The Lord of the Rings trilogy has become so ingrained in popular culture that it's difficult
to imagine how it might have looked with a different cast, but several notable actors
turned down big roles. Here are some of the big names who could have resided in Middle
Earth.
According to reports, Sean Connery was offered the role of Gandalf before it went to Ian
McKellen. Peter Jackson was apparently so keen on landing the former Bond actor that
he convinced New Line to offer Connery a fifteen percent slice of the box office takings, plus
a $30 million pay packet. The Lord of the Rings trilogy made just shy of $3 billion
worldwide, so it was a pretty costly decision, especially when you consider the fact that
Connery went on to star in the career-ending The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen instead.
So why did the iconic Scot turn down the chance to play Tolkien's most famous wizard?
"Uh, I'll take swords for 400."
In 2012, a retired Connery admitted that he said no to The Lord of the Rings because he
just couldn't get his head around the sprawling story. The actor said:
"I read the book. I read the script, I saw the movie. I still don't understand it. Ian
McKellen, I believe, is marvelous in it."
When McKellen was asked about Jackson's pursuit of Connery during an interview with Total
Film, he joked that the films would have been, quote, "very different" had Connery chosen
to take on the role, saying:
"Gandalf would have come from Scotland for a start."
"You shall not pash!" doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it?
"Stay back. If you value your life."
Christopher Plummer grew up reading The Lord of the Rings and has admitted to being a huge
fan of Tolkien [TOHL-keen]'s world, but he still chose to turn down the opportunity to
play Gandalf when Peter Jackson came calling. Years later, the actor revealed that he had
an issue with the level of commitment required. For Plummer, spending three years in New Zealand
at his age just wasn't an option. He explained to Conan O'Brien,
"I thought, there are other countries I'd like to visit before I croak."
He added that the, quote, "absolutely marvelous" Ian McKellen brought a warmth to the wizard
that he himself may not have been able to produce.
"I might have been a little cold and imperious."
Plummer has still done some memorable work since passing on Rings, not that he had anything
left to prove after carving out his illustrious career. He was nominated for a Primetime Emmy
for playing Cardinal Bernard Law in the Catholic Church abuse drama Our Fathers in 2005, and
in 2012 he scooped up his first Academy Award, triumphing in the Best Supporting Actor category
for Beginners.
His win made him the oldest actor to take home a competitive Oscar. Plummer almost beat
his own record in 2018 when he was nominated for All the Money in the World, a role he
famously took over for a scandal-hit Kevin Spacey at the last minute, but he was beaten
by Sam Rockwell for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
Peter Jackson is said to have attempted to convince Daniel Day-Lewis to take on the role
of Aragorn on numerous occasions. Supposedly, the three-time Best Actor winner
repeatedly spurned his advances according to The One Ring, which had the inside track
on all things The Lord of the Rings back when the trilogy was still in development. In October
1999, a source told the Tolkien fan site that producers had made one final push to get Day-Lewis
on board, stating:
"DDL has been offered the Aragorn role again. He has been offered the (Middle) Earth to
take the role. The producers think he'll say no again, but they don't want to miss the
chance to try him."
Day-Lewis addressed the long-running Aragorn rumors over a decade later, confirming that
he was indeed offered the part. Speaking to MTV's Josh Horowitz in 2009, the notoriously
picky method actor said that he rejected the role because big franchise films just aren't
his bag. He explained:
"They can be fantastically entertaining for the people who love to see them, but it's
not for me...If I found myself working on a film and during the course of that work
I was bored, because I didn't really know what the hell I was involved in, I would find
that infinitely demoralizing and it might well make me decide to pack my bags."
Day-Lewis retired from acting in 2017.
The idea of Nicolas Cage playing Aragorn might sound like nightmare fuel, but believe it
or not, this almost came to pass. Cage was a headliner at the time, fresh off starring
roles in Con Air, Face/Off, and Snake Eyes.
"No!"
"Yes!"
"Oh, come on, this is not fair, man! Come on!"
"Call a cop!"
Taking the lead in a big-budget epic like The Lord of the Rings would have been the
next logical step for him, but he was forced to turn down Peter Jackson's offer because
he had, quote, "family obligations" that he couldn't ignore. It wasn't the only huge role
he passed on, either, Cage also said no to The Matrix. The actor said:
"Both are great movies, but they both shot for great quantities of time, I mean years.
Australia was The Matrix, and New Zealand was The Lord of the Rings."
Cage expanded on his explanation during a 2015 interview with NewsWeek, where he said
of The Lord of the Rings:
"There were different things going on in my life at the time that precluded me from being
able to travel and be away from home for three years."
He has absolutely no regrets, however, saying:
"I get to enjoy the movies as an audience member, because I don't watch my own movies."
Had his schedule been different, perhaps the state of his career today would be different,
too. For better or worse, Cage was unable to take the part and we're left wondering
what bizarre accent he might have given the future King of Gondor.
By the time New Zealand native Russell Crowe was approached about the Aragorn vacancy,
The Lord of the Rings' budget was starting to look a little stretched. They didn't have
enough cash to give Crowe a suitable upfront fee, so producers offered him a percentage
of the takings instead. It wasn't enough to tempt him, though years later Crowe conceded
that it would have been a risk well worth taking.
