15 Famous Actors Who Passed on Roles That Became Legendary

In Hollywood, little decisions have consequences that are hard to predict. Sometimes the most important one can just be a big old 'no'. Every year, producers and directors bring scripts to Hollywood superstars, who say "no," move on, and never give it another thought. But the rejected script may end up making film history. Whoever ends up landing that role can find their entire career transformed overnight. 

Here are 15 stars who passed up parts that turned into something none of them could have predicted.

In 1993, Robert Zemeckis reached out to John Travolta to portray Forrest Gump, a slow-witted but big-hearted man who somehow manages to witness, and occasionally shape, the biggest moments in American history. But Travolta refused the offer and decided to work with Quentin Tarantino for Pulp Fiction.

Tom Hanks was chosen, gave one of the most beloved performances in American cinema, and took home his second consecutive Oscar. Both movies were nominated at the 1995 Oscars, so Travolta and Hanks actually competed for Best Actor. Forrest Gump went ahead to win six Oscars, including Best Picture. Travolta has openly stated that he had no regrets, which makes sense. Both movies are classics.

The Wachowski brothers approached Will Smith with their reality-bending sci-fi concept in 1997, but according to Will Smith himself, their pitch was nothing short of confusing. At the time, he thought the idea wasn't going to work and the movie would ultimately flop. He turned down the part and went on to make Wild Wild West instead. The role went to Keanu Reeves, and the movie ended up reshaping the action movie genre altogether through iconic scenes like the bullet-time sequence . Smith would later say on record that he believes he would have been wrong for it, and that Reeves was the only person who could have played Neo the way he did.

Tom Selleck did not only audition for the part of Indiana Jones. He was cast. He had agreed to play the character of the fedora-clad archeologist in Raiders of the Lost Ark, but his contract for Magnum P.I. locked him out when CBS picked up the show. Steven Spielberg himself confirmed that the actor strike that took place at the time would have given Selleck a clear window anyway, making the timing all the more painful in retrospect. Harrison Ford accepted the role and created one of the most enduring characters in movie history.

In 1971, when Francis Ford Coppola was casting actors for his upcoming film "The Godfather," Jack Nicholson was amongst the actors considered for Michael Corleone. He rejected the role. In a conversation with Movieline magazine in 2004, Nicholson said that he believed ethnic roles should go to actors of matching heritage. "Italians should play Italians," were Nicholson's words. Nicholson has never framed the decision as a regret, though the film remains one of the defining masterpieces of cinema in that entire decade.

Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs was never meant to be played by Anthony Hopkins, according to Jonathan Demme's initial plan. His first choice was Sean Connery. Demme believed Connery's natural screen authority and physical presence could have made the character terrifying in a unique way. But when Connery read the script, he called it disgusting, declining without much deliberation. Anthony Hopkins took the role and was seen on camera for a mere 16 minutes. Those 16 minutes got him the Academy Award for Best Actor. It remains one of the fastest Oscar wins, in terms of screen time, in the history of the award.

In the midst of casting for Star Wars, one of Hollywood's biggest stars, Burt Reynolds, was approached for the role of Han Solo. However, he turned it down. Reynolds later said he didn't think he was right for the part and that passing on it was a serious miscalculation. The character of Han Solo was played by Harrison Ford, and it went on to become one of the most beloved characters in American pop culture. Reynolds told USA Today years later: "It was a stupid thing to say. I could've done it, and I could've done it well." Harrison Ford was the second choice here too, just as he had been for Indiana Jones, and he made the most of it.

Eddie Murphy once had the opportunity to star in Ghostbusters. He refused the role of Winston Zeddemore, the fourth Ghostbuster, which ended up being played by Ernie Hudson. He went on to star in Beverly Hills Cop instead. That film turned out to be an incredible success and cemented Eddie Murphy as a leading actor rather than simply another successful Saturday Night Live breakout. Both films came out in the same year, and while Ghostbusters became a cultural institution, Murphy's instinct about Beverly Hills Cop was not wrong.

Connery wasn't the only actor who turned down a role in The Silence of the Lambs. Michelle Pfeiffer rejected the role of Clarice Starling for similar reasons, finding the film's ending too dark to put her name to, despite being Jonathan Demme's first choice. They had worked together before on the movie Married to the Mob, but she passed on the role regardless.

