Born on the Fourth of July is one of Tom Cruise's most classic films, and cemented Oliver Stone as one of Hollywood's hottest directors, with a unique ability to portray war from different perspectives, as he had previously done in Platoon.
However, the story was supposed to be slightly different, as Charlie Sheen, who played one of the leading roles in Platoon, was to play the lead role of Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic. He is a real person (still alive today) who became a strong anti-war activist after being paralysed.
Now, speaking on In Depth With Graham Bensinger (via Variety), Sheen says he considers it a let-down that he was fired from the role, adding that he found out about it indirectly through his brother Emilio Estevez. Sheen had had meetings with both Stone and Kovic where the role seemed to be a done deal, when the former simply stopped communicating.
Sheen calls it both "a big deal" and says there was a "betrayal factor." It wasn't until much later that Sheen and Stone talked things out, and the matter is now settled. Sheen says he's not the least bit angry at Cruise; on the contrary, he thinks he was so good that he should have won awards:
"When someone gets a job and does that with it, you're just like, of course. You don't sit there and dissect it and be like, 'I would have done that better.' No, go fuck yourself. That's a brilliant [performance] — and you should have won the freaking Oscar."
What do you think, would Born on the Fourth of July have been the same acclaimed film classic with Sheen in the lead role?