Nicolas Winding Refn has been going on the press rounds to promote The Neon Demon and talked to Sad Happy Confused podcast about his desire to make a Wonder Woman film years ago. He reaffirmed that he did have “very early conversations” with Warner Bros. and that Refn had a specific actress in mind for the role.
Revealing he only wanted Mad Men actress Christina Hendricks for the lead role, who he had in both Drive and The Neon Demon.
“I would only do it with Christina Hendricks.”
He first mentioned her for the hypothetical part on the red carpet of the L.A. premiere of Drive.
Refn referenced the Wonder Woman project he’s long wanted to make, then pointed at hisDrive co-star Christina Hendricks and said, “If I ever get to do it, she’s going to be it.” Hendricks would almost certainly be game — she told Rachael Ray last year that “I’ve been wanting to wear that outfit my whole life … I had Underoos — I had Wonder Woman Underoos.”
It’s possible that he might have butted-heads with the studio over that casting choice, since he never ended-up making the film. Oddly enough, Zack Snyder would eventually hire the very obscure Israeli actress and model Gal Gadot for the role, seemingly a bigger gambler than Hendricks.
While speaking to Vulture Christina mentioned the potential of the role and even talk she might be have been in the mix before when her Firefly director Joss Whedon was developing his own Wonder Woman film, before ultimately having Cobie Smulders attached.
“Sure! I grew up on the TV show, and I had Wonder Woman Underoos, and my brother had a Wonder Woman doll — sorry, Aaron, you’re exposed. [Giggles.] And Nicolas said, when we were on set, ‘I want you to be Wonder Woman.’ And I think he is such an extraordinary and exceptional director, that if he asked me to do it, I would do it in a heartbeat.”
“Well, I would certainly do what Nicolas wanted to do, and I can only guess what his version would be, but as I grew up with and am now married to a comic book fan, I think it’s important to be true to the original comic books, because I know that the fans love every detail and it’s very important to them. So I think it would be cool to do that. I look forward to learning more about it, actually. I should probably start reading them, so that if someone were to ask me [to be in the movie], I would be fully prepared. [Grins.]”
“I’d like to think that Joss would have cast me! I also loved working with Joss [on Firefly]. I’m excited to see what he does with The Avengers. Hopefully the stars would align [for Wonder Woman]. It would be really fun. It would be cool, wouldn’t it? I’d get to kick ass.”
At the time Nicolas had been developing Logan’s Run Warner Bros. with Ryan Gosling, and mentioned him for a possible supporting role in Wonder Woman. Later on, the studio would attempt to approach him for the role of Bruce Wayne in Batman v Superman, after his declining of the part they went with the gruffer/older Ben Affleck.
It’s interesting after Refn recently mentioning to Business Insider that he wants to tackle Batgirl, another role that could possibly go to Christina Hendricks if Refn had his way.
SOURCE: SAD HAPPY CONFUSED