It may seem like everyone wants to be a superhero these days, but a few stars have still tried
to steer clear of the world of comic book movies.
Here are a few of the actors who said no when DC came calling.
Leonardo DiCaprio has spent the vast majority of his life in Hollywood, but before he achieved
global fame in James Cameron's 1997 epic Titanic, Warner Brothers.
approached him to star in Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever.
Seeing how things turned out, it's probably fair to say that turning them down was the
right choice.
The studio wanted DiCaprio for the part of Dick Grayson, also known as Robin, but DiCaprio
just wasn't feeling it.
Contrary to rumors, DiCaprio has said he never screen-tested for the role, though he did
talk to Schumacher.
He told Shortlist:
"I had a meeting with Joel Schumacher.
It was just one meeting and, no, I didn't end up doing it."
Despite meeting with the director, DiCaprio said he never even wanted the role.
He explained:
"As I recall I took the meeting but didn't want to play the role.
Joel Schumacher is a very talented director, but I don't think I was ready for anything
like that."
The role ended up going to Chris O'Donnell, but, interestingly, Robin wasn't the only
superhero role Hollywood offered DiCaprio, Sony Pictures approached him to play Spider-Man
for director Sam Raimi.
But as with Robin, he said he just wasn't ready to put on a suit.
At this juncture in his Oscar-winning career, it seems unlikely he's in any rush to change
his mind.
Warner Brothers had been trying to get a Green Lantern film off the ground for well over
a decade before Martin Campbell directed the character's first live-action outing in 2011.
The studio approached Kevin Smith in 1997 to write a script for the film, but he turned
down the offer, feeling he wasn't the right fit for the job.
Then renowned director Quentin Tarantino received an offer to helm the project, but he also
turned it down, feeling he'd outgrown his adoration for comic books.
When the studio finally settled on a director and screenwriter, they began their search
for Hal Jordan.
While Ryan Reynolds ultimately got the part, he wasn't always the top contender.
Warner Brothers approached Bradley Cooper, Chris Pine, Justin Timberlake, and Sam Worthington,
who all either turned the role down or were rejected by the studio.
Another one-time contender was Mad Men star Jon Hamm.
He recalled to GQ:
"They came after me pretty hard for Green Lantern.
But I was like, 'Meh, that's not what I want to do.'
Never say never, but these aren't the kind of movies I like to go and see.
They don't make the kind of movies I like to see anymore."
"Nostalgia.
It's delicate, but potent."
Pierce Brosnan has had a hugely prolific career, but his tenure as the slick MI6 spy James
Bond will undoubtedly remain its highlight.
At one point, however, Brosnan had the opportunity to star in a comic book movie that probably
would have not only dashed his chances to be Bond, but also changed the landscape of
the superhero genre altogether.
Just imagine for a second that Brosnan, not Michael Keaton, played Batman in Tim Burton's
1989 film.
Sounds crazy, but there was a chance of it happening.
In a Reddit AMA, Brosnan admitted to meeting Burton for the role.
He wrote:
"Yes, I did.
I went and met with Tim Burton for the role of Batman.
But I just couldn't really take it seriously, any man who wears his underpants outside his
pants just cannot be taken seriously.
That was my foolish take on it.
It was a joke, I thought.
But how wrong was I?"
Brosnan stressed the fact that he doesn't hate Batman, he just couldn't see himself
playing the character in a movie.
He wrote:
"Don't get me wrong, because I love Batman, and I grew up on Batman.
As a kid in Ireland, we used to get our raincoats and tie them round our neck and swing through
the bicycle shed."
However, it appears that Brosnan's hesitation with Batman led him to James Bond, and thus
gave him the defining role of his career.
So it's not all bad.
There aren't many actors more highly regarded than Anthony Hopkins.
Known to many as Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs and its sequels, Hopkins
was also up for a few early roles in the world of comic book movies, but declined to take
them.
Before Michael Caine boarded Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins as Bruce Wayne's butler, Alfred
Pennyworth, Nolan reportedly offered Hopkins the role.
He turned it down, however, for reasons unknown.
Interestingly, despite reportedly being turned down for the role of Mr. Freeze in Joel Schumacher's
Batman & Robin, Hopkins maintained his interest in DC movies.
Not long after turning down the role of Alfred Pennyworth in Batman Begins, he finally joined
the DC universe as Jor-El in J.J. Abrams and Brett Ratner's Superman: Flyby.
Things didn't work out, though, and the project mutated into Bryan Singer's Superman Returns.
He told MTV News:
"I was going to do the movie with Brett, and I don't know what happened.
[There was] some political movement.
I think Brett was out of line with something and they said thank you very much.
I never heard from Brett since then, but I was all set to do it."
Hopkins finally found his comic book home in 2011, when he took the role of Odin in
Thor; a role he has returned to many times since.
Jude Law may be an excellent actor, but he's not really a huge movie star.
After the disastrous critical and box office performance of Sky Captain & The World of
Tomorrow, Law was probably nervous about headlining another action franchise, especially when
the character in question was the greatest superhero of them all.
On The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Law revealed that director Bryan Singer offered
him the role of the Man of Steel for 2006's Superman Returns.
"I have this picture of that, of me in that costume.
You know, posters all around the world, and I was like, 'No way.'"
Law turned down the role, which went to the relatively unknown Brandon Routh.
