Marvel: this action cinema legend almost played the Hulk


Find out which big-screen celebrity with impressive muscles nearly replaced Lou Ferrigno as the green giant Marvel: Hulk.

If Bill Bixby was the “David” Banner of The Incredible Hulk series, Lou Ferrigno embodied the green creature that most viewers waited for week after week. But the character could have had a completely different face… that of a world star of action cinema!

This is what Inverse Kenneth Johnson, creator of the series and in charge of its adaptation for television, told Inverse:

For the creature we fetched [Arnold] Schwarzenegger, although he was a bit short (1.85m), but he was busy shooting Conan. So he recommended Lou Ferrigno to us. He had never acted and I wanted to have an actor, so we chose Richard Kiel, who was 2.18m tall and an experienced actor.

Johnson’s memory may be failing him a little on the reasons for choosing not to take Schwarzenegger, because Ferrigno was cast as early as 1977 while the filming of Conan the Barbarian did not take place until much later, between January and April 1981 for a release in 1982, which will also be the year of the end of The Incredible Hulk.

Anyway, Schwarzy is not retained. And the shooting begins with Kiel. Except that after a few days of filming, the team realizes that the physique of the actor (later popularized by his role as Jaws in Moonraker) does not do the trick. This is then the opportunity for Ferrigno to be recalled:

MGM

Richard Kiel in “Moonraker”

“We came back to Ferrigno to play the scene in the pilot where Susan Sullivan dies in her arms and for the occasion I was playing Susan. That’s when [Hulk] gets scared and screams and Lou got away with it just fine. So he joined us and with the help of [Bill Bixby] and Jack Colvin – who was an acting teacher – Lou immediately began to progress as an actor.”

In the series, Colvin played journalist Jack McGee, who works for a tabloid. As for Ferrigno, he will be very well received in Hulk, despite the little dialogue that the producers will grant him and only three appearances per episode.


CBS

Lou Ferrigno as the Hulk

Would Arnold Schwarzenegger have made a good Hulk? Would that have boosted his career better than Conan the Barbarian and its sequel Conan the Destroyer? Is Lou Ferrigno the best Hulk? It’s up to you to decide!



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