Second time lucky

Michael Douglas as Robert Wakefield, “Traffic”

Original Casting Choice: Harrison Ford—is karma at play here?—mysteriously chose not to play the conflicted drug czar after working with director Steven Soderbergh to beef up the role in the script.

Why the Switch Worked: When not slumming in lurid potboilers, Douglas excels at playing wealthy alpha males whose success is threatened by unforeseen forces. That made him the ideal choice to play a politician who discovers his daughter is a drug addict.