Close your eyes and imagine how different the pop world would be if Claire Danes had not played Angela Chase — Alicia Silverstone had. It almost happened! No disrespect to Silverstone, but that would have been a really different show. From The New Yorker’s new profile of Claire Danes:

Silverstone auditioned first. [Ed] Zwick, impressed, told [Marshall] Herskovitz, “It’s done. Just cast her.” But Herskovitz thought she was too pretty for [Winnie] Holzman’s messy high-school universe, which included subplots about drug addiction, bullying, binge drinking, promiscuity, and homosexuality. “Alicia is so beautiful that that would have affected her experience of the world. People would have been telling her she was beautiful since she was six years old. You can’t put that face in what’s been written for this girl,” he argued.

Sliding Doors, you guys.

Sources

The New Yorker My So-Called Life Almost Cast Alicia Silverstone