http://www.notstarring.com/ A website that lists movies and roles and those that turned them down! Will Smith as Neo in The Matrix? Charleton Heston as Chief Brody in Jaws? Tupac Shakur as Bubba in Forrest Gump? Sean Connery as Gandalf in LOTR? Yup... roles that actors turned down! Very interesting site!
Huh. Bill Murray turned down the role of John Kimble in Kindergarten Cop and dropped out of the lead role in Bad Santa. Those would have been two completely different movies.
Tom Selick turned down Indiana Jones, and thus was born Harrison Ford. Eddie Murphy turned down Rush Hour to do Holy Man. Josh Lucas turned down Win a Date with Tad Hamilton, because of his artistic integrity. He then went on to star with Jamie Fox in Stealth.
And then chose to do The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen because like the LOTR and The Matrix, he didn't understand the script, and regretted not doing the other two films.
In Airplane! David Letterman, Barry Manilow, and Fred Willard were all up for the role of Ted Striker. Willard had the role and turned it down. Pete Rose was originally going to play Murdock. It was played by Kareem Abdul-Jabar.
Shoot before Indiana Jones, Burt Reynolds was the studio's pick for Han Solo. When he said no, Lucas brought in a carpenter named Harrison Ford that he had worked with on American Graffiti to read for the part. The rest is history.
I saw a show about his life and they said that he was offered the role. But before he all that he made a Pilot for a TV show called MAGNUM PI. It was his sixth or seventh pilot he shot and had no idea it would be a hit. The producers would not let him out of his contract from Magnum and Harrison gets Indiana Jones. Kind of like what happened with Pierce Brosnan not being able to get out of Remington Steele to play Bond when it was first offered to him.
Christopher Walken was apparently up for the role of Han Solo, but it went to Harrison Ford instead. Would've made for a totally different character
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OJ Simpson - Passed over for the role of the terminator because producers feared he wouldn't be taken seriously. Lot's of guys were looked at for Forrest Gump too, including Chevy Chase. How different would that movie have been.
I saw on Bravo earlier this week that De Niro was originally offered the lead in Big, but turned it down and Tom Hanks scooped it up. Nice to see this site back up that claim...
Conversly, could you imagine K. Reeves in Six Degrees of Seperation, or Enemy of the State? Didn't think so.
Why would Will Smith have played a bad Neo? It wasn't like Keanu Reeves was the action superstar prior to the Matrix movies.
