This week it emerged that Ang Lee's award-winning film Brokeback Mountain almost didn't see the light of day, with a different director attached and a number of well-known actors turning down the lead roles.
Openly gay director Gus Van Sant, known for films including Good Will Hunting, Milk and Paranoid Park, was originally set to direct the love story.
“I was working on it, and I felt like we needed a really strong cast, like a famous cast," Van Sant said in an interview with IndieWire.
"That wasn’t working out.”
He continued: “I asked the usual suspects: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Ryan Phillippe. They all said no.”
Matt Damon has previously opened up about his regret at turning down the role.
“Gus Van Sant wanted to do [Brokeback Mountain] with me and Joaquin Phoenix," Damon, who is a frequent collaborator with Van Sant, told Entertainment Weekly in 2007.
"But I was on my way to Italy to do The Talented Mr. Ripley and then All the Pretty Horses. And Gus wanted to do Brokeback right after. And I was like, 'Gus, I’m going to do a gay movie, then a cowboy movie. I can’t follow it up with a gay-cowboy movie!'”
Brokeback Mountain is available to stream now on SBS On Demand.
