The drama behind Mr. & Mrs. Smith could’ve gone in a completely different direction. While the film began the union of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (and the end of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston), music superstar Gwen Stefani actually auditioned for the role that ultimately went to Angelina Jolie.
While appearing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Stefani played a game of “Burning Questions” and during the segment, Ellen DeGeneres asked her “what movie role have you auditioned for that people would be surprised to know?” Stefani responded with Mr. & Mrs. Smith and quickly said, “Angelina beat me!” When Ellen said, “Wow, that could have gone a whole different way”, Stefani joked, “That could’ve been a different story!”
As we all know, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston were a couple at the time that the actor and Angelina Jolie began shooting Mr. & Mrs. Smith. While the duo denied that any hooking up happened while making the movie, their undeniable chemistry on-screen eventually translated to off-screen and Pitt left Aniston to be with Jolie. So yeah, things could’ve been very different if Stefani got the role.
This actually isn’t the first time that Stefani has mentioned this little tidbit. She told Howard Stern on his show back in 2016 that she felt like she almost got the part and went on to say, “I went to a bunch [of auditions]” and while she did want to be an actress, she “wanted to do music more.”
Mr. & Mrs. Smith, released in 2005, was directed by Doug Liman and written by Simon Kinberg. The film stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as a bored upper-middle-class married couple surprised to learn that they are assassins belonging to competing agencies and that they have been assigned to kill each other. The film earned a 60% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes but it was an even bigger hit with moviegoers, grossing $186.3 million domestically and $478.2 million worldwide.
Could YOU see Gwen Stefani playing Angelina Jolie’s role in Mr. & Mrs. Smith?