Brad Pitt as Neo? Josh Hartnett as Batman? Halle Berry as the girl that drives the bus in Pace? Consider it or not, the entire above would have occurred if these actors had mentioned “sure”. Dive into the historical past of Hollywood and most extremely well-known characters had been practically performed by another person. These early and finally aborted casting selections simply don’t are likely to get talked about.
Generally, although, actors are very open in regards to the high-profile elements they turned down, and the pangs of remorse left behind as soon as these movies are literally made.
Think about a world through which Leonardo DiCaprio was the star of a beloved drama in regards to the porn trade and never Titanic, or Reese Witherspoon didn’t play Legally Blonde’s Elle Woods. Shudder. Listed below are 13 actors who turned their nostril up at iconic motion pictures, solely to really feel very foolish about it afterward.
Denzel Washington in Se7en
Requested in 2012 if there have been roles he turned down that he ought to have taken, Washington answered shortly: “Se7en and Michael Clayton”. The Oscar winner mentioned that Tony Gilroy’s company thriller Michael Clayton “was the very best materials I had learn in a very long time … I used to be nervous a few first-time director, and I used to be fallacious”. George Clooney ended up enjoying the position as a substitute.
Whereas Washington didn’t supply a proof as to why he turned down Se7en (it’s unclear if he would have performed the veteran detective or the cocky rookie, embodied ultimately by Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, respectively), it could have been for the same cause: director David Fincher had solely directed one movie earlier than Se7en, and that was the disastrous Alien 3.
Oddly, Washington ended up starring in numerous Se7en-esque serial killer thrillers made within the aftermath, together with 1999’s The Bone Collector and 2021’s The Little Issues.
Leonardo DiCaprio in Boogie Nights
Leonardo DiCaprio as prolific porn star Dirk Diggler? It may have occurred. In 2008, DiCaprio confirmed that he turned down the starring position in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights – which finally made Mark Wahlberg a star – so as to do Titanic as a substitute. He had a gathering with Anderson in regards to the position, however acquired spooked by the filmmaker’s relative lack of expertise on the time. Boogie Nights was Anderson’s second movie after 1996’s little-seen Laborious Eight.
“Boogie Nights is a film I beloved and I want I might’ve completed,” DiCaprio informed GQ. Requested whether or not he’d reject Titanic as a substitute if he may return in time, DiCaprio was stumped. “I’m not saying I might have. However it will have been a unique route, profession sensible. I feel they’re each nice and want I may have completed them each … The reality is, if I’d not completed Titanic, I wouldn’t be capable of do the kinds of motion pictures or have the profession I’ve now, for positive. However it will have been attention-grabbing to see if I had gone the opposite method.”
Madonna in The Matrix
Madonna has by no means been one for regrets, as a substitute admirably sticking by artistic selections even when they get her jeered at, laughed at or criticised. However she did fess as much as one film position she shouldn’t have been so fast to dismiss. “I turned down the position in The Matrix,” she informed Jimmy Fallon throughout a TV look this yr. “Are you able to consider that? I wanna kill myself. That’s, like, among the finest motion pictures ever made. A teeny-tiny a part of me regrets simply that one second in my life.”
Madonna didn’t verify which position she turned down within the 1999 movie, however presumably it was the feminine lead Trinity, who was finally performed by Carrie-Anne Moss. Throughout the identical interview, Madonna additionally confirmed rumours that she turned down the position of Catwoman in Batman Returns, and Nomi Malone within the infamous Showgirls. “I noticed them each, and I remorse that I turned down Catwoman, that was fairly fierce. Showgirls? No.”
Brad Pitt in The Matrix
Talking of The Matrix, Brad Pitt has additionally expressed remorse about turning down the position of Neo. “I took the purple tablet,” he joked in 2020, referencing the selection within the movie between having complete readability or remaining in blissful ignorance. “I come from a spot, possibly it’s my upbringing, [where] if I didn’t get it, then it wasn’t mine. I actually consider [the role] was by no means mine. It was another person’s.”
