Remember The Chronicles of Narnia franchise? Technically you should, considering it spanned three movies and earned in excess of $1.5 billion at the box office, before being allowed to fizzle out and be swept under the cultural rug.
Plenty of big names and future stars alike lent their talents to the blockbuster fantasy adaptations, a list that includes Will Poulter, Ben Barnes, James McAvoy, Liam Neeson, Tilda Swinton, Ray Winstone, Jim Broadbent, Peter Dinklage, Warwick Davis, and many more, but it turns out that Andrew Garfield wasn’t deemed aesthetically pleasing enough to join them.
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, the man who can currently be called the past, present and possible future of the Spider-Man saga all at once revealed that he auditioned for the title role in Prince Caspian, but suffered what must have been a soul-crushing rejection.
“I remember I was so desperate. I auditioned for Prince Caspian in The Chronicles of Narnia and I thought, ‘This could be it, this could be it. And that handsome, brilliant actor Ben Barnes ended up getting the role. I think it was down to me and him, and I remember I was obsessed. [I asked my agent] Why not me? She eventually just broke under my incessant nagging and she was like, ‘It’s because they don’t think you’re handsome enough, Andrew.’ Ben Barnes is a very handsome, talented man. So in retrospect, I’m not unhappy with the decision and I think he did a beautiful job.”
Coming off the back of a Golden Globe win for Best Actor – Musical or Comedy, which has established him as one of the two front-runners for the Academy Award opposite dramatic category victor Will Smith, it’s fair to say Garfield hasn’t suffered from missing out on The Chronicles of Narnia.
Maybe Netflix can offer him a cameo in the in-development reboot to scratch that itch, seeing as the two parties worked so well together on Tick, Tick… Boom!.