In 2011, the actor delivered a lecture about his career in the business to film students
at England's Durham University. According to The Telegraph, Crowe talked about turning
down the Aragorn role, joking that he wouldn't have needed to do paid appearances had he
agreed to New Line's offer of ten percent of The Lord of the Rings' profits. So why
didn't he?
Crowe didn't reveal the reasoning behind his costly decision until 2019, when Howard Stern
decided to probe him about it.
"I didn't think Peter Jackson actually wanted me on the film, because I think he was forced
into talking to me, because there was a moment in time when everybody wanted me in everything."
Crowe knew that something wasn't quite right when he spoke to Jackson over the phone about
the part, though. He said he had in instinct Jackson wanted someone else for the part:
Viggo Mortensen.
Kate Winslet started getting linked with a possible appearance in The Lord of the Rings
as soon as New Line announced that Peter Jackson was going to spearhead its ambitious three-movie
project. The director gave the British starlet her big break when he cast her in 1994's Heavenly
Creatures, a psychological drama based on a famous New Zealand case involving two teenage
killers.
By the time Jackson started casting for The Lord of the Rings, Winslet was a huge star,
having been nominated for Academy Awards in the Best Supporting Actress and Best Leading
Actress categories for 1995's Sense and Sensibility and 1997's Titanic, respectively. She had
her pick of projects at the time, and The Lord of the Rings just wasn't appealing enough.
Winslet was reportedly offered the role of Rohan shieldmaiden Eowyn, but she had some
commitment issues, according to an email allegedly written by former New Line Cinema president
of production Michael De Luca. The supposed email, which was forwarded to The Lord of
the Rings fan site The One Ring by an inside source, read:
"Winslet's unavailable, I'm afraid. I think she passed on the project due to the length
of time it takes."
Some people might view that as a gross error of judgment on Winslet's part, but her career
didn't suffer as a result, she's been nominated for another four Oscars in the years since,
winning one.
Uma Thurman certainly has a high fantasy look about her. It's easy to imagine the actress
as Galadriel, but that's not the part that Peter Jackson had in mind for her. The director
wanted Thurman to play Eowyn, the same character that Kate Winslet was approached about. Thurman
also turned the part down, though unlike Winslet it wasn't just a time issue. She and her then-husband
Ethan Hawke had just welcomed their first daughter, Maya, when the offer was made, presenting
the new mother with a difficult choice.
In the end, Thurman decided to put family first and reject Jackson's overtures, though
she later admitted that the decision still haunts her. She confirmed to MTV in 2008:
"Yeah, I was asked...It just caught me at the wrong moment. I wish I had done it. Oh,
I truly wish I could've been able to take that plunge, and maybe I should have, but
I just couldn't at the time."
When she appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert almost a decade later, the Kill Bill
star admitted that rejecting The Lord of the Rings was, quote, "one of the worst decisions"
of her entire career.
"I just had my first child and, I don't know, I was a little housebound."
At one stage, husband and wife team Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke looked set to appear in The
Lord of the Rings together, with the latter confirming his planned involvement at the
Toronto Film Festival. Hawke not only revealed that he would be playing Boromir's younger
brother Faramir, a role that eventually went to Australian actor David
Wenham, he also let slip that Tolkien's enigmatic supporting character Tom Bombadil
had been cut from the screenplay. The actor went on to gush over the author's
work, claiming that he had been a fan of the Tolkien series since childhood.
Despite his obvious excitement, Hawke pulled out of the picture. Perhaps leaving his wife
at home to care for their newborn daughter after she had turned down a part in the same
movie wasn't an option for the actor, who takes parenthood so seriously that he was
inspired to write a book about it.
His now ex-wife has admitted that she regrets rejecting The Lord of the Rings, but does
Hawke feel the same? He didn't explicitly say that he wished he had taken the Faramir
role, but when he sat down with Variety in 2018, he revealed that he was still waiting
for his big blockbuster moment, saying:
"Before I die, I would really like to give a meaningful performance inside a really commercial
film."
Lucy Lawless is best known for starring in the much-loved Xena: Warrior Princess. The
New Zealander seemed to be the perfect fit, she had plenty of fantasy experience and the
kind of flawless features that Galadriel is known for in the novels, but it wasn't meant
to be.
"Sometimes people do things that they regret."
Lawless was pregnant when Jackson approached her about the role, and the director clearly
failed to sell The Lord of the Rings to her, because she forgot to turn up for the audition.
In a 2003 interview with Hot Celebs Magazine, Lawless revealed that she also turned down
a chance to appear in Fox's franchise opener X-Men at the time, despite knowing that she
probably wouldn't get another shot at the big leagues. She said:
"You know what might happen? By the time I'm ready and want to do a multi-year contract,
they won't want me. But what can I do? I've turned down great things. It's not worth it
if your children are miserable."
Her prediction came true, and although Lawless is still working today, having starred in
the Australian crime series My Life Is Murder in 2019 and voiced an alien queen in two 2020
episodes of Star Wars: Resistance, her career could have been a whole lot different if she
had agreed to portray Tolkien's telepathic Elf.
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