Ridley Scott Debuts All the Money in the World After Unprecedented Recasting

Ridley Scott learned a long time ago that nothing good comes from sitting around and waiting. So when news broke in November that Kevin Spacey, the star of Scott’s upcoming thriller, All the Money in the World, was the latest actor in Hollywood to be hit with sexual-assault allegations, the filmmaker did not waste time jumping into action. In an unprecedented move, just seven weeks before All the Money in the World was scheduled to hit theaters, Scott recast his leading man—replacing Spacey with Christopher Plummer.

“I think I was born competitive,” Scott explained on Friday afternoon in Los Angeles, following a screening of the miraculously-completed thriller. “I always think, as a film director, if the roof is falling in, ‘Well let’s prop it up or move.’ I never ponder about anything, so when I heard the bad news, I immediately thought, ‘I want to recast this. I can’t sit and wait.’”

Within hours of the Spacey allegations surfacing, Scott was making calls to secure the same filming locations he used for scenes involving Spacey’s character, J. Paul Getty. (All the Money in the World, adapted by David Scarpa from John Pearson’s book of the same name, chronicles the 1973 kidnapping of J. Paul Getty’s grandson.) Next, Scott called Christopher Plummer—who had been on his original casting list—and met with him at the Four Seasons that very evening. By the next morning, Plummer had read the script and agreed to do the film, and, shortly afterward, co-stars Michelle Williams and Mark Wahlberg were onboard to refilm every shot they shared with the Getty character.

“It was a bit of coordination, with a lot of panic thrown in,” Scott said of the reshooting process. Explaining why he was motivated to undergo the stressful, under-the-gun replacement for his Christmas release, the filmmaker said, “I’ve gotta say, this is an awfully good movie. I know it is. So [I wanted] to push this as hard as I can, because I’ve got to make hay on Christmas Day to actually get some kind of recognition about this. Referring to the Spacey news, the filmmaker said, “The fact that this came in, I didn’t go, ‘Yippee’ but I did go into battle mode. That’s how I direct. I go into battle mode.”

Scott said that he did not show Plummer any footage of Spacey in character, or tell Plummer how Spacey played the scenes. Unsurprisingly, their takes on the miserly Getty—who famously refused to pay his grandson’s $17 million ransom—were different.

“When I worked with Kevin, we got along quite well,” Scott said of his original star, who underwent an elaborate aging makeup transformation. “His performance was colder. With Chris, he’s got this inordinately handsome, ageless face. His smile is charming, and he has a glitter in his eye—so, somehow, with the same words [in the script] he is more lethal. That’s how it came down.”

Asked whether footage of Spacey’s performance would ever be released, Scott said, “I think at some point or another. . .but not for awhile.”

To this day, Scott still has not heard from Spacey or his representatives.

“I never got one call,” said Scott. “I didn’t expect it from him but I expected it from somebody at the agency, to say, ‘Gee, that’s the way it goes, I’m sorry.’ It would have made my task a little easier.”

Scott referred to All the Money in the World’s speedy turnaround as “the most desperately difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

Asked whether he got a kick out of the adrenaline rush as well, he smiled: “Of course. Dude, if you don’t enjoy stress, don’t do the job. I thrive on stress.”

Get Vanity Fair’s HWD NewsletterSign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood.Julie MillerJulie Miller is a Senior Hollywood writer for Vanity Fair’s website.

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