10 Star Making Roles

TE Lawrence - Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia
When Peter O'Toole was cast in David Lean's epic biopic of the legendary Thomas Edward Lawrence, he was a little-known actor whose largest role was a supporting part in a film adaptation of Kidnapped. O'Toole was lucky in the end to get the part: Lean's first choice, Albert Finney, had passed on Lawrence to instead star in Tom Jones. O'Toole was a revelation as Lawrence - by turns romantic, imaginative, charismatic, petulant, effete - and at all times enigmatic. O'Toole earned an Oscar nomination for the role. Although he lost to Finney for Tom Jones, his place in cinema's pantheon was secure.

James Bond - Sean Connery in Dr No
When producers Albert "Cubby" Broccoli and Harry Saltzman embarked on translating Ian Fleming's novels to the big screen, a number of stars were approached to play James Bond. Cary Grant (58 at the time) and Patrick McGoohan both declined. Fleming himself favoured David Niven, but the producers ultimately cast unknown Scottish actor and former Mr Universe contestant Sean Connery. Fleming was initially apprehensive, calling Connery "a Glaswegian lorry driver" and, upon first meeting the actor, decried "so you're the one they've chosen to fuck up my character." Of course, Connery was a huge success in the role, portraying Bond with a pitch-perfect combination of machismo and raw sexual magnetism. Fleming so warmed to Connery's performance that, as a tribute to the actor, he made Bond's father a Scot in the 1964 novel You Only Live Twice.

Hannibal Lecter - Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs
Anthony Hopkins was already a well-respected veteran of stage and screen when he was cast in Jonathan Demme's adaptation of Thomas Harris's novel. However, it was his chilling performance as the psychopathic Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter that thrust him, at the unlikely age of 54, into Hollywood's A-List. Hopkins won the Oscar for Best Lead Actor for the role despite being onscreen for only 16 of the film's 118 minutes.

The Terminator - Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator
James Cameron originally conceived his robotic assassin from the future as an average, ordinary person who could blend into a crowd - and deliver death when it was least expected. Former football star and future murder suspect OJ Simpson was considered for the role before cameron settled on Lance Henriksen. However, when Arnold Schwarzenegger auditioned for the role of the film's hero, Kyle Reese, Cameron contemplated the Austrian Oak as the cyborg instead. Calls were made, a deal was done, Henriksen was given a supporting role, and Schwarzenegger became a star. Cameron would later admit that casting Ah-noldt as the Terminator changed the tone of the whole film, giving it a kinetic, larger-than-life aesthetic.

Rocky Balboa - Sylvester Stallone in Rocky
Sylvester Stallone was a struggling actor when he wrote the screenplay for Rocky after watching Chuck Wepner almost go the distance with Muhammad Ali. Producers Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler were impressed and offered Stallone a six-figure sum for the script, with one caveat - a big-name actor would be cast as Rocky. Stallone declined - he wanted to play Rocky - and eventually a compromise was reached. Rocky was a huge success, winning the Best Film Oscar for 1976, and Stallone became the first person since Charlie Chaplin to be nominated for both acting and screenwriting Oscars for the same film.

Tony Manero - John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever
John Travolta was already known to audiences from TV's Welcome Back Kotter and as the cruel head jock in Carrie, but it was Saturday Night Fever that flung his career into the stratosphere. When Travolta's Tony Manero struts his way through the opening credits, all 1970s swagger and bravado, you know that he's a woman's man, no time to talk. Travolta reprised his role as Manero in the 1983 sequel, Staying Alive (coincidentally, directed by Sylvester Stallone), but the film tanked and Travolta's career entered a nose dive from which it would not recover until Pulp Fiction.

Amon Goeth - Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List
Cold, brutal, a mass murderer in more than one sense of the term, death camp commandant Amon Goeth was Schindler's List's personification of Nazi Germany's inhuman treatment of Jews. Ralph Fiennes plays the demanding role with icy intensity, portraying Goeth as a fanatic Nazi, even in the face of his own execution. Fiennes was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance. That he did not win (it went to Tommy Lee Jones for The Fugitive) was a miscarriage of justice.

Jules Winfield - Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction
The eminently quotable Jules Winfield elevated Samuel L Jackson from journeyman supporting actor to star in his own right. Quentin Tarantino's hip, pop-culture referential dialogue found a perfect match in Jackson's urban-cool persona. The byplay between Winfield and John Travolta's Vincent Vega, together with Winfield's memorable monologues, made Jules Winfield an instant cult character.

Catherine Tramell - Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct
In a single role (or to be more precise, in a single underwear-less shot), Sharon Stone flew from B-movie maven to 1990s celluloid sex goddess. Basic Instinct itself is lurid and trashy - epitomised by the sociopathic nymphomaniac bisexual Tramell herself - but that didn't stop a whole generation of 14 year old boys from elevating Sharon Stone to the level of sex symbol. Stone reprised the role in 2005's sequel, Basic Instinct II, a film powered solely on Stone's raw sex appeal which, at the age of 47, remains impressively strong.

Iris - Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver
In 1976, Jodie Foster appeared in two films. The first was Disney's Freaky Friday. The second was Martin Scorsese's visceral Taxi Driver in which she played a teenaged prostitute. The effect, one imagines, would be similar to seeing Hayley Westenra snorting coke off Nicky Watson's cleavage. Foster's performance as Iris so affected one young man, John Hinckley, that he fell in love with her and began stalking her. In an attempt to impress Foster, Hinckley eventually emulated Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle by trying to assassinate a prominent American politician. Unfortunately he chose President Ronald Reagan. Reagan escaped with his life, but Foster was so badly shaken by the incident that she refuses to talk about Hinckley to this day.

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