Sye Williams

David Merrick called them -- those big-time show-business casting mistakes that are never widely publicized. Not errors of taste or tone, but flat-out boners. Robert Urich, for instance, was asked to play Spenser, the TV detective, because the show's producers had him confused with Robert Conrad. We had waltzed through eleven films before our own first misfire. Our movie version of Cormac McCarthy'shad Tommy Lee Jones in place -- no mistake there -- as a crusty west-Texas sheriff on the trail of a bad man to be played by four-time-Goya-winning Spanish sex symbol Javier Bardem. And to round out the cast we hired -- we thought -- rugged everyman Jim Brolin as Llewelyn Moss, the aging Vietnam vet caught in the middle.

Well, there were some red faces on the set the first day of shooting when Jim Brolin's son Josh showed up to play the part. Crossed wires, misunderstanding -- who knows what kind of snafu -- had resulted in our casting office offering the part to an actor who was patently thirty years too young. Talk about a boo-boo. In retrospect, this explained William Morris agent Michael Cooper's surprise on hearing we wanted his client for the coveted role. Too late now, though -- the contracts were all signed.

Well, that's show business. You roll with the punches. You make it work. How could Josh Brolin plausibly be a Vietnam vet? Simple: set the story in 1980 instead of the present day. A quick huddle with production designer Jess Gonchor and, bingo, we're a period picture. An offer goes out to Shia LaBeouf to replace Tommy Lee Jones as Brolin's (now young) counterpart. Shia passes, okay, we stick with Tommy Lee, and we make the best of a big age difference. You make it work.

Turns out the Brolin kid is not bad. Still, Jim Brolin. It could have been great.

This story is part of our second annual register of emerging ideas, trends, discoveries, products, people, and obscene gestures you should know about before everyone else does.

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