Can celebrities really manifest their dream roles through style choices?
In the competitive world of the seventh art, actors are constantly faced with tough decisions to make—decisions that could make or break their career at any moment, or make them miss out on what ends up being a smash hit.
Whether it's because they were already filming another movie or simply because they didn't like the script, many other stars ended up turning down roles in what went on to become box office hits. Click to see which celebrities refused roles in hit movies!
The actor gave a talk in New York on April 19 2023 in which he revealed one of the major missed opportunities of his career. "When I first came up, I was the new kid on the block, you know what happens when you first become famous. It’s like, ‘Give it to Al.’ They’d give me Queen Elizabeth to play,” he joked. In the 1970s, he was given a script for 'Star Wars' and invited to play the role of Han Solo. Pacino couldn't understand what the heck it was all about, so he passed. "I gave Harrison Ford a career!" he told the audience. Ford famously played Han Solo for the first time in the 1977 movie 'Star Wars,' and went on to play the iconic character four more times, once as recently as 2019 in the movie 'The Rise of Skywalker.' Pacino may have missed out on the massively successful 'Star Wars' franchise, but it certainly doesn't seem to have harmed his career.
In the mid aughts, Rachel McAdams was flying high thanks to her leading roles in the hit movies 'The Notebook' (2004) and 'Mean Girls' (2004). Naturally, the young star was inundated with offers after that, but instead of riding the wave, she took a two-year break from Hollywood. McAdams moved to Canada to take a breather and it's taken some hindsight to understand why. "It wasn’t quite jiving with my personality and what I needed to stay sane," she told Bustle. "There were definitely some anxious moments of wondering if I was just throwing it all away, and why was I doing that? It’s taken years to understand what I intuitively was doing.”
During that two-year period when McAdams was taking time out to rebalance herself, she turned down some of the biggest feature films of the decade. They included 'Iron man' (2008), 'The Devil Wears Prada' (2006), 'Mission: Impossible III' (2006), 'Get Smart' (2008), and 'Casino Royale' (2006). “I felt guilty for not capitalizing on the opportunity that I was being given," she recalled, but having seen the success of each of these films, she trusts that the right person got the job.
Michelle Yeoh's lead role in 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' is all anyone can talk about on the awards circuit after blowing people away in theaters. But the actress revealed that another star was offered up her role first, which was originally written for a man. The film’s directors Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan initially envisioned Jackie Chan in the lead role, with Yeoh playing his wife. However, Chan turned down the role and it was later rewritten for Yeoh, casting Ke Huy Quan as her husband—to stunning results, we might add.
Yeoh recalled Chan texting her after she was nominated for an Oscar, one of the film's 11 nominations total. “The roles were completely reversed. I remember Jackie texting me and saying, ‘Congratulations! You know your boys came to see me first’,” Yeoh said in an interview on CNN. “I’m like, ‘Thank you bro, you did me a huge favor.'" The actress also suggested that while Chan did indeed have a "very busy" work schedule, the decision for him to turn down the role was "mutual," as the so-called Daniels had already “stepped back” and were looking at rewriting the lead role for a woman.
On 'The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,' Madonna revealed that she still has one big regret, and it's that she turned down a role in 'The Matrix.' "Can you believe that? I wanted to kill myself," she said. Though she didn’t specify which character, Trinity, ultimately played by Carrie-Anne Moss, was the only lead female role. “That's like one of the best movies ever made,” Madonna said. “A teeny-tiny part of me regrets just that one moment in my life.”
The 2001 film 'Serendipity,' starring Kate Beckinsale and John Cusack, has earned its place in the canon of romantic comedies, and it still continues to draw people to the famed eponymous dessert spot in New York City for frozen hot chocolates. But little do most people know, that lead role was first offered to none other than Jennifer Aniston. According to director Peter Chelsom, Aniston turned down the role of Sara because she didn't want to be pigeonholed into rom-coms, he told Insider. “I remember when she came in, she said, ‘I do a romantic comedy once a week,’ her being on ‘Friends’ at the time. So, she clearly had other things on her plate and it was her decision not to do it.” Since then, however, Aniston has starred in many successful rom-coms.
