Steven Spielberg originally wanted Lee Marvin to play the quint in JAWS and explains how Robert Shaw was cast

The cast that Steven Spielberg reunited for his 1973 film Jaws it was perfection. Roy Scheider, Richard DreyfussAND Robert Shaw they were so big in that movie! Before they were cast, however, there were other actors Spielberg wanted to cast in the film.

For the role of Quint, Spielberg originally wanted to cast a big star for the role Lee Marvin AND Sterling Hayden. But Shaw ended up in the role, and during a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Spielberg explained how that casting came about. He said:

“I originally picked a big star because my first choice for Quint was Lee Marvin, but he wasn’t interested. What I heard was that he really wanted to go fishing! He took fishing for him very seriously and didn’t want to do it from a “film” boat. My second choice was Sterling Hayden, who I thought would make a fantastic quint. He had an Ahab quality about him: He had done a movie called Terror in a Texas town in 1958, where he played a hulking whaler who prowled around with a harpoon gun. I was a huge fan of him, especially for the two films he did with Stanley Kubrick, The Killing [1956] and Dr. Strangelove [1964]. I don’t remember why, but she wasn’t able to play the role.

“There were other actors who wanted to play Quint, and then Dick Zanuck and David Brown suggested Robert Shaw—they had just worked with him on The Sting [1973], which they produced and loved it. I had just screened two movies with Shaw to jog my memory, including A Man for All Seasons [1966], in which it was spectacular. Based on this, and of course From Russia with Love [1963]—with that big fight on a train in which he played 007’s nemesis—I said, ‘Wow. . . I wish I had thought of him! It’s a good idea!’ Luckily he said yes ”.

Spielberg continued on how Shaw challenged producer Dick Zanuck to a fist fight after a game of ping pong:

“I’ll never forget one of the first things Shaw said to me was, ‘I haven’t drunk in two months!’ And Dick always warned me when he heard Robert Shaw had been drinking, fearing it would delay filming, but he hadn’t very important because the shark didn’t work anyway Incidentally, during production, Dick Zanuck and Robert Shaw played ping-pong together and one day, when Dick won, Shaw challenged him to a fist fight which was quickly defused by others. had he had a black eye, that would surely have put us further behind!

Shaw was amazing as Quint and he gave such an incredible performance. I love the scene in the movie where it tells the tragic story of the USS Indianapolis, the Navy ship sunk by a Japanese submarine in 1945, and the immediate aftermath that left nearly 900 people stranded in the ocean resulting in the largest loss of life ever. cause of shark attacks in human history. The way he tells that story is mesmerizing. It pulls you in!

What do you think of Robert Shaw as Quint?