Twenty years after its release, the film that propelled Alicia Silverstone into mega stardom back in the mid-90s has turned into a modern-day classic in the high school genre, and it's hard to imagine the "Clueless" movie cast including other actors than the ones that made the film - but some of Hollywood's biggest names could have been cast as Cher!
The 1995, loosely based on Jane Austen's classic novel "Emma," saw the debut of some of Hollywood's biggest stars at the time, including Silverstone, Paul Rudd and the late Brittany Murphy, but the film's writer and director has recently revealed that the "Clueless" movie cast could have looked completely different.
According to Refinery29, there's a book about to be released honoring the flm's 20th anniversary, called "As If! The Oral History of Clueless, as Told by Amy Heckerling, the cast, and the Crew," where the film's writer, Heckerling, dishes about the process of assembling the "Clueless" movie cast together.
Us Weekly reports that the "Clueless" movie cast could have looked very different, as the studio behind it, Paramount Pictures, were not too keen on casting Silverstone for the role, but rather pick another ingénue of the time - and among the names passed around were three women who have become Oscar-winning megastars since 1995: Reese Witherspoon, Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie.
Other names thrown around for the project were "Cybill" star Alicia Witt, "White Collar," actress Tiffani Thiessen (then fresh off "Saved by the Bell" and "Beverly Hills 90210") and "Felicity" and "The Americans" star Keri Russell.
Vanity Fair recently published a set of excerpts from the book, where Heckerling and Fox casting director Carrie Frazier discuss the secrets regarding the "Clueless" movie cast, and it turns out that , while they both thought Silverstone was perfect, the studio was keen on someone like Witherspoon, Paltrow or even Jolie, who was deemed the "opposite" of what they were looking for - until ultimately casting her for "Gia."
In any case, all these stars have gone on to have amazing careers after the 1995 summer hit, so it's not so bad that they weren't part of the "Clueless" movie cast!
