the animated body of a teenage girl makes me laugh every time Tina speaks. And that is precisely the reason why Tina is the way she is. Originally, the Tina Belcher we all know and love was actually a boy named Daniel. But, while creating the show, a member of the creative team had the life-changing idea that Dan’s voice would sound much funnier coming out of the mouth of a teen girl. The rest of the cast and crew loved it, and the rest is her-story.
13 Lone Space Wolf
Ah, Rey. My little golden Rey of sunshine. One of the most controversial Star Wars characters of all time. Seriously, Google “Rey” and you’ll find forums upon forums and lengthy YouTube rants on why she alone ruined Star Wars and how she is the worst thing that has ever happened to the franchise. So I wonder how these enraged fanboys would react to the news that Rey wasn’t always the Rey that they know and despise… In earlier, more conceptual, drafts of the film that we know as The Force Awakens, Rey was actually a spunky girl named Kira. She was a tech-savvy, fight-loving, force to be reckoned with that could not be controlled by anyone around her. Kira sounds nothing like the moral, kind, and resourceful scavenger that lead the seventh film.
12 "Nice Wig, Janis"
Ask anyone who their favourite character from the classic film Mean Girls is and they will most likely tell you that it’s Janis. But I wonder how many fans would know that Janis’s entire backstory was rewritten due to the difficulty the crew had while trying to cast the infamous role. In a behind the scenes featurette for the film, Tina Fey explained that they were looking for a “Kelly Osbourne” type. Meaning, they wanted someone with a really unconventional alternative look about them. But there found themselves up the creek without a paddle when they realized that this person did not exist. When Lizzy Caplan auditioned for the role, they originally thought that she was far too beautiful for the part. But they ended up rewriting the character and making her one of Regina’s “ex-friends” in order to cast Caplan for the role.
11 Big Bully Theory
It turns out that the long-running sitcom, Big Bang Theory, was almost a completely different show. The official pilot of the highly debated show (is it witty and modern, or it is a misogynistic nerd-hating dumpster fire?) depicts Sheldon and Leonard meeting their new neighbour, Penny, over lunch in their apartment. Sheldon is neurotic, Leonard is in love and bad at it, and Penny is a sweet, bubbly, blonde who loves astrology and misunderstanding what vegetarianism entails. But the main cast in the show's unaired ‘original’ pilot could not be more different. The original Sheldon was actually a man with a high drive who finds himself unable to stop talking about his unusual interests. And Penny was originally a girl named Katie who was defined by her ‘street tough’ cruelty. Test audiences outright hated the way she bullied the boys. She was immediately cut, rewritten, and recast.
10 Survival Of The Female
Ellen Ripley will go down in history as one of the toughest, most hardcore fictional characters of all time. And what makes her more amazing is that she is a she. It’s so rare that we see boss female characters that don’t find themselves needed to have their powers toned down in order to get saved later in the film by their romantic interest, or equating their insane levels of skills and knowledge to having had brothers growing up. But the real kicker is that Ripley wasn’t always a girl. In early stages of writing, Ripley was written to be a stereotypical male action hero. They decided that it would be far more interesting to make the hero (and sole survivor) of the story the person that the audience “would least expect.”
9 Nerfed Aliens
I don’t know whether or not 3rd Rock from the Sun carries the same cultural power as it once did. So, I will take a brief moment to summarize the who and what that is this great piece of art. A group of alien soldiers from a far away planet travel to Earth in order to study its inhabitants, its ways, and the planet itself. In order not to be discovered, they take the form of human beings and they comically struggle to adjust to human norms. However, these otherworldly beings were originally far more powerful than their later versions. Originally, the aliens had the ability to communicate telepathically. But that proved to be near impossible to create, considering the show's classic sitcom format. So the power was scrapped altogether.
8 A Thief By Any Other Face
Disney went through heck and back trying to figure out exactly how to get the hunk thief Flynn Ryder (a.k.a. Eugene Fitzherbert) just right. Originally, he was going to be a pompous, dandy prince. Complete with silk stockings and a feather in his hat. Later, they decided to make him far more rugged and used Johnny Depp as a model. This version of Flynn rocked a long ponytail, tattered pirate shirt, and some smolder worthy facial stubble. The tall, stocky, and kind-faced version of Flynn pictured above was created by illustrator Jin Kim and though it was scrapped as the design for Flynn, it was later reused in the creation of the character “Kristoff” in Frozen. And even though I love Kristoff, I have to admit that they made the right choice. No other design would have done that boy justice.
