George Clooney Just Revealed He Almost Played Noah in The Notebook

George Clooney has played many iconic roles in his career: Doug Ross, Danny Ocean, Bruce Wayne/Batman, the list goes on and on. But can you imagine him as Noah Calhoun from The Notebook? 

It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Ryan Gosling in the part at this point, but according to Clooney he almost had it, with Paul Newman starring as the older version of Noah instead of James Garner. The actor revealed this little tidbit during a virtual conversation for the 64th BFI London Film Festival where he was promoting his new Netflix movie, The Midnight Sky, which he directs and stars in. 

“We [he and Newman] were going to do The Notebook together,” Clooney said, per Deadline. “Basically, I was going to play him as a young man, and it was funny. We met and said, ‘This is it. It’s going to be great.’ ” Apparently, he then went home and start binging Newman movies, which low-key freaked him out. “He’s one of the handsomest guys you’ve ever seen. We met up [again] and I said, ‘I can’t play you. I don’t look anything like you. This is insane,’ ” he said. “We just wanted to do it because we wanted to work together, [but] it ended up being not the right thing for us to do.”

Obviously, things worked out as they should have, and The Notebook with Gosling, Rachel McAdams, Garner, and Gena Rowlands is a modern classic that will never not bring us to tears. But we’d kind of love to see what a version with George Clooney and Paul Newman would have looked like too. The idea of it also has us wondering who might have been cast in the Allie role. Julia Roberts? Sandra Bullock? Diane Lane? Jen Aniston? Laura Dern? We have so many ideas. 

Whoever it could have been, we’re positive one thing would remain the same: Noah + Allie 4EVER. 

Originally Appeared on Glamour