Clooney Wanted the Thomas Hayden Church Role In Sideways...and Got This Instead

Alexander Payne is a fine writer-director who had "one of those moments" when Sideways became such a critical and popular hit in 2004.

He waited 7 years before daring to make another movie.

This happens to some writer-directors. As Payne said of Sideways on one of his many awards show red carpet walks for the movies "even I think it is kind of overrated." It wasn't, by the way, but it got enough positive attention to draw some critical/political brickbats ("A movie about middle aged white guys.")

So Payne won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for Sideways and evidently had one of those "performance withdrawals" that keeps a film maker from taking another at-bat for a number of years. He had to find just the right book to adapt, just the right story to tell.

That book turned out to be "The Descendants." And he got a big star this time (after Sideways' not so big stars) for the lead: George Clooney.

Thing was: George Clooney had evidently campaigned hard for the horndog, former soap opera actor, voice over artist and...horndog... played by Thomas Hayden Church in Sideways.

The story goes that Alexander Payne had to "gently" reject Clooney for that role, saying "this character is an unsuccessful actor, more of a loser, not that great in the looks department...you are just too big and handsome a star for the role." So Clooney didn't get the role and Thomas Hayden Church got the role of HIS lifetime(so far) and an Oscar nom.

But Alexander Payne must have remembered George Clooney, because he cast him in "his very next movie" -- even though that very next movie was 7 years in the gestation.

Clooney proved to be very right for THIS role. He had earned his stardom with the handsome looks and smooth deep voice of a modern day Cary Grant, but for some reason never really found enough hit movies to really keep that stardom. There are a LOT of flops on George Clooney's resume --The American, The Good German, The Men Who Stare at Goats, Leatherheads. His only real hits seem to have been the Ocean's movies(flanked by other stars) and The Perfect Storm(flanked by that Big Wave.)

I know there are some successes in there like "Out of Sight" and "Michael Clayton," but something just seems to have gone wrong with Clooney's career fro a number of years. Its possibly why he wanted Sideways.

But he got The Descendants instead, and everything "clicked." With his deep tan and features, he looked like a man who would have Hawaiian blood. With his calm and intelligent demeanor, he looked like a successful lawyer(Thomas Hayden Church might have had trouble with this.) And The Descendants gave him something he rarely played: vulnerability, sensitivity...pain. A parental role under maximum stress.

The Descendants got Clooney a Best Actor nomination, and you could say that the role was 'surefire to get one." But its hard to think of a peer star of Clooney's who would have fit it as well. Matt Damon is too boyish. Same for Leo. Brad Pitt a bit too "removed" from emotion. Tom Cruise...too big for the role (as Clooney was too big for Sideways.)

No, George Clooney was the right man at the right age at the right time in the right story to get, in The Descendants, what I think just might be his best role ever.

HIs career has declined overall since The Descendants (though he evidently made $300 milion from his tequila brand) but this movie stands as evidence of the best he could do, the best he could be.

All because he lost "Sideways" first.