Title: 10 Actors That Were Rejected from Famous Roles
Author: Intro
Audiences usually forget it, but acting is a job.
Each individual role counts as one job and each role will have a lot of actors either
auditioning or being considered for it and often even the most successful and well know
of performers understand the sting of rejection.
We hate rejection too!
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Jennifer Lawrence - Twilight
While in 2008, not many people had really heard of Jennifer Lawrence while she was working
her way up in the industry, auditioning for roles and garnering notice for her roles in
little seen films such as The Burning Plain.
One of the earlier roles she auditioned for was Bella Swan in Twilight.
With the book being a huge financial success and the movie looking to be quite big, there
were a lot of women that auditioned for the lead role.
Unfortunately, (or fortunately) for Jennifer Lawrence, director Catherine Hardwicke felt
that it was Kristen Stewart who was best for the role.
As a result, Lawrence lost out on the part, along with other actresses such as Lily Cole
In spite of this, Jennifer Lawrence has said she doesn’t regret losing to Kristen Stewart
and given how the Twilight series turned out… we can understand that.
Chris Pratt – G.I.
Joe One of the reasons that Chris Pratt initially
turned down the opportunity to appear in Guardians of the Galaxy was because he feared embarrassing
himself in the audition.
This happened to him when he auditioned for G.I.
Joe, where he lost out to Channing Tatum.
Something about Chris Pratt’s acting style just didn’t mesh with G.I.
Joe and Chris Pratt felt humiliated.
Thankfully since then Chris Pratt hasn’t had much trouble landing action roles, appearing
in not only Jurassic World, but also Westerns such as the Magnificent Seven and the sequel
to Guardians of The Galaxy.
He is also rumoured to be considered for next Indiana Jones franchise entry
Ironically, Channing Tatum has been venturing a lot more into comedy since G.I.
Joe, which is usually Chris Pratt’s forte.
Tatum has appeared in both the Jump Street films and Hail Caesar!
Jensen Ackles- Captain America Long-time star of Supernatural, Jensen Ackles,
came close to capturing the role of Captain America.
Unfortunately for him, the role of the first avenger went to Chris Evans instead.
While Ackles rough around the edges style vaguely had the look that you’d expect from
the character it wasn’t enough to win out over the guy next door looks of Chris Evans
- who comparatively resembled the character a lot more.
While Ackles, like most TV actors, has had trouble breaking into film, he did bag the
role of Jason Todd in the animated adaptation of Under the Red Hood.
While it would have been nice for Ackles to play the ‘the man with the voice that could
command a god’, it’s also cool to see that in spite of losing out the role he is
still having a very successful career on TV
Will Smith – Django Unchained In a strange situation, Will Smith was rejected
for the role of Django Unchained by Quentin Tarantino, because Smith felt that he wasn’t
‘the main character’ if he didn’t get to kill Leonardo DiCaprio’s character by
the end of the movie.
In Will Smith’s mind he felt that he would be playing a supporting role if he didn’t
get that opportunity and as a result, Quentin Tarantino decided he would rather stick with
the story that he wanted to tell and passed Will Smith over for veteran actor and musician
Jamie Foxx.
With Django Unchained becoming the most financially and critically successful film of Tarantino’s
career, and received Oscars for screenplay and supporting actor it seems apparent that
while it would have been a nice bonus, Tarantino did not need Smith’s star power to sell
the film.
Smith meanwhile starred in “A Winter’s Tale” instead….ahem.
5.
Jim Carrey as Loki and Captain Jack Sparrow There have been a fair few roles that almost
starred Jim Carrey.
Jim Carrey was offered the role of Doctor Who in the 90s in an attempt to launch a new
series, but Carrey turned it down out of respect for the fans of the show, as he felt that
it wasn’t right for someone who wasn’t familiar with a cult classic show, to play
the lead role.
He was also rejected the roles of both Loki and Captain Jack Sparrow.
While it’s not unreasonable to think that he could have performed well as both, they
certainly would have been vastly different movies.
Carrey surely would shave made an interesting Loki, given his performance in Kick Ass 2,
but the role went to the excellent Tom Hiddleston.
And while his broad comedic style would have made a very different Jack Sparrow, we can’t
really argue that Johnny Depp was a great choice.
Leonardo DiCaprio – American Psycho At the time American Psycho came out, Leonard
DiCaprio was viewed very differently to how he is today.
