Director Zack Snyder first envisioned a quite different cast of young ladies to star in Sucker Punch.
Casting the Roles
The cast originally included Amanda Seyfried as Babydoll, Evan Rachel Wood as Rocket, Emma Stone as Amber, Abbie Cornish as Sweet Pea and Vanessa Hudgins as Blondie — but it quickly fell apart.
Seyfried was forced to give up the role of Babydoll because she was already committed to the HBO series BIG LOVE. Similarly, scheduling conflicts with HBO’s TRUE BLOOD forced Wood to renounce Rocket. And Stone dropped out to take the lead role in another movie, Easy A (2010).
Mia Wasikowska and Olivia Thirlby were subsequently in the running for Babydoll before Emily Browning signed on. Frieda Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire) was considered to replace Stone, but the part went to Jamie Chung. Jena Malone claimed the role of Rocket. Angelina Jolie was considered for the part of Dr. Vera Gorski that went to Carla Gugino .
On the male side, Grey’s Anatomy’s Eric Dane and country music star Tim McGraw were in the running to play the High Roller before Jon Hamm, while Rufus Sewell was rumored to play Blue Jones until Oscar Isaac was cast.
Trivia
- Wasikowska had played Alice in the 2010 version of Alice in Wonderland — and Snyder had often described Sucker Punch as “Alice in Wonderland with machine guns.”
- Gugino had worked with Snyder on Watchmen, playing the original Silk Spectre.