7 Oh, Brother
It’s hard to imagine Hannah Montana without Jackson. He brings the perfect amount of wit, slapstick, and heart to every episode. It just would not be the same show without him. But the original character design they had going for Jackson was nearly unrecognizable to the boy we know and love today. Originally, Jackson was supposed to be a boy suffering from a near-crippling state of social anxiety. He was supposed to make regular visits to a therapist who had given him a puppet which he used to communicate with others. In fact, Miley’s audition video for the role of Zoe Stewart includes her using her brother’s puppet's birthday as an excuse not to see a Hannah Montana concert with Lily. Luckily for us, Jason Earles managed to blow the crew away with his audition and convinced them to rewrite the character.
6 To Be Or Not To Be
I have only met one person in my adult life that hasn’t seen the classic Shakespearean adaptation She’s The Man (and that situation was immediately remedied by me inserting that disc into my XBOX 360 and hitting play). But the original script, entitled “Dude Looks Like a Lady,” did not feature any of the soccer scenes that we know from the final product. In the original script, Viola was a drama geek. She desperately wanted to play the role of Hamlet in her school's production of the play, but they refused to even let her audition for the part due to her gender. So Viola pretended to be a male student in order to prove that she deserved the part. But that plot was abandoned for the “girl power” heavy soccer theme that dominated the final draft.
5 Now That That's Sorted...
One of the characters the received the most rewriting on the list wasn’t even flesh and blood at all. The concept of the Sorting Hat at Hogwarts was rewritten several times before J.K. Rowling settled on the idea of an enchanted hat that the students would wear. In the first draft, children would stand before a panel of ghosts that would judge them Order of the Phoenix style. Later drafts featured the young wizards being evaluated and look over by a panel of prefects. After that, students would merely step into a portal that would sort them and would leave in their proper house. Angrily, Jo joked that the sorting process would just be a hat with names in it that would be plucked out by heads of house and sorted that way. And this is how the idea of a magical sorting hat was born.
4 The Future Of Bond Is Female
I am being completely honest when I saw that I typically do not like action movies nor do I have any interest in most spy movies. However, SALT was something entirely different and very special. Angelina Jolie’s character, Evelyn Salt is this tough, intelligent, double (or should I say quadruple) crossing spy who kicks butt from America to North Korea, to Russia and back. It completely blew me away, and one of the coolest things about the film is that you never see women playing these sort of roles. The roles where they get to be strong and where their strength is prioritized over their beauty. And there is a reason for that. The role was originally written for Tom Cruise, but writers decided to make the character female in order to separate her from James Bond, Jason Bourne, and the ten million other male action/spy film characters.
3 Gender Roles
In her bestselling autobiography, “Where Am I Now?” Mara Wilson explained how over the moon her and her mother were when young Mara received the title role in the adaptation of the Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street. The character was originally written for a young boy, but Mara and her mother pushed for the role. The character was smart, witty, crafty, brave, and everything that female characters just weren’t. No one was writing intelligent young female characters at the time. No, they were all written to be cute. And neither Mara nor her mother did cute. During the early stages of filming, the character got rewritten several times and ended up being what they feared: cute and nothing but. All the things and traits that Mara and her mother loved about the character were removed in the end. The final result was the embodiment of cuteness.
2 Immortal Casting Changes
I honestly think that the above photo contains more emotional and facial expressions than the entire Twilight franchise. Don’t get me wrong, the first Twilight film will always have a very special place in my heart, but sometimes even I wonder how different the films would have been had they made some different casting decisions (though I think the main problem of the films is that it is impossible to translate a character whose speaks exclusively in internal monologues with an unreadable face to film without the use of a narration). But I can’t help but wonder what other actors would have done with that role. Jennifer Lawrence herself was actually up for the role of the infamous Bella. I can’t even imagine what the films would have been like with the expressive and energetic Lawrence in the driver's seat.
1 A Blonde In Oz
The Wizard of Oz will probably go down as one of, if not the, greatest films of all time. But it was nearly entirely different. The film switched directors halfway through filming. This new director scrapped literally everything that had been done by the films previous leader. The biggest changes made we made to the character of Dorothy. The original director glammed her up. As pictured above, the original costume for Dorothy was different. It included a face full of makeup, an old Hollywood style waist grazing blonde wig, and a well fitted and glamorous/overtly “adult” costume. When the new director came on board, he was disgusted by what they had done to Dorothy. He stripped Dorothy down saying that she was just a 14-year-old girl from Kansas. Judy Garland’s hair was brought back, her face washed, and the more loose-fitting and childlike costume was created.