Kurt Russell Had To Beat Out A Long List Of Hollywood Legends To Star In The Thing

If there's one thing we know about the alien known only as The Thing (and, frankly, we don't know too much about that metamorphic rapscallion), it's that it can appear as just about any living being that it wants to. In that spirit, it's no big surprise that the role of R.J. MacReady, the resident helicopter pilot of Outpost 31, was one that could've gone to any number of actors when director John Carpenter was developing "The Thing" at Universal Pictures in the early '80s. On the other hand, this fact may come as a surprise to those who hadn't realized other actors were in the running for the part, given that the role eventually went to one of Carpenter's muses: Kurt Russell. The marriage of Russell, Carpenter, and MacReady seems so natural in hindsight that it's wild to think about anyone else playing the part.

Even more surprising is Carpenter's admission that Russell wasn't his first choice for MacReady. There could be a few reasons for this: Carpenter had just worked with Russell the year previously when the actor played Snake Plissken in "Escape From New York." Additionally, the filmmaker was looking to expand his horizons as his career developed; one mustn't forget that most of the music for "The Thing" was not composed by Carpenter, but by Ennio Morricone (even though Carpenter ended up doing some uncredited cues himself). In any case, Russell's competition for MacReady wasn't just a bunch of up-and-coming unknowns but included some Hollywood heavy-hitters, some of whom would've been fascinating to see in the film.

Carpenter's "The Thing" is very much an ensemble piece by design, the better to have the audience on uncertain footing about not just who's going to survive the ordeal, but who's even human in the end. As such, the conventional wisdom would be to not cast any big-name stars in any of the roles, which is an ethos that Carpenter mostly stuck to when casting the film. Yet there's also the consideration of getting butts in seats (something which, famously, "The Thing" failed to do upon its initial theatrical release), and it's to that point that saw Carpenter and co-producer Stuart Cohen consider other names for the role of MacReady.

According to Cohen's blog post on the topic, some already established leading men were considered for MacReady: Jeff Bridges, Nick Nolte, Christopher Walken, and Sam Shepard. While a quirky actor like Walken or a vivaciously unique presence like Bridges (whom Carpenter would go on to cast in "Starman") would've been great, apparently they either were unavailable or balked at the script's genre nature. Moving on to actors who were still coming up in their careers, the likes of John Heard, Ed Harris, Jack Thompson, Brian Dennehy, Tom Berenger, Fred Ward, Peter Coyote, Tim McIntyre, and Scott Glenn were all considered. (Harris, who had just worked with another iconic horror filmmaker, George A. Romero, would be my personal second-draft pick after Russell for the role, given his incredibly magnetic intensity.) Intriguingly, Carpenter considered another familiar face for MacReady before Russell: Tom Atkins, whom he'd worked with on "The Fog" and "Escape From New York." Of course, Atkins ended up landing the lead in another Carpenter production at Universal: "Halloween III: Season of the Witch."

Ultimately, Carpenter came back around to Russell, and the rest is history. Despite considering a bunch of other actors for the part, the director reminisced in a recent Guardian piece about how he and Russell crafted the character of MacReady (in a very Carpenterian fashion):

"Kurt Russell wasn't my first choice to play MacReady, the lead, but the studio really liked him and, of course, I loved him. The big beard was his idea; I came up with the hat."

In casting as in life, sometimes the person you're looking for is the one right in front of you. Such is the way of Things.