After Superman Returns' lukewarm reception, the series was rebooted with Law's fellow
Brit, Henry Cavill, taking the lead.
"I'm an Englishman, and, you know, it felt like, it just didn't seem to fit.
And I was worried about the outfit, and I just didn't fancy it."
Law presumably had no such qualms about the wardrobe attached to the character of Yon-Rogg,
the Kree warrior he played in 2019's MCU blockbuster Captain Marvel.
Movie stars don't come much bigger than Will Smith, and this was especially true in the
mid-2000s.
So it seemed natural that he'd end up taking a part in a superhero movie.
And, according to Smith himself, he wasn't just offered any superhero role, but the mightiest
of them all: Superman.
Apparently, Bryan Singer asked Smith to play the big blue boy scout in Superman Returns.
But Smith didn't even need to see the suit.
He rejected the part because he didn't want to repeat what was then his biggest career
mistake.
Smith told MTV:
"'There is no way I'm playing Superman!'
Because I had already done Jim West [in Wild Wild West], and you can't be messing up white
people's heroes in Hollywood.
You mess up white people's heroes in Hollywood, you'll never work in this town again!"
Smith would go on to play his own superhero in Hancock, and would later join the DC Expanded
Universe as Deadshot.
Imagine living in an alternate universe where Heath Ledger played Batman and Christian Bale
played the Joker.
Well, it's not really that far-fetched.
In 2005, Ledger was Hollywood's gravelly voiced king of cool, while Bale was most known for
playing the maniacal murdering psychopath Patrick Bateman in American Psycho.
And according to the Dark Knight Trilogy's director Christopher Nolan, it was almost
Ledger, not Bale, who donned the cape and cowl.
In an interview with the Daily Star, Nolan revealed that he offered the part of Batman
to Ledger but was turned down.
Nolan said:
"He was quite gracious about it, but he said, 'I would never take a part in a superhero
film.'"
Thankfully, Ledger eventually changed his mind, presumably after he saw Batman Begins
and realized Nolan was going for a grittier, more realistic take on the character.
Fortunately, there were no hard feelings on Nolan's end, as he clearly was a great admirer
of Ledger's work.
The Dark Knight would go on to be one of the highest-grossing movies of the decade, being
the first film to earn over $500 million domestically since Titanic, largely due to Ledger's performance
as the Clown Prince of Crime.
Ledger tragically died before the film's release, but his work won him his first and only Oscar.
It seems like everybody was considered for the part of Wonder Woman at some time or another,
though it's doubtful many of the actresses considered were ever formally approached for
the role.
One actress who was approached, and turned it down, was Kate Beckinsale.
With her lead role as vampire death dealer Selene in the successful Underworld franchise,
Beckinsale would have been a perfect fit for the Amazonian warrior in the mid-2000s.
Alas, the most recent female superheroes on film during that time were Halle Berry in
Catwoman, Jennifer Garner in Elektra, and Charlize Theron in Aeon Flux.
Not the best track record, and it sounds like this proposed Wonder Woman vehicle wasn't
going to be much better.
Speaking in reference to 2017's Wonder Woman, Beckinsale later told Yahoo Movies:
"The incarnations that I was seeing were…They weren't this one."
But even if the script had been better, it sounds like Beckinsale would have been hung
up by the same thing which has always worried actors playing superheroes.
Beckinsale explained:
"I don't know if I was desperate to be in a leotard.
I'd already done the rubber trousers.
You have to take in that you have a child at some point and how much could you possibly
embarrass them?"
Charlize Theron wasn't up for the part of Wonder Woman in the 2017 film, but she did
turn down a major role as Wonder Woman's mother, Hippolyta.
In an interview with Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live!, Theron explained she ended
up in talks for a part in the movie while it was still in development, but it wasn't
the one she expected.
"And I was like, 'I'm just, I'm not familiar with it.
I don't really know, I mean, what does Wonder Woman do?'
And at this point my, this person said, 'No, it's for Wonder Woman's mom.'"
Theron, of course, is only ten years older than Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot.
Despite Wonder Woman being directed by Patty Jenkins, who directed Charlize Theron's Oscar-winning
turn in 2003's Monster, Theron declined the part, which went to Connie Nielsen, who is
about 19 years older than Gadot.
Director Zack Snyder apparently felt "slighted" when Kristen Stewart rejected the role of
Lois Lane in 2013's Man of Steel.
According to sources close to the director, he and his wife/producing partner Deborah
met with Stewart about playing the iconic reporter.
While Snyder was interested in Stewart, however, he apparently never formally offered her the
part.
But Stewart made clear that she was not interested, evidently surprising Snyder.
Stewart herself had been caught "off-guard" by the blockbuster success of the Twilight
films and the spotlight it put on her personal life, especially her relationship with co-star
Robert Pattinson.
Stewart was still working on the Twilight series at the time and wanted to focus on
smaller, more independent films, which Man of Steel most definitely was not.
Snyder wasn't upset for long, however, and soon hired A-lister Amy Adams for the role.
But Adams may have wished she'd turned down the part too.
Stewart's focus on smaller films gave her career a renewed vigor, while Snyder's DC
films started with poor feedback and continued on a downward slide.
Maybe Stewart ought to warn her ex before he puts on that cowl as the new Batman!
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Looper videos about your favorite movies are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.