This week, everyone is celebrating the 20th anniversary of one of the most classic films of all time, Clueless. I haven’t seen it in years but I could probably sit here and recite the entire script from memory. It was an absolutely genius move for writer/director Amy Heckerling to adapt Jane Austen’s Emma in a modern Beverly Hills setting. It’s absolutely perfect. So to celebrate the anniversary, everyone involved with the process of making it has been spilling some interesting details. Like… an agent pitched Angelina Jolie for Cher Horowitz. OMG. So that’s why I’m including all of these photos of Angelina in Hackers, which was released around the same time: this is what Angelina looked like circa 1994-95
“Clueless” was one of the defining movies of the ’90s — and now, 20 years later, Vanity Fair has revealed some major casting secrets! While director Amy Heckerling says she “had her heart set on Alicia Silverstone” from the beginning, she explains that Fox wanted her to explore other options for Cher.
“I saw Alicia Witt, the redheaded [actress]. And who else? Tiffani Thiessen. The one that — she was in that show and she cut her hair and everybody was mad? Keri Russell, yes,” she tells the mag. “Then they go, ‘You’ve got to see the girl in [Flesh and Bone].’ I never got to see her. I guess she was off on other things. That turned out to be Gwyneth Paltrow.”
Even Angelina Jolie was initially considered for the lead role!
“She was too knowing for what was needed for Clueless,” Fox casting director Carrie Frazier reveals. “Angelina never came in [to audition] for the project. I was just looking at her tape. I remember an agent pitching her, and I’m going, ‘No, no, no, this is exactly the opposite of what I need for this.’ Later on, when I started heading up the casting department for HBO, and I got the script for ‘Gia,’ I said, ‘I’ve got the girl.’ That was Angelina.”
Reese Witherspoon also was in the running for the part.
“I met with Reese because everyone said, ‘This girl’s amazing. She’s going to be huge,'” Heckerling adds. “I saw some movie where she had a southern accent. Maybe it was on TV, a movie of the week. But I did see some scenes of hers and went: Wow. She’s amazing. But Alicia is Cher.”
I could totally see Reese Witherspoon as Cher. That would have been a good backup casting choice for Alicia Silverstone. Gwyneth was good as the OG Emma in the straight-up film adaptation of the book a few years later, but I’m glad Goop didn’t get her hands on Cher. As for Angelina… yeah, no way in hell she would have ever been cast as Cher. But it’s funny that someone, somewhere was like, “Send Angelina’s tape to Amy Heckerling!”
Photos courtesy of ‘Hackers’ and ‘Clueless’.
Sometimes ( often) the producers really have strange ideas of casting
Ugh. As if.
Ha!!
LOL
HAHA.
Beat me to it!
You win at the internet 😀 xx
Haha, my first thought after seeing the headline!
Jenifer Aniston would’ve been better. 🙂
lol, thank you
LOL
Yes she would have been. It would have been right up her alley.
Aniston would have been Too old, too talentless and too lacking in the charisma dept. Ensemble TV sit coms are her wheelhouse.
How was she considered when they say she wasn’t. She always said she never got cased as the “girl next door”.. but I’m so glad she never did. Too many of those generic actresses..
And I agree she is too knowing to play a dizzy character.
actresses make such a big deal today when they cut their hair.. She rocked that short do.. and even had her hair shorter in a film. But now cutting your hair is so artistically challenging.
Just by a casting director taking the time to look at your tape is deemed as “being considered”.
When I was in year 12 I had to study Emma/Clueless for English. It was the best thing I studied in school. Period.
Being able to recite huge chunks of Clueless did seem to annoy my classmates though.
I love Angelina and I love Clueless but together is a big NO NO.
Cher was this rich but cute girl while Angelina can never be considered cute & girl next door. She is too stunning and opposite clueless – you can always see that Angelina has lived and lived her life to the fullest. Cher character was a teenager just discovering the real world.
PS: Angelina has been spotted in Johannesburg where she is probably going to attend the African Summit held by UN. Hopefully she will give a wonderful speech like she always does.
She’s gorgeous now but AJ wasn’t stunning back then. She had more of a rocker, edgy badass look. That’s what made me like her in Hackers and when I became a fan. As her facial structure started to change (or loss of baby fat as some people on here have said) she blossomed into the AJ that we know today.
Are you blind? Are u blooking at the stills up top.. That’s kinda the definition of stunning. You can say she got even more stunning….but saying she wasn’t sounds like delusion or a case of the meows, girl. Lol
I have to go watch that on Netflix, now.
i just watched it sunday not knowing its been 20 years! ughh i feel old.
I love this movie!!! Anyway it was the year of Alicia because she was in all of those Aerosmith videos and none of those actresses would’ve worked as well.
Angelina in Clueless? No. Reese Witherspoon, absolutely but Elle Woods was a Cher type character in Legally Blonde. Love both films.
Alicia Silverstone was perfect as Cher!! Angie was too much of a bad girl/bad ass to play thata role…
Clueless remains one of my favorites. Of that group, only Reese would have been a possibility. No one else would have been a good fit.
That would be a disaster. Cher is the preetiest girl from school that nobody actually likes, the very extreme opposite of Angelina. Even a nerdy stereotype would fit better for her than the blonde brainless Barbie.