While today he is regarded as one of the best actors around, back in the early 2000s he
was groomed by Hollywood as the pretty boy love interest in spite of his Oscar nomination
for Whats Eating Gilbert Grape.
His romantic leading man image was a big part of why he didn’t get the role of Patrick
Bateman in American Psycho.
Coming off of the huge successes of Romeo and Juliet and Titanic, Leo was typecast as
a love interest by this point and studios felt his career might suffer by playing a
psychopathic killer like Bateman.
The role instead went to Christian Bale, a young character actor who had attempted stardom
in films like Empire of the Sun, Newsies and Portrait of Lady.
Bale was able to capture both the calculated rage and satirical humour that made his Bateman
so chilling and Leo picked up steam in a wider range of roles
eventually though, in movies such as Django Unchained, Wolf of Wall Street and the Revenant.
That pretty boy image is certainly shed.
Robin Williams vs Jack Nicholson – The Shining & Batman
Comedic actors often deliver some of the finest dramatic performances in memory.
Despite largely being known for comedies, Robin Williams played numerous serious roles
in One Hour Photo, Law and Order and Good Will Hunting, often playing dark or unnerving
characters.
So while it probably sounds unusual at first, Robin Williams was once considered for the
role of Jack Torrence in the Shining.
Despite this, he was ultimately rejected in the role, with Jack Nicholson replacing him.
Not only that but Nicholson also replaced Williams as the Joker.
While Williams was originally wanted for the role, DC decided that they really wanted Jack
Nicholson and used Williams’ name to convince Nicholson to take the role instead, rather
than lose it to another big name actor.
DC would later repeat their actions with Williams in baiting him into playing the Riddler in
order to convince Jim Carrey to take the role.
Robin Williams rejected the role of The Riddler as a result.
Robin Williams sadly passed away in 2014, leaving a an incredible legacy of both comedic
and dramatic work.
8.
Kurt Russell – Star Wars There are dozens of names who auditioned for
Star Wars, and dozens who auditioned for Han Solo, including Steve Buscemi and even Bill
Murray.
Kurt Russell was another one of these names and was closest to what you’d expect Han
Solo to be.
Kurt Russell was very young at the time -only in his twenties, and known for Disney teen
comedies like the Computer Wore Tennis Shoes.
He was certainly younger than what Harrison Ford is known as being, but Russell was still
good enough to get through to the taped stages of auditions which can be viewed on YouTube
for free.
While the star later played similar roles, like Jack Burton in Big Trouble in Little
China, and bad ass action heroes in films like Escape From New York, unfortunately his
audition, while certainly good, just wasn’t as good as the work Harrison Ford was putting
in as Han Solo in rehearsal takes.
While Kurt Russell certainly would have been a good choice for the role, how many people
can imagine ANYONE else playing Han Solo but Harrison Ford?
Emma Stone - Heroes One of Emma Stone’s earliest auditions what
for that of Claire Bennet on the TV Show Heroes.
The popular superhero themed show ran for 4 seasons in its first inception, but it all
started with the pilot episode Genesis, which introduced us to Hayden Panettierre in the
role of Claire.
Emma Stone has said that losing the part to Hayden was pretty tough on her, because she
was actually only in the room next door when she heard Hayden being told that she got the
part and that she was the best for the role.
Luckily for Stone, only two weeks later she got the part for Superbad and that served
as a jumping off point for the rest of her career.
Emma Stone later got to be in a superhero movie thanks to the Amazing Spider-Man films
and we doubt she’s looked back much since then.
Ryan Gosling – The Lovely Bones While Ryan Gosling is generally considered
to be a Hollywood hunk and a talented actor, he was actually rejected for the movie “The
Lovely Bones” because he had gotten too… fat.
While at first Gosling stated that the reason he left was due to creative differences with
Peter Jackson, and feeling that he was too young to play the father of a teenage daughter,
Gosling later revealed that it was because he had gotten too fat for the role.
As it turns out, both stories are kind of true.
Ryan Gosling had actually gotten fat in preparation for the role as he felt the character should
be out of shape and scruffy looking.
The problem was that Gosling had not told Peter Jackson that he was going to be doing
this and Jackson decided that Mark Whalberg would be the better choice for the role.
Shortly after that Ryan Gosling went back to being a hunk, garning critical acclaim
for roles in Drive, La La Land and Blade Runner 2049.
What famous rejections have we missed?
we know that there are tons more examples we could have talked about.
So leave your favourites in the comment section below and as always rate comment and subscribe
to see more.