Bridget fonda ally mcbeal, ACTRESS Bridget Fonda – and not Calista Flockhart – was the first choice of “Ally McBeal” creator David E. Kelley to play the lead role, Fonda has revealed.
“Right now I’m doing really well with my film career, but that may all change and I’ll turn on ‘Ally McBeal’ one night and start kicking myself,” Fonda said.
“David sent the [‘Ally McBeal’] script and offer to me through my agent,” Fonda said in a newspaper interview published yesterday.
“I refused to read the script for fear I might really like it,” Fonda said. “I’ve never wanted to do TV. I love feature films too much.”
The interview appeared in the Calgary Sun in Canada, where Fonda is promoting her role in Kelley’s new big-screen horror movie, “Lake Placid,” co-starring Oliver Platt.
Fonda – the daughter of Peter Fonda and niece of Jane Fonda – said she’s not sorry she turned down the “Ally McBeal” role without ever having auditioned for the part.
“I’m not kicking myself for having passed on ‘Ally McBeal, ‘ even though it’s a huge hit,” she said. “I’ve been acting long enough to know it could have been a complete dud with me in it. It may work as well as it does because of Calista.”
The Ally role eventually went to the waifish Flockhart, who rocketed to stardom as the love-starved Boston attorney on the top-rated “Ally McBeal,” now entering its third smash season.
Fonda, who’s starred in such lackluster box-office offerings as “Single White Female,” “It Could Happen to You” and “Jackie Brown,” said she wants to focus on her film career.
Fonda “never auditioned” for the role of Ally but “only read the script” and passed on the project, Fonda’s publicist told The Post yesterday.
Platt, meanwhile, told the Calgary Sun he was approached by Kelley to star as Bobby Donnell in Kelley’s ABC legal drama “The Practice” – a role that eventually went to hunky Dylan McDermott.
Platt said he turned the role down because he didn’t want to uproot his family. “It was a great part in a great series, but … would have meant moving my wife and two kids from New York to Los Angeles,” he said.
David E. Kelley, married to actress Michelle Pfeiffer, failed to return a phone call seeking comment.
