In the book, Hooper was more of a gorgeous young hunk...and he had sex with Chief Brody's WIFE...leading to fist fights on the Orca between Hooper and Brody...broken up by Quint!
Hooper's a bad punk in the book...and he gets eaten in that shark cage.
Spielberg and company made two key changes to Hooper:
ONE: Drop the affair with the wife. No personal conflict with Brody, just "professional" at worst. More like friends.
TWO: Don't cast a "hunk." Prospects like Jan-Michael Vincent and Jeff Bridges didn't make the cut. The brainy and shy Timothy Bottoms(The Last Picture Show; The Paper Chase) was considered. But ultimately Richard Dreyfuss got the role.
I think Dreyfuss was a stroke of great casting because he stood in for all the "nerdly" and bookish young guys in the audience. He stood in, I think, for Steven Spielberg too. Hooper could get a little annoying, but he was smart and brave and funny, too.
And that's another reason why we liked Hooper.
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