George Clooney was going to star in The Notebook with Paul Newman

https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/12955517/george-clooney-batman-flop-threatened-career/

“Paul Newman was a big influence on me. He was really funny and, because we had a very funny relationship late in life, we were going to do [2004 film] The Notebook together. We’d been sent the script and we were like, ‘This is the one. We can do this together’. I would play him as a young man.

“It was funny. We met and we were like, ‘OK, this is it. We’re going to do this. It’s going to be great’.

“Then I went home and I was watching The Sting or Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, where he’s the handsomest guy you’ve ever seen, with these bright-blue eyes. And he’s my age.

“So we met up, had dinner and I said, ‘I can’t play you as young, everybody knows what you look like. I don’t look anything like you. This is insane’.

“We just wanted to do it because we wanted to work together. It ended up not being the right thing for us to do. I think it was Ryan Gosling and James Garner who did it many years later.”

https://www.marieclaire.co.uk/entertainment/tv-and-film/george-clooney-jessica-simpson-the-notebook-715784


George Clooney and Jessica Simpson almost starred in The Notebook

[size=10]JADIE TROY-PRYDEOCTOBER 20, 2020 

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[*]The Notebook[size=19] is one of the most famous films of the noughties, starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams as young couple Noah and Allie who made the entire world believe in true love.[/size]
But can you imagine Noah being played by anyone else but Ryan? No? Well, it very nearly happened.


During an interview with Deadline, George Clooney explained that he was initially set to play the role before Ryan landed the part. He was ready to get going with his friend, Paul Newman, who was cast to play the older Noah, but they decided that they didn’t look similar enough to pull it off.

He said: ‘We were going to do The Notebook together. Basically, I was going to play him as a young man, and it was funny. We met and said, ‘This is it. It’s going to be great’.
‘He’s one of the handsomest guys you’ve ever seen. We met up [again] and I said, ‘I can’t play you. I don’t look anything like you. This is insane’. We just wanted to do it because we wanted to work together, [but] it ended up being not the right thing for us to do.’

The part then went to Ryan, who previously told Company magazine in 2012 that director Nick Cassavetes chose him because he looked like ‘a regular guy’.
He said: ‘He was standing in his backyard, and he looked at me and said, ‘I want you to play this role because you’re not like the other young actors out there in Hollywood. You’re not handsome, you’re not cool, you’re just a regular guy who looks a bit nuts’.’
Erm, okay.