Let's just pause for a moment and take note of the fact that Boogie Nights was not nominated for Best Picture. On the list that year were: Titanic, Good Will Hunting, The Full Monty, LA Confidential, and As Good As It Gets... But we're not here to discuss that. Instead, let's imagine what would have happened had Leonardo DiCaprio chosen to make Boogie Nights. Excuse me while I set up the typewriter for the Colonel.
Start down low with a 350 cube, three and a quarter horsepower, 4-speed, 4:10 gears, ten coats of competition orange, hand-rubbed lacquer with a huplane manifold, full fuckin' race cams. Whoo!
The Setup
At the time Paul Thomas Anderson had made two short films The Dirk Diggler Story, which would serve as source material for Boogie Nights, and Cigarettes & Coffee1 after which he'd be invited to the Sundance Lab to write The Hard Eight (also known as Sydney). His next project would be a scathing look at the LA Porn Industry in the '70s and '80s. With a few hundred page script, he set about to cast his project, under the guidance of the House that Freddy Built2. The casting process was an interesting one: Warren Beatty and Sydney Pollack were offered the part of Jack Horner (Pollack later regretted passing) and Samuel L. Jackson was considered for the role of Buck Swope. Almost everyone read for Rollergirl. However, the most interesting is the role of Eddie Adams from Torrence which was offered to Joaquin Phoenix and Leonardo Dicaprio. Dicaprio at the time had played mostly eccentric parts up until then such as Arnie Grape or Arthur Rimbaud, then, of course, made Romeo and Juliet which caused millions of girls to enter puberty. He passed on Boogie Nights, to do another film, but recommended his co-star Mark Wahlberg, and the rest is history.
The Execution.
Wahlberg played the role of Eddie/Dirk to perfect, so it's tough whether or not anyone lost out. Marky Mark went on to make a slew of bad movies over the next few years (minus Three Kings) but was on his way to becoming a movie star. Dicaprio went on to make Titanic and became an international superstar whose very name once uttered could drive young girls into hysterics. Ultimately though, he regretted his turn in Titanic and would have done Boogie Nights had he had the choice again. He tried to hide over the next four years, appearing in supporting roles and an indie film The Beach.
What Might Have Been
Dicaprio does Boogie Nights, and the movie is pretty much the same, although the character of Diggler doesn't have the same pizzazz. Dicaprio gains a reputation as an edgy actor willing to take on challenging roles, though it takes him much longer to get the stardom which allowed him to be the global force he is now. Wahlberg stays in music for much longer, continuing to take smaller and supporting roles along the way. The world is robbed of him talking to a plant in The Happening. The biggest group affected by this is teenage girls, who lose out big time because the other people considered for Titanic opposite Kate Winslet are: Billy Crudup, Stephen Dorff, and Mathew McConaughey...
Yeah, well, listen. You ought to ditch the two geeks you're on the boat with now and get in with us. But that's all right, we'll worry about that later. I will see you there. All right?
1 not to be confused with Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes
2 I used to watch A Nightmare on Elm St. 3 every day when I was in middle school. This explains a lot.
