10 Times Actors Declined or Got Rejected for Shady or Petty Reasons
No actor gets every part he or she goes out for. But sometimes the reason someone doesn’t end up in a particular role can be kind of shady or petty. Here are 10 examples:
1. Michelle Pfeiffer was up for the role of Vicki Vale in 1989’s “Batman”. But Michael Keaton was her ex-boyfriend, and he didn’t want her in the part, because he was trying to get back with his ex-wife at the time. But she did end up playing Catwoman in the sequel, “Batman Returns”.
2. Robin Williams was offered the part of the Joker in “Batman”, but when he got back to them, they said they’d already given it to Jack Nicholson. Apparently, Robin was just the bait to get Jack to “get off the pot” and commit.
3. Beyoncé wanted to be the voice of Princess Tiana in “The Princess and the Frog”, but she refused to audition. She thought they should just give it to her. They gave it to Anika Noni Rose instead.
4. Beyoncé also turned down the part of Plumette the feather duster in the 2017 “Beauty and the Beast” remake, because she thought it was too small.
5. Richard Gere was supposed to be in the 1974 movie “The Lords of Flatbush”. But during a lunchbreak, he spilled mustard and chicken grease on Sylvester Stallone, and they got into a physical fight.
Stallone once said, quote, “The director had to make a choice: one of us had to go, one of us had to stay. Richard was given his walking papers and to this day seriously dislikes me.”
6. When Meryl Streep auditioned for the 1976 “King Kong” remake, the producer . . . who was Italian . . . told someone else she was too ugly for the part. He said it in Italian, thinking Meryl wouldn’t understand . . . but she DID.
She kind of told him off . . . and Jessica Lange ended up with the part.
7. Russell Crowe declined to play Wolverine in the “X-Men” franchise, because he didn’t want to be overly associated with wolves, since his character in “Gladiator” was.
Apparently, he didn’t realize that a “wolverine” isn’t a wolf, it’s more closely related to weasels, badgers, otters, and ferrets.
8. Olivia Wilde was up for Margot Robbie’s part in “The Wolf of Wall Street”. She was initially told she was “too sophisticated” for it . . . but she later found out they thought she was too OLD.
9. Will Smith could have been Neo in “The Matrix”, but he decided to do “Wild Wild West” instead . . . and it flopped. His reasoning at the time was that he thought “Wild Wild West” would be a bigger hit.
10. Michael Jackson could have been Jar Jar Binks in the “Star Wars” prequels, but George Lucas was dead-set on doing it with CGI. Michael wanted to do it in prosthetics and makeup.