• iconNews
  • videos
  • entertainment
  • Home
  • News
    • UK News
    • US News
    • Australia
    • Ireland
    • World News
    • Weird News
    • Viral News
    • Sport
    • Technology
    • Science
    • True Crime
    • Travel
  • Entertainment
    • Celebrity
    • TV & Film
    • Netflix
    • Music
    • Gaming
    • TikTok
  • LAD Originals
    • Say Maaate to a Mate
    • Daily Ladness
    • Lad Files
    • UOKM8?
    • FreeToBe
    • Extinct
    • Citizen Reef
  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • UNILAD
  • SPORTbible
  • GAMINGbible
  • Tyla
  • UNILAD Tech
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
Threads
Snapchat
TikTok
YouTube

LAD Entertainment

YouTube

LAD Stories

Submit Your Content
Two of the Best Actress Oscar nominees have been honoured for roles that were originally for men

Home> Entertainment

Updated 17:21 12 Mar 2023 GMTPublished 15:08 12 Mar 2023 GMT

Two of the Best Actress Oscar nominees have been honoured for roles that were originally for men

Two of the year's biggest roles in the Best Actress Oscar race were originally intended for male actors

Gregory Robinson

Gregory Robinson

Two of the roles nominated for the Best Actress award at this year’s Oscars were originally written for men.

The 95th Academy Awards will take place on Sunday night at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles where Cate Blanchett, Ana de Armas, Andrea Riseborough, Michelle Williams and Michelle Yeoh will wait in the audience to see if their name is announced as the winner.

Advert

Interestingly, the lead roles in Blanchett’s Tár and Yeoh’s Everything Everywhere All at Once almost looked very different.

In the heart-wrenching sci-fi directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert follows character Evelyn Wang (Yeoh), a Chinese-American immigrant who is on a quest to connect with parallel universe versions of herself to stop a powerful being from destroying the multiverse.

However, the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon actress, 60, said that she had what could have been a very awkward phone conversation with the film’s intended star, Jackie Chan.

Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All at Once.
A24

The pair, who worked together on the 1992 action movie Police Story 3: Supercop, are close friends and chatted about the film after Yeoh bagged the role.

Chan, 68, boasted that he had in fact been offered the lead role in Everything Everywhere All at Once as it was originally written to be a man.

Advert

“It was written for a man, when [directors known collectively as the Daniels] set out to do this,” Yeoh told CNN.

“They wrote it that way, with Jackie, and me as the wife. So the roles were completely reversed.

“I remember Jackie texting me and saying, 'Congratulations! You know your boys came to see me first'.

“I'm like, 'Thank you bro, you did me a huge favour'."

Yeoh said it was a ‘mutual’ decision between the directors and Chan for him to step away from the film. The Daniels ‘stepped back’ and decided to refocus the film with a female lead while Chan had a ‘very busy’ work schedule.

Advert

Meanwhile, fellow Best Actress nominee Blanchett said she wasn’t quite the first choice for the lead role in Tár.

Cate Blanchett in Tár.
Universal Pictures

The psychological drama film, directed and written by Todd Field, follows the life of renowned celebrity conductor Lydia Tár who becomes embroiled in a career-ending scandal over accusations of serial sexual abuse and harassment.

Perhaps following on from the #MeToo movement in which countless men in powerful positions were exposed for misconduct, Field intended for the controversial fictional conductor.

“When Todd was thinking about it, Tár was originally a male role,” the 53-year-old star said during Variety’s Actors on Actors series opposite Yeoh.

Blanchett explained: “Because the film is a meditation on power, you would’ve had a much less nuanced examination of that. We understand what the corruption of male power looks like, but we need to unpack what power is itself.”

Advert

The gender swap for this acclaimed tale on the abuse of power has made it one of the best films released in the last 12 months.

Blanchett added: “Being at the head of a major institution and therefore being in a position of being able to, and expected to, wield a certain level of authority, that has separated her from not only her craft and her creative instinct, but also from who she is.”

Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock

Topics: Oscars, TV and Film

Gregory Robinson
Gregory Robinson

Gregory is a journalist for LADbible. After graduating with a master's degree in journalism, he has worked for both print and online publications and is particularly interested in TV, (pop) music and lifestyle. He loves Madonna, teen dramas from the '90s and prefers tea over coffee.

Advert

Advert

Advert

  • Lip reader reveals Demi Moore's one-word response to missing out on Best Actress Oscar
  • Adrien Brody slammed for disgusting act after winning Best Actor Oscar award
  • Netflix fans 'addicted' to 93% Rotten Tomatoes thriller where lead actress plays five roles
  • Two men were best friends for 60 years before making life-changing discovery

Choose your content:

an hour ago
5 hours ago
  • an hour ago

    Woman left 'humiliated' after boyfriend has orgy with six other women on TV show

    Tanith was emotional after finding out that her boyfriend had an orgy on their first night in Open House

    Entertainment
  • an hour ago

    Virgin Island's male sex surrogate reveals what happens when he's not attracted to a client

    Andre Lazarus opened up more about his job, which sees him sleep with clients

    Entertainment
  • an hour ago

    Netflix quietly adds underrated Tom Cruise thriller secretly linked to Jason Statham classic in way you won’t realise

    Netflix have added an underrated gem starring Tom Cruise

    Entertainment
  • 5 hours ago

    How much Jeremy Clarkson has reportedly been paid by Amazon Prime for Clarkson's Farm

    Jeremy Clarkson has earned millions from Clarkson's Farm

    Entertainment