Keanu Reeves ended up enjoying Neo, after all, whereas Pitt urged throughout the identical interview that The Matrix is simply one of many huge motion pictures he mentioned “no” to. “If we had been doing a present on the good motion pictures I’ve handed on, we would wish two nights,” he joked.
Will Smith and Brad Pitt each waved goodbye to the position of Neo in ‘The Matrix’
(Philippe Desmazes/Kevin Winter/Getty Photos)
Will Smith in The Matrix
And simply to drive house the truth that only a few actors appeared to any religion in The Matrix, Will Smith additionally turned down the starring position. In 2019, Smith confirmed a long-standing hearsay that he rejected the Neo half in favour of a far much less adored film.
On his YouTube channel, Smith recalled assembly administrators Lana and Lily Wachowski however struggling to know their concepts for bullet-time, or the slow-motion impact that Neo masters within the film.
“So I made Wild Wild West [instead],” Smith confessed, referencing the infamous 1999 flop that he has spent greater than 20 years regretting. “I’m not pleased with it.”
He did, nevertheless, argue that he wouldn’t have been pretty much as good within the position as Reeves. “Keanu was good, Laurence Fishburne was good, so I most likely would have messed The Matrix up. I might have ruined it, so I did y’all a favour.”
Matt Damon in Avatar
“I nonetheless can’t watch Thelma & Louise… it nonetheless kills me”
Michelle Pfeiffer
Whereas Damon hasn’t explicitly mentioned that he regrets turning down James Cameron’s Avatar, he references the choice sufficient to recommend it nonetheless stings. In 2007, Damon was wooed by Cameron with the promise of not solely starring within the movie but additionally pocketing 10 per cent of the movie’s gross. Avatar, which finally starred Sam Worthington, ended up turning into the highest-grossing movie in historical past. That means – drumroll, please – Damon misplaced out on an estimated $200m (£148m).
“I’ve left more cash on the desk than any actor,” he informed GQ in 2019. He added that his greatest remorse is that it could have been his solely alternative to work with Cameron. “He works so occasionally … I realised in having to say no that I used to be most likely passing on the prospect to ever work with him. In order that sucked and that’s nonetheless brutal. However my youngsters are all consuming. I’m doing OK.”
Christina Applegate in Legally Blonde
It’s arduous to think about Legally Blonde’s Elle Woods as anybody aside from Reese Witherspoon, however it was really Christina Applegate who was first approached to play her. Applegate revealed in 2015 that she turned down the half as she thought it was too much like the character she performed on the long-running sitcom Married… with Kids.
“I acquired fearful of repeating myself,” she mentioned. “What a silly transfer that was, proper? [But] Reese deserved that. She did a a lot better job than I ever may, and in order that’s her life, that’s her path.”
In an odd coincidence, each Witherspoon and Applegate ended up enjoying sisters to Jennifer Aniston’s Rachel on Mates.
Michael Keaton in Groundhog Day
Like a Legally Blonde with out Reese Witherspoon, it’s additionally tough to think about Groundhog Day with out Invoice Murray. However he wasn’t the studio’s first alternative for the a part of an acerbic weatherman caught in a time loop. Reasonably, Michael Keaton was approached.
Talking to Leisure Weekly in 2014, Keaton admitted that he had learn the script within the early Nineties however “didn’t get it”. Of the character, Keaton mentioned: “This man sounds just like the form of wry, sardonic, glib younger man I’ve performed – and it ended up being so nice. However you possibly can’t do it higher than Invoice Murray did it.”
Josh Hartnett in Batman Begins
Josh Hartnett has been open about turning down a job that will have remodeled his life and profession. In 2015, he admitted that Christopher Nolan had sought him out to play Batman, however that concern acquired the higher of him. “I used to be so targeted on not being pigeonholed and so fearful of being thought-about just one factor as an actor,” he informed Playboy Journal.
