Sara Paxton shares why she was told she'd never star in Aquamarine

Sara Paxton became the face of Aquamarine when the fantasy film arrived in cinemas in 2006, but the role that made her a cult favourite was never guaranteed.

The actor starred alongside Emma Roberts and Joanna ‘JoJo’ Levesque in the coming-of-age movie, which follows two best friends who discover a mermaid and agree to help her prove that true love exists.

Although Aquamarine did not make a huge splash at the box office, it went on to find a devoted audience, with fans still celebrating its mix of friendship, girlhood and summer nostalgia two decades later.

For Paxton, the title character remains the role she is approached about most, despite the many credits she has added to her career since — such as Disney Channel Original, Return to Halloweentown, and the superhero parody film, Superhero Movie.

Aquamarine became a cult favourite despite its modest box office performance (20th Century Fox)

However, she has now revealed that she was initially discouraged from auditioning because Aquamarine had been written as ‘significantly older’ in the original script.

Speaking to People, Paxton said she still has an email from an unnamed person which read: “Sara Paxton will never be our Aquamarine.”

Instead, the then-teenager was pushed towards Cecilia, the film’s main antagonist, following her ‘mean girl’ role in the 2004 movie Sleepover.

Paxton, though, had already decided that she wanted to play the mermaid. She recalled: “I’m sorry, but how can you not be 16 years old and read a movie about a mermaid and be like, ‘I want to be the mermaid,’ you know what I mean? I was like, ‘I have to go in and read.’ And they were like, ‘No, absolutely not.”

Rather than accepting the decision, Paxton agreed to attend the Cecilia audition while preparing to read for Aquamarine instead.

She said: “I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll go in for Cecilia. But when I get there, I’m going to tell them I’m only reading for Aquamarine.’ So I printed out the Aquamarine sides and I went in and I read.”

The celebrity’s determination eventually paid off, although director Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum said getting Paxton hired took months.

Paxton’s casting only came after a difficult and very lengthy audition process (20th Century Fox)

While Rosenbaum did not remember anyone explicitly refusing to let her audition, she herself recalled ‘at least six months of me pushing to get her hired’.

The director also revealed that a ‘very famous pop star at the time’ had once been in line for the part, but things ‘didn’t work out’.

After it appeared the film might collapse, Rosenbaum took an unusual approach to winning over producer Elizabeth Gabler.

She said: “One night after we lost the pop star and it looked like we might fall through, I went into [producer] Elizabeth Gabler’s office and I papier-mache’d Sara’s picture all over her office.”

“And so she finally was like, ‘OK,’ and so we still made the movie — because it looked like it was going to fall apart.”

Looking back at the battle, Paxton said: “It all worked out in the end, but I had to really fight to even be seen for that part.”