I may have to watch that tonight now, haven’t seen it in a while. LOVE that movie. The fashion, the make up, the hair and the music … oh yes, makes me feel young again. And then ancient when I see those trends walk past me on the street again.
a bigger disaster than malibu
damn it – that was supposed to go on naddie’s post.
Very glad Angie did not go in for the audition and then later on was up for Gia and Amy Heckerling has GREAT judgment considering it was perfect casting for both movies.
It’s funny to think of a time when Angelina was just a jobbing actress, auditioning for everything. I also heard she went up for Liv Tyler’s role in Empire Records.
This article doesn’t say Angelina auditioned or even that she wanted this part..it says casting was looking at her. Jolie seems to have gone for very particular roles that she felt did something for her. I’ve been a fan for a long time and I have never heard she auditioned for the least interesting female role in Empire, is anything shed have gone for the alternative role played by (name of actress escapes). Nice try painting her as ‘jobbing,’ that’s another impression of yours that doesn’t seem accurate.
Yeah totes jobbing. I’m an Angie fan, just saying it as I see it.
I don’t think she could have pulled off ‘airhead’ like Silverstone did…and it follows: Where is Silverstone now? Nowhere. She is the human version of a one hit wonder.
I hated Clueless. Never understood what people saw in that film. It was a waste of my money to see.
I like to think that the hype is all for children/early teens from the 90s (used to love it because I was one). Now I remember the characters and all I can say is that they suck, their stupidness is not even funny.
Yo. What’s with the Alicia hate? Cher Horowitz, the character in Clueless, was a ditz; Alicia, the actress who played her, not so much. She’s worked pretty steadily both on and off Broadway since coming onto the scene, so I’d hardly say she’s a one hit wonder.
Haha that’s how I feel about “Mean Girls”. Didn’t laugh once and thought it was horrible!
That would’ve been an awful fit for her, so glad that didn’t happen
That’s hilarious Gwyneth was considered for Cher since she played Emma in the Jane Austen move adaptation. Just watched it last night and have to say that Gwyneth was awesome as Emma. I cannot see her as Cher at all.
Whenever Gwyneth does or says something.. I just remember how much I loved her in Emma.
Ughhh I miss those movie days. Ten Things I hate About You, She’s All That,Mean Girls, I’m blanking on more but those 90s teen movies were awesome.
Mean Girls was much later (maybe not MUCH later, but definitely not the 90s; Lindsay wasn’t even in Parent Trap until 1998).
But yes, yes, I miss those movie days too. I was in elementary and middle school when the mid-to-late-90’s teen movies came out… when I got to high school, it was NOTHING like those clique-y, fashionable cookie-cutter tropes I’d come to expect. (Then as a high schooler, I got into the earlier ones.. Pump Up the Volume, Heathers, etc. Movies make high school seem WAY more interesting.)
Other candidates… Can’t Hardly Wait, Drive Me Crazy, Never Been Kissed, Empire Records, even the Craft and the Faculty. Yep, definitely the Golden Age of girly high school movies.
Clueless was 1995 – my generation. I was a teen when that came out. Mean girls came out nearly a decade later in 2004 – after I’d already married, had a kid, and moved halfway around the world.
Brittney B, if you haven’t see some of the 80s teen movies, I recommend…
…Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, Some Kind of Wonderful, Pretty in Pink, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off…
(I realize all of those are from the same guy, but he WAS 80s movies…)
Heathers was always one of my FAVES…! 🙂
Oops! Well I was in high school in the 00s, and my super cool older brother is probably why I knew about/saw those movies then. Mean Girls was better matched to my teen years, given that timeline. I think I was on the young side for Clueless. But I still maintain that that general era was the best 🙂
I think you missed the jewel of this story… Clueless led to Gia! Never in a million years would I have connected those two movies… but it sounds like Carrie Frazier is saying that she cast Angelina in Gia only because she already knew about her from the Clueless pitch. She might have gotten it anyway — that part was MADE for her — but it’s interesting to imagine her career trajectory without it. Gia made everything happen. Including sending her down a rabbit hole of self-medication and using her roles as therapy.
Also, the casting choice would’ve been bad for sure, but we DO know that Angie had crazy chemistry with Brittany Murphy. Their relationship in Girl, Interrupted is like the polar opposite of Cher’s relationship with Brittany’s Clueless character… but strangely, there are some parallels (namely that Cher/Lisa is the leader of the pack, and focuses on Brittany’s naive character… but to very different ends).
I’m definitely over-analyzing this silly story. But thanks for the nostalgia! (And for making me feel incredibly old.)
Gia was suuuuch a great movie.
Lisa’s dismantling of Daisy in Girl, Interrupted was one of the best b!tch moments in film. It’s up there with Isabelle taking Sophie apart in The Razor’s Edge (the 40s version).
You’re a virgin who can’t drive.
Ugh, that was way harsh Tai.
Silverstone was perfect. And I never seen Reese Witherspoon act as perfectly, as beautifully as she did in that movie with Patricia Arquette. I think it was a fluke.
Alicia Silverstone and Reese Witherspoon. The “silver-spoons” lol…..much early, many wines…
Awesome movie and perfect cast. I can’t picture it any other way now if I think back. Loved it and Alicia is Cher.
Project!! ☺
Clueless is sheer perfection, the cast is flawless. end.
Agree and the only movie I remember line by line. I have my text tone with Cher saying “as if”
No. Just….NO. As was said, even back then, she is too ‘knowing’. She could never play the airhead character convincingly.