Buzzfeed put together a list of actors who turned down major roles for various reasons.
Here are the highlights:
1. Liam Neeson…Turned down the role of James Bond because his wife said she wouldn’t marry him if he took it.
2. Drew Barrymore…Turned down the role of Sidney Prescott in “Scream” because she was sick of the “final girl” horror movie cliché.
3. Claire Danes…Turned down the role of Rose in “Titanic” because she “didn’t have it in her” to do another romance with Leonardo DiCaprio after “Romeo + Juliet”.
4. Will Smith…Turned down Django in “Django Unchained” because he couldn’t see eye-to-eye with Quentin Tarantino’s creative direction. He also turned down Neo in “The Matrix” because he didn’t want to be known as the “Alien Movie Guy.” He did “Wild Wild West” instead because he thought it’d be a bigger hit.
5. Sandra Bullock…She also turned down the role of Neo in “The Matrix”. The team was going to change the role to a female for her…but she wasn’t interested.
6. Zendaya…Turned down playing Aaliyah in her Lifetime channel biopic because she said the production value wasn’t there.
7. Lily Allen…Turned down the role of Yara in “Game of Thrones” because she would have to do sex scenes with the character Theon, who was played by her real-life brother Alfie Allen.
8. Zac Efron…Turned down the role of Ren in “Footloose” because he wanted to do something new since he just did “High School Musical”.
9. Laurence Fishburne…Turned down the role of Jules in “Pulp Fiction” because he felt the movie made heroin use look attractive.
10. Henry Golding…He initially turned down the role of Nick in “Crazy Rich Asians” because he hadn’t acted before. But after some convincing, he auditioned.
