Stars who turned down legendary roles — Page 2

Some other fairly recent ones ...

Javier Bardem and Catherine Zeta-Jones turned down Nine.

Winona Ryder turned down Godfather III.

Julia Roberts turned down The Blind Side.

Tom Cruise turned down The Talented Mr. Ripley

Alec Baldwin turned down The Fugitive.

Drew Barrymore turned down Showgirls.

Jodie Foster turned down Princess Leia in Star Wars

Robert Redford turned down The Graduate.

Vanessa Williams and Angela Bassett both turned down Monster's Ball.

John Travolta turned down Forrest Gump.

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Bardem dropped out of Nine prior to filming due to exhaustion, so he says. He had made three movies back-to-back with no break and finally decided he couldn't do it even after it was announced that he was Guido.

Speaking of "The Graduate," I was just watching the documentary on "The Producers" (1968 ), and Mel Brooks says that Dustin Hoffman was offered the role of Franz Liebkind, but turned it down when he was suddenly called to Hollywood to screen test for Benjamin after Robert Redford turned that part down. The role was written for "an extremely good-looking guy," so Mel Brooks (in his most tactful way) said he thought Hoffman didn't stand a chance of getting it.

Suddenly, four days before shooting, Mel was frantically seeing 100 actors for the part of Franz Liebkind.

EDIT: It's funny, with all this talk on the Main Board about casting "Into the Woods," it makes me wonder if this exact kind of thing isn't going on right now behind the scenes. Turning roles down due to scheduling, money, exhaustion, the search for a better role, etc. I'm sure it is, actually. For all we know, they haven't announced Cinderella or confirmed the two princes yet for these very reasons.

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Updated On: 6/17/13 at 09:20 AM

I question how many of these are truly cases of "turning down" a role. There's a difference between being "considered" and being "offered" a role. Then there's the whole delusion that actors think they should be offered the role when no one seriously considered them in the first place. Bette Davis let everyone know that she and Henry Fonda would be perfect for Martha and George but is there any evidence that the producers spent more than 2 seconds thinking about it, let alone offer her the role? I believe Sinatra actually accepted the role in Carousel but backed out when he found out they were going to film each scene twice (using two different widescreen processes) but only pay him for one film.

Natalie Wood turned down the role of Bonnie Parker in 1967's BONNIE & CLYDE - Faye Dunaway, who was virtually unknown at the time was cast instead. She also passed on "Corrie Bratter" in BAREFOOT IN THE PARK - which went to Jane Fonda.

"I believe Sinatra actually accepted the role in Carousel but backed out when he found out they were going to film each scene twice (using two different widescreen processes) but only pay him for one film."

I had heard that Sinatra had actually done the pre-recording for the vocals for the film before he left. And, along with the money, he also was pretty famous for hating to have to shoot a scene twice, so that factored heavily into his decision to leave the project as well. Of course, shortly after he left they found a way to shoot the scenes just once on 55mm and then transfer it to the 35mm format, so he could have stayed with the project after all.

With his aversion to re-takes I can only imagine what kind of holy-hell was raised on the set of Guys and Dolls between him and Brando (even more so since he felt he should have been playing Sky anyway).

They both were offered the roles and I've read numerous interviews where they themselves have disclosed this information.

Dey's manager and husband at the time refused the role on her behalf because he did not want her to continue playing high school teenagers. He wanted to move her as far away from "The Partridge Family" as possible.

Winkler refused because he did not want to be typecast as he already played a gang member in THE LORDS OF FLATBUSH and was already playing "The Fonz" on HAPPY DAYS.

Updated On: 6/17/13 at 01:53 PM

I don't know if she was actually offered "Sandy" in GREASE and then turned it down but I do know that Allan Carr also had Deborah Raffin in mind for the role.

Hindsight is 20 20. Someone also might turn down a role because he or she doesn't feel she can bring what's needed to it.

It's been said that Bancroft turned down Funny Girl not because she didn't think it deserved to be a huge hit. Rather, she turned it down because she didn't see herself as Fanny. Few would argue that she was wrong or that the show would have anything like the kind of success it achieved had she played the part (perhaps if anyone other than Streisand had played it).

There might be examples of times when unsuccessful works might have been great successes if the actor who took the role might have had the foresight to realize he or she wasn't right for it and the role had then gone to someone who brought something extraordinary to it. It may very well be the case that Pretty Woman may not have been a success, let alone a huge hit, with anyone other than Julia Roberts, who was luminous in it and lifted the material.

There may be other reasons for turning down legendary roles. Helena Bonham Carter turned down Bess in Breaking the Waves because after having met with Von Trier, she wasn't sure what the hell to make of him (not a big surprise there). She now regards him as a visionary but explains that she had no way of knowing that at the time. Graciously acknowledging Emily Watson's brilliance in the role that made her a star; Bonham Carter has conceded that she would likely not have had the same kind of success with it.

Supposedly, Sinatra felt if he had the perform the role more than once (CinemaScope process) then he should be paid for it.

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"I believe Maybe This Time was from their unproduced show, Golden Gate."

That song was actually written for Kaye Ballard, but I believe she never sang it (?) However, Liza did record it on one of her early albums in the mid-1960s.

Doris Day as Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate."

Michelle Pfeiffer in "The Silence of the Lambs"

Mel Gibson in "Taken."

Mel Gibson in "Gladiator."

Tom Cruise as "Salt" (the role was rewritten for a woman and Angelina Jolie was cast).

Denzel Washington in "Flightplan" (The role was rewritten for a woman and Jodi Foster was cast.)

"American Gangster" was originally cast with Benicio Del Toro in the Russell Crowe role. The movie was scrapped and a year later put back together with Ridley Scott replacing Antoine Fuqua as director and Russell Crowe for Del Toro.

Russell Crowe and Ben Stiller in "Collateral."

James Cagney as Alfred Doolittle in "My Fair Lady."

Michael Sarazzin as Joe Buck in "Midnight Cowboy."

Mark Ruffalo was cast as the Joaquin Phoenix role in "Signs" opposite Mel Gibson but had to pull out of the movie.

The musical "Chicago" was going to be a movie in the 90s with Goldie Hawn and Madonna, but it never happened.

In "The Wizard of Oz," Ray Bolger was originally cast as the Tin Man and Buddy Epsen was cast as the Scarecrow. Bolger convinced the studio that he was ideal for the Scarecrow and he switched parts with Epsen. But Epsen ended up with a collapsed lung from the aluminum in the make-up and was recast with Jack Haley.

Frank Sinatra insisted that Lucille Ball be cast in "The Manchurian Candidate." But she was never even offered the role because the director convinced Old Blue Eyes that Angela Lansbury should play the part. A few years later, Lansbury was overlooked for the role of "Mame" that she created on Broadway, for a bigger star: Lucy. Madeline Kahn was cast as Gooch but eventually fired at Lucy's bidding (she felt Kahn never got the role right - others claimed Lucy was insecure around Kahn). Jane Connell who played Gooch on Broadway took the role. Kahn went and did "Blazing Saddles" instead and was nominated for an Academy Award.

Julie Andrews was devastated when Audrey Hepburn was cast in "My Fair Lady" but went on to do "Mary Poppins" instead and won the Academy Award for Best Actress.

I've read that Streisand also turned down Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (also an Oscar winning performance by Ellen), and They Shoot Horses, Don't They.

Why would she lie about turning down Cabaret and Klute? I would think that would be pretty easy to verify. She was one of the top box office female stars of the 70's (and won a few Golden Globe awards for their now defunct World Film Favorite--Female), so it's likely that she was at least sent the scripts or discussed for these roles.