plor20:
My guess is a mixture of censorship and investors stake in different artists.
JC was only interested in the role for it's complexity, and poured his heart into it. Whether he became an A-lister or not, wasn't his goal...and like they say...."Its always when you least expect it, that things happen."
And that's the magic of someone who just loves thier work, and lives for the art.
When I came to this fandom, I heard alot of melon that this was supposed to be ZWY and DW break out role, like it was big deal. And reguadless if they poured thier heart into thier roles, XL as a character had TH's love...unless she rewrote the whole novel, her love for XL was going to shine through, paired with JC acting, it was envitable that XL was going to reign.
I didn't saw TJC in other roles before XL, and what he did with that role it's really a lot, not only acting, ost, mini theatres, artistic posters and so on, you can feel all his love for the character
And I agree about XL character at himself, many people in comment section like talk how XL is typical bad boy grey character, but he is not, I wish I can find any movie or drama with character similar to XL