Here’s the actor who nearly played Xander Cage‘s villain Yorgi, before Marton Csokas was cast. The James Bond franchise had been running for 40 years back in 2002, which also saw the release of the series’ 20th adventure Die Another Day. Sadly, that entry proved to be a messy, bloated action film that made Bond feel utterly out of date. That same year also saw the release of the first Xander Cage movie, an action-adventure that presented viewers with a whole new kind of spy in Vin Diesel’s Xander Cage.
Cage is an extreme sports star who is forced by the NSA to go undercover in a terrorist group. The Xander Cage franchise was meant to be a fresh take on spy movies that launched a new franchise for Diesel. However, the franchise then took a convoluted path, with Diesel passing on State Of The Union. Instead, Ice Cube took over as a new spy, but the 2005 sequel’s underperformance killed the series for years. It eventually returned for the fittingly titled The Return Of Xander Cage in 2017, which saw Diesel reprise the title role and the movie was a comfortable hit.
Surprisingly, Vin Diesel wasn’t the first actor in line for Xander Cage, with Eric Bana originally approached for the role. One of the other key parts of the movie is Yorgi, the main antagonist. Yorgi is the leader of a group dubbed Anarchy 99, and as their name implies, they aim to spread chaos around the globe with a series of chemical weapon attacks. The character is played by Marton Csokas, but the part was originally offered to Ewan McGregor.
Reports from the first Xander Cage’s pre-production era conflict on whether McGregor was offered the role of Xander or Yorgi, but most stories – like this 2001 IGN piece confirming Csokas’ casting – link McGregor to the villain role. Ewan McGregor would have been a great choice and has since proven with the likes of Birds Of Prey that he can handle a hammy bad guy part. That said, Csokas brought a menacing charisma to the role, which is a skill he would later put to even better use in 2014’s The Equaliser.
Maybe there’s an alternate universe where Ewan McGregor’s Yorgi battled Eric Bana’s Cage, but that wasn’t to be. McGregor was also busy with the likes of the Star Wars prequels and Black Hawk Down during this period, so he probably wasn’t seeking out another big blockbuster role. With the Xander Cage franchise now backs on its feet, there’s nothing to say he couldn’t join the cast of a further sequel either.