Everyone knows and loves the troubled mutant character Rogue portrayed by Anna Paquin in several 'X-Men' films, but what most people don't know is that the famed role could have been Rachael Leigh Cook's. The 'She's All That' actress revealed in an interview with The New York Times published August 29 that she had turned down the role in 2000's 'X-Men' to avoid acting on a green screen. "As soon as I saw the posters for it, I knew that'd made a mistake," she said, adding that the move a "huge misstep." Apparently it was a time in her career when people were trying to make sure that she would be taken seriously as an actress, and of course she wanted the same. But now she's left with regret, particularly after the continued success of the franchise to this day. "I definitely did things for the wrong reasons."
In an interview with The Telegraph, actress Debra Winger revealed that she decided to exit the beloved 1992's All-American Girls Professional Baseball film 'A League of Their Own,' because Madonna was cast. Winger said she had already spent three months training with the Chicago Cubs after being cast as the team's catcher, but when Madonna was tapped to play another lead role, she quit. She added, “The studio agreed with me because it was the only time I ever collected a pay-or-play on my contract,” Winger explained about her compensation. “In other words, I collected my pay even though I did not play, and that’s very hard to get in a court.” She was soon replaced by Geena Davis, and while Winger would only say that Davis "did okay" in the widely-acclaimed film, Winger still maintains her criticism of Madonna: "I think [her] acting career has spoken for itself."
The actor told the Telegraph he was in the running to play Hogwarts professor Gilderoy Lockhart in 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets' in 2002, and revealed why he didn't take the coveted role. He explained that they wanted him to do a screen test but said they couldn't pay him more than a certain sum because they "didn’t have any more money in the budget," though he knew Rupert Everett was getting paid more under the same agent. "Blatantly lying, stupidly lying, as well. Like, if you’re going to lie, be clever about it." The actor added that he was surprised when Everett didn't even get the role, explaining, "They made him screen test, and I remember he brought his own wig. And then they gave it to Kenneth Branagh, came out of the shadows.”
In 2019, Matt Damon revealed that he had to turn down a role in 'Avatar' even though he would've received 10% of the profits, which would've netted him around US$250 million. The actor said it was because he was committed to the 'Bourne' franchise.
'The Devil Wears Prada' has had an unexpectedly long-lasting impact on audiences, one which clearly wasn't apparent to the actresses who were first sought out for the lead role of Andy Sachs, ultimately played by Anne Hathaway. Ahead of the film's 15th anniversary, director David Frankel revealed that 'The Notebook' star Rachel McAdams turned down the role three times!
“The studio was determined to have her, and she was determined not to do it,” David Frankel told Entertainment Weekly of McAdams’ reluctance. The film’s studio, Fox 2000, had reportedly wanted an “established dramatic actress over Hathaway and her then teen-oriented filmography,” and some of the other actresses preferred over Hathaway included Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman, Kate Hudson, and Kirsten Dunst. Hathaway has previously said she was the ninth choice to star in the film, but she never stopped campaigning for the role.
In an interview with Playboy, McConaughey revealed that he had turned down a part in 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2' (2017) for one in 'The Dark Tower' (2017). Russell took on his rejected role instead.
After his small role in 'The Fast and the Furious' (2001), Ja Rule was persuaded to return for the sequel. According to Grantland, the rapper didn't show a good attitude and so the role went to Ludacris instead.
See also: Stars who were fired from major movie and TV roles
The actors who turned down roles in successful movies
Al Pacino jokes that he "gave Harrison Ford a career' by turning down the role of Han Solo
CELEBRITY Cinema
In the competitive world of the seventh art, actors are constantly faced with tough decisions to make—decisions that could make or break their career at any moment, or make them miss out on what ends up being a smash hit.
Whether it's because they were already filming another movie or simply because they didn't like the script, many other stars ended up turning down roles in what went on to become box office hits. Click to see which celebrities refused roles in hit movies!