Martin Scorsese first read Shūsaku Endō's "Silence" in 1989 while in Japan for his role as Vincent van Gogh in Akira Kurosawa's film "Dreams." He eventually bought the film rights to the book and began looking to cast actors for the project in the late 2000s. Gael García Bernal and Benicio del Toro were both in negotiations to play Sebastião Rodrigues and Francisco Garupe, respectively, while Daniel Day-Lewis was in talks to play Cristóvão Ferreira. This would have been Day-Lewis' third collaboration with Scorsese, with the pair having previously worked together on "The Age of Innocence" and "Gangs of New York" (the latter of which landed Day-Lewis an Oscar nod for his performance therein). However, the project soon after found itself stuck in development hell, with Scorsese hard at work on his movies "Shutter Island," "Hugo," and "The Wolf of Wall Street." In the end, Bernal, del Toro, and Day-Lewis all ended up leaving "Silence," and by the time production was gearing up to begin, they had been replaced by Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, and Liam Neeson, respectively. As intriguing as it would've been to see the original three in their roles, their replacements brought the story in Scorsese's picture to life in an incredibly raw, powerful way. Neeson was quite strong, but Garfield and Driver, in particular, stood out thanks to their work. This also allowed the pair to further distance themselves from their efforts on, respectively, the "Amazing Spider-Man" and "Star Wars" films, which had made them into recognizable faces amongst the general moviegoing public. Now, they had been given the chance to showcase their skills under the direction of one of our greatest living filmmakers.