10 Actors Who Had Parts Written For Them, And 10 Who Had To Fight For Their Roles

After becoming well-known for playing goody-two-shoes Monica Geller, Kudrow and Schwimmer's costar Courteney Cox had trouble being taken seriously in her quest to become not-so-nice TV journalist Gale Weathers in Scream.

Cox revealed that she wrote a letter to director Wes Craven, assuring him she "can really be a bitch."

Sofia Coppola not only wrote the role of Lost in Translation leading man Bob Harris for Bill Murray, but she's also maintained that she wouldn't have bothered making the film without him.

"I spent about a year trying to track him down and was asking random people who knew him through golf," she said. "I was on a mission."

Matthew Gray Gubler had to audition for Criminal Minds wunderkind Spencer Reid about five times, each time playing the character as weird and "gregarious," even though he was written to be "stoic, like Data from Star Trek." 

He was even told he was "so wrong" for the part, but he eventually won them over, and his version of Spencer is (thankfully) the one we ended up with.

Henry Cavill, an avid gamer, was a big fan of the video game version of The Witcher, and when Netflix announced it was planning on a limited series adaptation of the books the game was based on, he immediately started campaigning to play Geralt of Rivia.

"He was really annoying," Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, who'd been hired to produce and write the show, revealed. "I finally said, 'I will meet with you. The show is not green-lit. There is nothing.' I said, 'Thank you. Now I have to go write the show.’"

Despite Cavill's obvious interest, Hissrich and the other producers still auditioned over 200 actors for the role of Geralt, but ultimately she knew he was the right choice for the actor.

Plenty of people were probably surprised when they tuned into Frasier and were introduced to Niles Crane, seeing as Frasier had never mentioned having siblings on Cheers. (There's actually a joke about this in Season 2 of Frasier, when Ted Danson guest-stars as Sam Malone.) 

It turns out, there was never a plan for Frasier to have a brother. It wasn't until the casting director came across a photo of David Hyde Pierce and, struck by the resemblance between him and Kelsey Grammer, showed the creators.

At first, they weren't interested in bringing a brother into the picture, having just worked on Wings, but after watching some footage of Pierce, they "fell in love with him" and wrote the role of Niles.

Harrison Ford was the first choice to start in Ghost, but according to Patrick Swayze's wife, Lisa Niemi, he read the script and was determined to play Sam.

Whoopi Goldberg, meanwhile, was having trouble being seen as more than a comedian, but Swayze campaigned for her to play Oda, and the two managed to land their respective roles after reading for director Jerry Zucker together.

"I was really fortunate that Patrick and Whoopi were able to read together so that I could see it in front of me and go, 'Yeah, that works,'" Zucker said. Goldberg ended up winning an Oscar for her performance.

Shape of Water writer and director Guillermo del Toro had both actors in mind when he penned the script and told them both personally. After a few drinks, he approached Sally Hawkins at a Golden Globes after-party, telling her, "I'm writing a movie for you where you fall in love with a fish-man!'"

Octavia Spencer revealed that, during a three-hour conversation that was supposed to be a half-hour meeting, the project didn't come up until the last few minutes, when he told her he'd written a part for her. She signed on sight unseen.

Believe it or not, Gillian Anderson almost didn't play Dana Scully on The X-Files. She kept getting callbacks, and while Chris Carter was on board, the network wasn't.

Anderson said that "he fought tooth and nail to get [her] rather than what used to be the version of women [on] television back then, which was very different."

After casting director Allison Jones told Parks and Recreation executive producer Michael Schur that she'd "just met the weirdest girl" she'd ever met in her life, Schur decided to meet with Aubrey Plaza, who "made [him] feel really uncomfortable for like an hour." 

It sounds like classic Aubrey Plaza and obviously made an impression, because he wrote the role of April for her.

After a number of other actors turned down the role of Rose in Titanic, Winslet sent director James Cameron daily notes campaigning for the part. He finally asked her to go to Hollywood to audition, but was still hesitant about casting her despite being impressed by her screen test.

She even called him at one point, saying, "You don't understand! I am Rose! I don't know why you're even seeing anyone else!"