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There Will Be Blood Almost Had A Completely Different Main Star
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Mar 31, 2025
There Will Be Blood will forever be remembered as one of the greatest films ever made. Though one specific casting choice almost changed the course of There Will Be Blood Forever. No, not Daniel Plainview, it would be the other lead of the movie Eli Sunday. Would There Will Be Blood be held in the same regard had nothing changed?
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These mysteries that he presents while we wait
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While we wait for his words. You're not the chosen brother Eli
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There Will Be Blood seems to only grow in cultural esteem with every passing year
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Despite the critical acclaim the project has amassed over the years, there's one element that's rarely discussed about the film's production
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The now iconic role of Pastor Eli Sunday, portrayed deftly by Paul Dano
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was originally going to be someone else entirely. And in a shocking twist
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this original actor was fired from the production only weeks before cameras started to roll
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There Will Be Blood, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and loosely based on the 1927 novel Oil
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written by Upton Sinclair, tells the story of Daniel Plainview, a silver miner who embarks on a megalomaniacal quest
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to become an oil man during Southern California's oil boom. In the beginning of the film
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Plainview is approached by a young man named Paul Sunday. He claims that he comes from a small town
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named Little Boston. He suggests that this town has very rich deposits of crude oil and a gullible
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population of people that could be easily manipulated. In the finished film, this character
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Eli Sunday, Paul Sunday's twin brother, are both played by the mesmerizing Paul Dano. However
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Kel O'Neill was originally cast as Eli Sunday. At the time he was cast in There Will Be Blood
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O'Neill was a certified unknown. This would have been his big break. It would have launched him
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into the stratosphere career-wise, but tragically, the elation that he must have felt upon casting
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was to be short-lived. According to O'Neill, he was asked by Anderson to arrive early on set to
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really soak up the isolation inherent to the period the story was taking place in, so he flew
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out two weeks early The filming was scheduled to happen for roughly 90 days throughout the summer of 2006 However O and Anderson did not get along experiencing interpersonal friction almost immediately
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There's a way to kind of communicate. It's not as strange as it all sounds, really. Filmmaking is so alchemical that sometimes certain factors don't add up
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the actor is quoted as having said. Some directors I've worked with just had a way of making me feel comfortable
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For some reason, even though every other actor I know had a relationship with Paul
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that was super positive and where they did their best work, that just didn't happen with me
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Building relationships is key in any artistic pursuit. You're always going to be relying on
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another person to help bolster your ambitions and pursuits. However, in an intrinsically
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collaborative medium like film, that is not only a best practice, but vital. If you're not someone
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who's capable of building rapport and connection with those around you, it's going to be a tough
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wrote ahead of you. And the audition process doesn't tell you everything you need to know
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about someone's personality. Sure, someone might seem like they could work with you while you're
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auditioning. However, when you're actually producing the work, egos can flare up
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There were also rumors of frictions between Kel O'Neill and star Daniel Day-Lewis. In a New York
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Times article that centered on the topic, it was reported that Day-Lewis was known for attempting
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to create contentious relationships with his fellow actors in order to mine that conflict
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for drama. During Gangs of New York, he would purportedly glare at Leonardo DiCaprio when they
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were not filming, and purposely be rude to his co-star, attempting to verbally antagonize him
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in order to feed off that energy while filming. Multiple people on set have said that DiCaprio
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did not engage with Day-Lewis, and let these attempts at conflict roll off his back. However
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However when Day attempted to recreate the hostility on set of There Will Be Blood it didn go quite as smoothly Multiple reports said that O was buckling under the pressure from his co and was causing issues behind the scenes So what the truth Did Day
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Lewis and O'Neal have a behind-the-scenes row? Was this pressure getting to O'Neal? No one really
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knows the answer for sure. Kel O'Neal denies that these frictions got to him, having been quoted in
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multiple places as saying Day Lewis was very polite all throughout filming. In fact, he even
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went so far as to say it gets at something that we collectively want to believe about Daniel or
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anybody who is really good at what they do. That they're somehow remote from us, they're special
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and different and in a way they deserve to be held to a different set of standards because what they
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give to the world is so incredible. Was O'Neill just not up to the pressure of dealing with Day
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Lewis or was his relationship with Anderson just not producing the results they needed for the
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finished film. When asked about it by the New York Times, Paul Thomas Anderson would only go
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as far as to say he just wasn't the right fit. Reading between the lines, it's pretty easy to
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see that there was a considerable amount of conflict on the set that no one wants to talk
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about. You don't fire your co-lead of the picture because of a little awkwardness. Something
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obviously transpired on set that no one wants to discuss, and yet that's what Anderson and
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producer Joanne Seller did. They called O'Neill in for a private meeting, and the next day
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he was no longer involved in the project. Liking someone as an actor is one thing
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but liking them as a person, you gotta know, all right, you're gonna be fun to be with for
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a couple years, because it's gonna be a couple years at the end of the day. So now the task at hand was how do you salvage a picture that's actively shooting
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with only two weeks until you get to the scenes with Eli Sunday? Well, you make some phone calls
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and cast someone immediately. That someone? Paul Dano He had four days to prepare before being flown out to Texas to start filming his scenes opposite Day Anderson had originally intended to have two different actors play the Sunday Twins
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However, after seeing the animal magnetism and raw charisma that Dano was bringing to the screen
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he decided to have him portray both siblings. Dano threw himself into the role and quickly found himself chewing scenery across from Day-Lewis
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in a fashion that would ultimately see him nominated for a BAFTA for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
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and being propelled into becoming a globally recognized actor. Cal O'Neill's journey is one of failure and redemption
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Today, O'Neill works in the VR and AR space producing interactive documentaries
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He's traveling the world filming and making new boundary-pushing works. He's often said that acting was something he never had a deep and abiding passion for
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just something he kind of fell into. Now that he's working in spaces that incorporate both filmmaking and technology
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he's very excited about the steps forward that are becoming clearer with every passing day
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However, his involvement in There Will Be Blood is undoubtedly a failure. He had a seat at the table for one of the most successful and beloved films in the past 30 years
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It would have completely reshaped his life. Filmmaking is a collective art form
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It's a medium that requires large groups of people to come together to work collectively
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It's something that you can't have an outsized ego in and succeed
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I am a false prophet. God is a superstition. It's still unclear exactly what happened with O'Neill
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Day-Lewis, and Anderson, but it's pretty clear something went down between all of them
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and O'Neill is now out in the cold. When asked by Vulture if he'd seen the finished film
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he admitted he basically doesn't watch any movies past mid-career John Carpenter
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He admitted to going into a GameStop at one point and seeing a few minutes of There Will Be Blood playing on one of the TVs
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to which he said, Seems like a good movie
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