In every generation, there is a chosen one. And, unfortunately for Melanie Lynskey, she was not picked to stand alongside Buffy Summers against the vampires, demons and forces of darkness.
"It was kind of a visa issue," the New Zealand native recently revealed on the Shut Up Evan: The Newsletter podcast of passing on the opportunity to play the slayer's BFF Willow Rosenberg in the pilot episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "But not really. I also was not sure about doing television at that time."
Some two-and-a-half decades before she'd star on Yellowjackets, the Coyote Ugly and Sweet Home Alabama actress explained, "I had a very old-school agent who was like, 'TV? That's for has-beens!'" Though she initially protested—"I was like, 'I don't think it is anymore'"—ultimately, she continued, "I just wasn't super into it at the time."
Sisters alum Riff Regan nabbed the part, but when creator Joss Whedon was looking to recast the role of the OG Scooby Gang member, he reached back out to Lynskey.
"I was like, 'Oh, this is good,' and I kind of took my agent into it," explained Lynskey of reading for the part of the naive high schooler turned powerful AF witch. "And then, it became this whole thing of, 'Well, now you have to audition.' So I auditioned. Then: 'Oh, they didn't like what you were wearing.' It was a whole process. And then I didn't get it!"
Of course, Alyson Hannigan stepped into Willow's fuzzy sweaters for the beloved series' seven-season run, but she was nearly joined by a much different group of Hellmouth residents. Katie Holmes almost wielded Mr. Pointy instead of Sarah Michelle Gellar while Ryan Reynolds turned down the chance to be the guy who eats insects, and gets the funny syphilis, leading Nicholas Brendon to be cast as Xander.
Check out other stars who could have slayed in major TV roles.