It's almost impossible to think of roles like James Bond or Han Solo in the hands of different
actors, but these are just 2 roles that could have been totally unlike their present form.
Imagine how differently these classics would be if casting went the way the filmmakers
originally planned.
Jurassic Park is such a well-crafted movie it's hard to imagine anything changing.
The effects hold up surprisingly well decades later, the pacing is tight, Jeff Goldblum
is still impossibly sexy.
It's a great film.
However, the lead role of Doctor Alan Grant, who's played in the movie by Sam Neill, was
originally offered to Harrison Ford, for reasons that are obvious if you think about it.
Grant was a gruff, rowdy scientist, paleontologist rather than archaeologist in his case, who
could effectively manage jungle territory while pursued by a deadly enemy.
He even had a cool floppy hat.
As effectively as Sam Neill brought the character to life, we all know we'd throw money at a
film about Indiana Jones versus dinosaurs.
Unfortunately, Ford saw it differently.
He compared the idea to putting Indiana Jones on Mars, an idea that evidently made more
sense to him a decade and a half later, when they actually had Indiana Jones meeting spacemen.
You jumped in a refrigerator to escape an atomic bomb, Ford.
You couldn't punch a dinosaur?
Speaking of Harrison Ford, he almost never had a chance to perform either of his most
closely identified characters.
The roles of Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Han Solo in the first Star Wars
film were originally offered to Tom Selleck, who turned them both down.
This actually made sense at the time, believe it or not.
The original draft of Star Wars: A New Hope imagined Han Solo as much older than Luke
Skywalker, like a kind of "black sheep" uncle figure, which honestly could have been confusing
with all the other themes of familial connection in the film.
By the time Raiders of the Lost Ark was being filmed, Ford had been in three of George Lucas'
films, American Graffiti and the first two Star Wars movies, and Lucas worried about
becoming known for re-using certain actors.
He gave Selleck another shot, but it didn't work out, as Selleck was already committed
to his series Magnum P.I., and the network wouldn't let him take the film.
Losing out on Raiders was a particularly bitter pill for Selleck, who ended up cooling his
heels in Hawaii during an actors' strike while Indiana Jones and company were also on the
island.
Selleck explained with some regret:
"I go to Hawaii to start Magnum, the actors go on strike, and I had given my deposit to
a landlady and I couldn't afford a security deposit.
So I start working as a handyman, in Hawaii, with no job.
And guess who comes to Hawaii to finish their movie?
Raiders of the Lost Ark.
So I could've done them both."
Matt Damon has turned down a lot of major movie roles.
One of the most surprising: he almost played conflicted paraplegic former Marine Jake Sully
in James Cameron's sprawling sci-fi action film Avatar.
The decision was tough on Damon, not only because he was a huge fan of Cameron's, but
also because he figured the star potential of the film could encourage the actor who
took his place (in this case Sam Worthington) to potentially take jobs from him in the future.
Unfortunately scheduling conflicts got in the way, leaving us to imagine what could
have been.
"What was he thinking?"
"What was he possibly…I, I, I have no defense, other than that there was an actual scheduling
conflict."
While most of the Kill Bill movies' action follows the ultraviolent exploits and tribulations
of the vengeful Bride, the character Bill looms large over both films.
C'mon, his name's right there in the title.
His particular cruelties, obsessions, and motivations trickle through his assassin minions
and even the Bride herself.
All of which is to explain why, when Warren Beatty turned down the titular role, Quentin
Tarantino was forced to do a complete rewrite to compensate.
Tarantino explained:
"The Warren Beatty thing is interesting, because once I cast David Carradine, I did a lot of
little rewrites... actually shifting that character into David's sphere.
And it was really interesting reading that first draft, because that's the Warren Beatty
version.
He's more of a James Bond type character."
It's honestly hard to imagine how that film would have turned out.
It certainly would have been a far cry from the gritty suburban samurai film we wound
up seeing.
Once the James Bond producers dumped Pierce Brosnan, a few curious shoulders were tapped.
Looking to shake things up, and impressed with his sharp-dressed killer performance
in American Psycho, producer Barbara Broccoli had a meeting with Bale to offer him the role
as 007.
However Bale, a British actor himself, was loath to take on a role that embodied what
he considered the worst British stereotypes all bundled together.
He was reportedly cordial in his refusal, but at one point quipped, quote, "I've already
played a serial killer."
Clearly he's not a fan.
Nicolas Cage has turned down almost as many memorable roles as he's taken.
His...how should we put this nicely?...curiously varied career...has led him all over the map,
even when he wasn't searching for National Treasure.
Among the many interesting oddities on his résumé: he's turned down two roles that
went to Keaunu Reeves, Neo in The Matrix and the title character in Constantine.
According to Cage, he turned down The Matrix because he wasn't interested in flying to
Australia to film it.
While he was initially more enthusiastic about Constantine, he ended up departing the project
after original director Tarsem Singh dropped out, sparking a pair of lawsuits between Singh
and the studio.
By the time the dust settled, Reeves was on board.