He realised he’d made a mistake when Nolan solid his eventual Batman, Christian Bale, in his Batman Begins follow-up The Status. “I made a decision [Batman] wasn’t for me. Then he didn’t wish to put me in The Status. They not solely employed their Batman for it, in addition they employed my girlfriend [Scarlett Johansson] on the time. That’s once I realised relationships had been fashioned within the fireplace of that first Batman movie, and I ought to have been a part of the connection with this man Nolan, who I felt was extremely cool and really gifted.”
Josh Hartnett in 2006, not on the premiere of ‘The Status’
(David Livingston/Getty Photos)
Michelle Pfeiffer in The Silence of the Lambs
Within the early Nineties, Michelle Pfeiffer reportedly turned down an extended record of huge roles, from Thelma & Louise and Fairly Lady to Primary Intuition and Sleepless in Seattle. Whereas she mentioned in 2017 that she needed to flip down Thelma & Louise because of a scheduling battle (“I nonetheless can’t watch it … it nonetheless kills me”), she’s admitted to regretting turning down The Silence of the Lambs, because it meant she didn’t get to work with the late filmmaker Jonathan Demme greater than as soon as.
Demme directed Pfeiffer in 1988’s Married to the Mob, and at all times envisioned her for the position of rookie FBI agent Clarice Starling. However Pfeiffer acquired chilly toes. “I used to be trepidatious,” she informed The New Yorker earlier this yr. “There was such evil in that movie. It was that evil received ultimately, that on the finish of that movie evil dominated out. I used to be uncomfortable with that ending. I didn’t wish to put that out into the world.”
Jodie Foster ended up profitable an Oscar for the position.
Halle Berry in Pace
Sandra Bullock has Halle Berry to thank for inadvertently making her a star. Whereas selling the 2019 sequel John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, Berry admitted that she may have starred alongside Keanu Reeves a long time earlier, as she was practically solid within the runaway bus thriller Pace.
“I used to be supplied Pace earlier than Sandra Bullock,” Berry informed Leisure Tonight. “I stupidly mentioned no. However in my defence, once I learn the script the bus didn’t depart the car parking zone.”
Bullock ended up enjoying Annie, who’s tasked with driving a bus rigged with explosives. Berry mentioned that she got here to remorse turning down the half. “I see the film and I’m like, arrrghhh.”
Bruce Willis in Ghost
Willis and Demi Moore had been a pair on the time they had been each despatched the script for the romantic drama Ghost in 1989 – however solely one in all them ended up doing it. Whereas Moore starred alongside Patrick Swayze and Whoopi Goldberg within the movie, which turned the highest-grossing movie of 1990, Willis discovered the entire idea complicated. A lifeless man trying to assist his grieving girlfriend transfer on whereas concurrently fixing his personal homicide? Pfft.
“I simply didn’t get it,” Willis informed The New York Occasions in 1996. “I mentioned, ‘Hey, the man’s lifeless. How are you gonna have a romance?’ Well-known final phrases.” Simply to punctuate his regrets, the Die Laborious star dubbed himself a “knucklehead” for passing up the position.
Eddie Murphy in Who Framed Roger Rabbit
The variety of well-known roles Eddie Murphy has performed is nearly so long as the quantity he turned down. He thought Ghostbusters seemed like “a crock” when he was supplied it within the early Eighties, rejected Rush Hour in favour of the forgotten comedy Holy Man, and – most likely correctly – mentioned “no” to Driving Miss Daisy.
One movie that he had second ideas about, although, was Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which initially needed him for the position finally performed by Bob Hoskins. The movie – a high-concept detective comedy that fused collectively live-action and animation – was a daring danger for 1987, and Murphy wasn’t satisfied by it.
“I used to be like, ‘What?’,” he mentioned in 2003. “Animation and other people seemed like bulls*** to me. Now each time I see it, I really feel like an fool.”
