Special thanks to Kyle McCormick for bringing this to the fore…
At the time of casting Fight Club, Courtney Love was involved with Edward Norton, just after the filming of The People vs. Larry Flynt. The executive producer of Fight Club, Art Linson, told me he’d gone to dinner with Love and Norton, and the pair had lobbied hard for her to play Marla.
Now it seems there were other factors… Click here for other factors.
In my first converstation with David Fincher I mentioned Love as Marla. David said he wanted to cast against type. That’s all I know.
Go Figure she dated 2 of my lifelong loves.....
That would have been terrible. I was hoping to rewatch Fight Club this week. And I'm on my annual read of the novel.