The “X-Men” franchise would have looked very different if Rachael Leigh Cook was the star of the films.
The “She’s All That” star, 41, revealed in a New York Times profile that she turned down the role of Rogue in the beloved Marvel series.
The role ironically went to her “She’s All That” co-star and Oscar-winner Anna Paquin, who starred in four films of the series between 2000 and 2014.
Cook admitted that not working with a green screen was a “huge misstep,” adding, “As soon as I saw the posters for it, I knew that I’d made a mistake.”
The actress also reflected on her 25-year Hollywood career, saying, “I really thought what everyone told me was correct when they said, ‘What we need to do now is make sure you’re taken seriously.’ I definitely did things for the wrong reasons.”
The mother of two went on to star in “Josie and the Pussycats,” a live-action adaption of the Archie Comics series of the same name. The musical comedy bombed the box office and landed the actress in “movie jail.”
Cook can now be seen in Netflix’s “He’s All That,” a reversed reboot of her 1999 teen comedy, which stars Addison Rae this time around.
Cook revealed in a separate interview with E! News that her “She’s All That” co-star Freddie Prinze Jr. mistook her for his then-girlfriend Kimberly McCullough when they first met. “The first time I met Freddie was in Sundance. We were both in ‘House of Yes’ and I was in a house that he and Parker [Posey] and Josh [Hamilton] and everybody were in just saying hello to everybody,” she explained.
She added, “I was standing in the living room and I felt these giant arms just throw themselves around me and hug me and rest a chin on top of my head. And it was Freddie and he just goes, ‘Hey babe.’”
“I looked up and he screamed a little because he thought I was Kimberly. He didn’t know that it was me because why would you? We had the exact same frame and hair color,” she said. “So it was a pretty hilarious, romantic-comedy first meeting that obviously never became a real romance, but it was pretty funny.”