Another actor considered for the role of Neo in The Matrix was Will Smith, and although
it ended up launching a blockbuster trilogy, Smith seems really at peace with turning down
a massive once-in-a-lifetime role.
Speaking to Wired, he admitted that a project like The Matrix is really difficult to sell
in a pitch, and that when the movie was first described to him, quote, "he didn't see it."
After watching the film later, Smith also felt Reeves was a better fit, saying,
"I would have absolutely messed up The Matrix.
At that point I wasn't smart enough of an actor to let the movie be.
Whereas Keanu was smart enough to let it be.
Just let the movie and the director tell the story and don't try to perform every moment."
However, he doesn't have quite that level of zen-like peace about Wild Wild West, the
film he accepted instead of The Matrix.
Although the movie was a financial success, critics tore it to pieces and in hindsight
he admits his performance was a cash grab, and led him to a vow never to take on a project
again just for the money.
He presumably made his vow while reclining on a pile of cash.
"Oh!
Oh!"
Al Pacino is possibly one of the greatest actors that ever lived, with a career bringing
to life some of the most memorable characters in modern cinema.
Which makes it even more incredible to consider what might have been for any number of roles.
Naturally, every director wanted a piece of Pacino at his peak; unfortunately, he couldn't
be everywhere at once.
At various times, he had the potential to be Han Solo in Star Wars, Willard in Apocalypse
Now, Axel Foley from Beverly Hills Cop, John McClane from Die Hard, and even freaking Rambo.
Instead of being on a couple posters in your college dorm room, he could potentially have
been on all of them.
Through the '90s and into the early 2000s, the name "Bruce Willis" was synonymous with
"action hero."
That's almost entirely due to his role as John McClane, a wisecracking regular cop thrust
into extraordinary life or death situations in a string of Die Hard films.
When the original Die Hard hit theaters in 1988, Willis was seen as an unconventional,
if not risky choice to headline a full-throttle action movie.
At the time, Willis was known almost entirely for his Emmy-nominated role as cheeky private
detective David Addison on the TV rom-com Moonlighting.
According to screenwriter Steven E. de Souza in Die Hard: An Oral History, filmmakers hired
Willis, quote, "in desperation."
Every big action hero and tough guy actor of the '80s passed on Die Hard, including
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, James Caan, Burt Reynolds, and Richard Gere.
Deadpool marked a major comeback for Ryan Reynolds, whose once-promising career had
been knocked off course by a few bombs, chief among them the 2010 DC Comics movie Green
Lantern.
The superhero adventure was both a critical and commercial failure, earning back about
half its $200 million budget at the American box office.
Reynolds explained to Variety,
"After Green Lantern, I was pretty much unhireable."
But while his star was falling, another guy's was rising.
Jon Hamm, the annually Emmy-nominated star of the AMC 1960s period piece Mad Men, seems
to have dodged a big green bullet, as DC aggressively pursued him to be a big-screen superhero.
Hamm told GQ,
"They came after me pretty hard for Green Lantern.
But I was like, meh, that's not what I want to do."
In the 1990s, Leonardo DiCaprio was the boy wonder of Hollywood, finding fame, fortune,
and teen idol status with roles like troubled teen Luke on Growing Pains, Jack Dawson in
Titanic, and Romeo in Baz Luhrrmann's Romeo and Juliet.
It only makes sense that the fresh-faced box-office draw would be given the chance to play actual
"boy wonder" Robin, a.k.a. Dick Grayson, in Warner Brothers' ongoing Batman franchise.
In 2015, he told ShortList that he was under consideration for the part, which would've
started with 1995's Batman Forever, saying.
"I never screen-tested.
I had a meeting with Joel Schumacher.
It was just one meeting, and no, I didn't end up doing it.
As I recall I took the meeting, but didn't want to play the role."
DiCaprio mentioned two other parts in big movies that he met with filmmakers about,
before taking himself out of contention: Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels, and Spider-Man
in Spider-Man.
In 1996 and 1997, Will Smith starred in the back-to-back summer blockbusters Independence
Day and Men in Black.
The movies marked his official transition from sitcom star to Hollywood A-Lister, with
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air having ended its run just weeks before Independence Day hit
theaters.
"I make this look good."
Smith wasn't the first choice to play rookie Agent J in Men in Black, however.
Another actor known primarily for one huge TV role was offered it first: David Schwimmer,
known to millions as lovelorn paleontologist Ross on Friends.
While he was shooting the comedy The Pallbearer for Miramax, the studio was so confident the
future box office bomb would be a hit that it wanted to sign Schwimmer to a three-movie
deal.
Schwimmer agreed to it if they let him also direct Since You've Been Gone, and cast everyone
from his Chicago theater company.
The film went into production, and Schwimmer gave all of his friends roles.
He explained on the Awards Chatter podcast,
"About a month before production, I get the call about Men in Black.
Which was a direct conflict with directing that film.
I just said, 'I can't.
These are my closest friends in the world, this is their first shot at a movie, my first
shot at directing."
Nor could he delay filming the movie in favor of Men in Black, because he'd be due back
at Friends.
MiB producers had to move on, and they picked Smith.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Looper videos about your favorite stars are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.