When she was interviewed by the New Yorker magazine, she stated that she was disturbed by the movie's climax. In her own words: "There was such evil in that film. It was that evil won in the end, that at the end of that film evil ruled out. I was uncomfortable with that ending." She refused the role, but Jodie Foster picked it up and won the Oscar for best actress. She made one of the most studied portrayals in the thriller genre and later said that the character of Clarice meant so much to her that she also declined the sequel.

The first real contender for the role of Patrick Bateman in the film American Psycho was Leonardo DiCaprio, but he declined it. When being interviewed at the time, DiCaprio stated that the movie wasn't worth his time since he found it meaningless, although some additional reasons are thought to have been involved.

Later on, Christian Bale took over the lead role, lost a significant amount of weight, and delivered a performance that made Hollywood take him seriously in a way nothing before it had. Meanwhile, Leonardo DiCaprio spent the following years collecting Oscar nominations of his own, so both turned out all right.

As we’ve seen, Al Pacino wasn't the only high-profile actor to refuse to do Han Solo, but his reasoning was unique. In his memoir Sonny Boy, Pacino wrote that after The Godfather made him a star, he got the script and couldn't understand what it was about. He showed it to his acting coach and mentor, and he couldn't figure it out either. So Pacino decided he would not play a character he didn’t understand, with his verdict being: "I can't play something if I don't speak the language."

He was doing carpentry work at a Hollywood studio and reading lines for other actors' auditions when Lucas took notice. The rest is history. Pacino went on to win an Oscar for Scent of a Woman in 1992, so things worked out pretty well for him, too.

In the height of Hanks' career after consecutive Oscars for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump, he had been offered the script for Jerry Maguire. But he turned down the offer. On the other hand, Tom Cruise took on the role of a sports agent seeking purpose in life, which Cameron Crowe had scripted, delivering one of his most charming and emotionally exposed performances, which earned him an Oscar nomination. Hanks later told Access Hollywood that when he watches the film now, he genuinely believes no one else could have played the role. Cruise's casting produced the film's most quoted line, a scene that became one of the defining pop culture moments of 1996.

Lee had already established himself as one of the most respected names in the horror industry when John Carpenter's Halloween came along in 1978. This particular film presented Lee with the opportunity to take up the character of Dr. Sam Loomis, the psychiatrist tormented by the presence of Michael Myers. Lee rejected the offer and would go on to admit that he felt regretful over missing the opportunity.

Donald Pleasence took the character up, turning him into one of the most iconic aspects of the franchise throughout its many sequels. Halloween proved to be one of the most influential horror movies ever made, essentially defining the slasher genre as audiences would come to know it. Lee, who rarely expressed public regret about career decisions, made an exception for this one.

Mortensen was offered the part of Wolverine in the late 1990s at about the same time he was offered to play Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He rejected the role for Wolverine since he did not feel comfortable committing to an open-ended series of films with no clear endpoint. His son even noted a Wolverine mock-up that Bryan Singer had in his office and felt the look didn't match the comics, which reinforced the decision. In the end, Hugh Jackman took the role, playing Logan in nine movies over a period of almost two decades. The character became one of the most recognizable superhero portrayals in movie history, and Jackman's 2017 farewell film, Logan, earned an Academy Award nomination for its screenplay.

Paltrow declined the lead part in James Cameron's Titanic, and Kate Winslet ended up starring in it instead. The actress has stated that she made her choice and tries not to think about it anymore. Winslet's role in the movie earned her an Academy Award nomination and made her one of the greatest stars of her generation. Titanic had the highest box office gross at its time, and held that title for over a decade. While Gwyneth Paltrow did win her own Oscar the following year for Shakespeare in Love, Titanic's cultural footprint is difficult to match.

Joaquin Phoenix was in serious talks to play the Sorcerer Supreme in Doctor Strange before negotiations broke down. It is unclear if this was because of creative control, the difficulty of signing a long-term deal, or something else, but Phoenix walked away. Luckily, Benedict Cumberbatch was cast in this role, which turned out to be one of the pillars of the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe, appearing across Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, and his own sequel. Phoenix, for his part, went on to win the Academy Award for Joker in 2019, so the detour had its advantages.