David Bowie Was The First Choice To Play One Of The Best '90s Movie Villains Ever [Exclusive]
Ascended rock deity David Bowie appeared on TV and in movies as early as 1968, only shortly after the release of his first record. His first leading performance came in 1972 with the release of Nicolas Roeg's sci-fi satire "The Man Who Fell to Earth," a film about an alien who comes to Earth and becomes distracted by drugs, TV, and other unhealthy creature comforts. Bowie later played himself in Uli Edel's harrowing 1981 J.D. flick "Christiane F.," in addition to starring in the smoky vampire film "The Hunger" and terse POW drama "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence." A younger generation fell in love with Bowie because of 1986's puppet film "Labyrinth," while he was cleverly cast as Pontius Pilate in Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ."
In 1993, when director Renny Harlin was preparing to make his mountainside actioner and Sylvester Stallone vehicle "Cliffhanger," he very much wanted Bowie to play the film's villain. "Cliffhanger" is about a midair heist gone awry, orchestrated by the evil British criminal Eric Qualen. Stallone plays the American mountain climber and rescue ops agent who has to stop him. It's an explosive, slick, high-octane thriller that proved to be a huge hit; it made $255 million on a budget of $65 million.
John Lithgow played Qualen with energy and aplomb, gnashing into the scenery with unsatiated hunger. He clearly enjoyed playing such an evil dude. In a 2022 interview with GQ, Lithgow said that he took over the role from Christopher Walken, who left the movie early in production. Lithgow, however, didn't mention that Qualen was also offered to rockers David Bowie and Brian Ferry before Harlin settled on Walken.
Harlin recently talked to /Film's own Jacob Hall and revealed how his courtship of David Bowie fell through.
Bowie nearly played the villain in Cliffhanger
When it came to casting his "Cliffhanger" villain, Harlin says that he needed an actor who could match the on-screen presence of a Sylvester Stallone. In his mind, that actor was David Bowie. Not only would Bowie have turned in an intense, quirky performance, but his clout as a rock god would certainly have attracted audiences. Harlin regrets that it didn't work out:
"[Y]our protagonist is only as strong as the antagonist, the bad guy. If the bad guy is a loser, then there's nothing heroic for the hero to do. And I always look for something special, something to make [...] the bad guy [not just a] mustache-twirling guy who is just going to blow up the whole universe with a nuclear weapon — and loves doing it — but to find something special. My dream cast to play the bad guy in 'Cliffhanger' was David Bowie. And I pursued him hard."
Bowie, however, as one might imagine, was a little tired out by the time Harlin pursued him in 1992. Bowie was coming off his 1990 "Sound + Vision" world tour and likely wanted to rest. He had also recently appeared in "The Linguine Incident" and "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me," so he wasn't hurting for film work either. Harlin only recalls that Bowie was busy:
"I remember going to New York to meet with him and talking about the movie endlessly, [and] it was very close, but I think maybe he had a tour or something happened that the schedules didn't work out. So David Bowie didn't play the bad guy."
Lithgow was amazing, of course, but one can imagine an over-the-top Bowie performance.
Bowie wasn't the only musician approached for Cliffhanger
Harlin says his second choice for Qualen was Brian Ferry, onetime member of Roxy Music and prolific solo artist. Unlike Bowie, Ferry wasn't known for acting in films. In 1980, however, he did make a cameo in a French miniseries called "Petit Déjeuner Compris." Ferry wouldn't do any professional acting until 2005, playing a character named Mr. Silky String in Neil Jordan's "Breakfast on Pluto."
Harlin revealed that Ferry got pretty far into the casting process of "Cliffhanger," only to be rejected at the end. It seems that Ferry wasn't a very good actor:
"My second choice was Brian Ferry, another legendary rocker. I went to England to meet with Brian. He came to LA to do a test shoot. Test shoot didn't go so well. [...] I thought just in terms of his charisma and everything, he was perfect, but it didn't go so well, and we didn't end up casting him."
Ferry likely wasn't too upset at not being cast in "Cliffhanger," seeing as he had the albums "Taxi" and "Mamouna" to work on. Harlin then pivoted to a professional actor and found one of the best ones available:
"[W]e went in a different direction, which was John Lithgow, who was known for some comedy and drama and not really playing villains at all, but he was just physically imposing and acting wise, a brilliant actor. I felt like, okay, here I can really find and create an interesting villain. And so I just had a lot of talks with him [...] and we had a lot of fun doing it."
Lithgow has never had a year when he wasn't working, so relating his filmography here is churlish. Needless to say, he knocked it out of the park.