Leonardo DiCaprio was very nearly cast in classic ‘90s TV show Baywatch – but was banned from the role by a certain David Hasselhoff.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the series’ original producers Michael Berk and Douglas Schwartz revealed that a 15-year-old DiCaprio was all set to play the son of Hasselhoff’s character, Mitch Buchannon. Hasselhoff, however, had other ideas…
‘We actually had DiCaprio ready to be cast,’ Berk explained, ‘But David thought he was too old to play his son.’
Schwartz was a little more, ahem, cutting in his assessment of the actor’s motives, revealing that ‘David thought it would make him look older. He had a lot of concerns of that type.’ Ouch. The role of Hobie Buchannon eventually went to a 9-year-old, Jeremy Jackson, while Leo went on to star in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Titanic, Romeo + Juliet… you know the rest. Forgive us for wondering whether a little bit of lifeguard training could have saved Jack Dawson from his watery end...
It wasn’t just DiCaprio who incurred the wrath of the Hoff, either. The actor wasn’t keen on the decision to cast Pamela Anderson, arguing that a former Playboy model shouldn’t appear on a so-called ‘family’ show. According to Berk, ‘David said, “I don’t want a girl that’s been in Playboy. Children watch this show.”’
In this instance, however, Hasselhoff was overruled, and Pammy ended up wearing the iconic red swimsuit. The rest, as they say, is history.
Both Hasselhoff and Anderson will have cameo roles in the forthcoming Baywatch re-boot, starring Zac Efron, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson and Kelly Rohrbach, which is due out next summer.
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