Trivia / Driving Miss Daisy

• Fake American: British Jessica Tandy and Canadian Dan Aykroyd playing Southerners.
• Star-Making Role: For Morgan Freeman, who also starred in the original 1987 stage production. The same year, he earned an Oscar nomination for Street Smart (1987).
• What Could Have Been:
  • Angela Lansbury lobbied hard for the part of Daisy. She would eventually play the character onstage three decades later with James Earl Jones. The producers wanted Shirley MacLaine, but she felt she was too young for the part.
  • In what would have been a serious case of Questionable Casting, Warner Bros. reportedly wanted Bette Midler as Daisy and Eddie Murphy as Hoke.

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