Note that there is hardly ever a single actor who is uniquely perfect for any role. While Liam Neeson was excellent as Schindler, a different star would not have necessarily made “Schindler’s List” any less powerful. It would, however, have made it markedly different. When Neeson was auditioning for the role, he knew he was up against several major Hollywood stars, including a few that Spielberg had worked with before. Neeson said to the Hollywood Reporter:
“I heard Harrison Ford’s name. Costner’s name. The Australian actor Jack Thompson — I thought, ‘Oh, yeah, Jack looks very like Schindler.’ I looked nothing like Schindler. Anyway, it was always in the back of my head, but I wasn’t holding out huge hope.”
In 1993, Ford had worked with Spielberg on three Indiana Jones movies. Costner was already a respected mainstream filmmaker thanks to the success of “Dances with Wolves” a few years earlier. Jack Thompson was known at the time for roles in films like “Wake in Fright,” “Breaker Morant,” “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence,” and “Flesh + Blood.” He’s an excellent actor. It seems, though, that he or Neeson were more likely to get the role over Mel Gibson.
For a moment, it looked like Martin Scorsese was going to direct “Schindler’s List,” and Scorsese’s agent Michael Ovitz, saw a lot of big movie stars pass through the casting office in the early days. It was he who recalled Mel Gibson being mentioned specifically. He also recalls that when the project moved into Spielberg’s hands, the new director pointedly did not want a movie star. This wasn’t going to be a showcase for an ego, it seems. It was to be respectable.