11 Artists who turned down a successful role and ended up missing out on world fame

John Travolta turned down the role of Forrest Gump, and Jack Nicholson felt he shouldn’t play an immigrant from Sicily without being one himself, handing the famous Michael Corleone character to Al Pacino. And even having done that, these actors still got many other jobs that brought them success and recognition. However, this is not always the case: sometimes the refusal of a role can delay or even hinder the dream of launching a brilliant career in Hollywood.

We, from awesome.club, we decided to find out which iconic characters have been turned down by actors and how it ended up affecting their professional career. Check out!

Today it’s hard to imagine anyone else behind the protagonist of the Twilight saga other than Kristen Stewart. However, who was originally quoted for the role was actress Emily Browning. So yes, Bella Swan could have looked totally different if Emily hadn’t turned down the job. Later, the actress said that she does not regret her decision, as the actors who played in the film expected phenomenal success and great popularity, and she was not ready at the time for such a change in her life.

The fact is that Emily Browning did not get much popularity and prominent roles even in the years that followed, since her filmography is full of performances in films and series that did not gain much public attention.

Josh Hartnett turned down the roles of Superman and Batman. The actor, however, guarantees that this was the right decision for him and, perhaps, the only right one. Josh didn’t want his image to be hostage to stereotypical characters, so he considered it better not to accept the offers.

And although, in 2006, he was given the lead role in the feature Xeque-Mate, in the ten years that followed, the actor only received secondary work in low-budget productions. In 2017, Josh could be seen in The Power and the Impossible, but the film received mostly negative reviews from critics. On the Rotten Tomatoes website, the production has a 22% approval rating.

The creators of the Breaking Bad series hoped that Matthew Broderick would not ignore the project and accept the offer to play the protagonist. However, Matthew refused and the producers had to look for another actor to replace him. And the role ended up going to Bryan Cranston, who, by the way, didn’t let the opportunity pass and gave it his all.

After that, Matthew Broderick starred in several films, but, unfortunately, they did not bring him much success. Currently, the actor can be heard more than seen on the big screen: he is actively involved in dubbing animated films. For example, the voice of the charismatic lion Simba is done by him.

Laurence Fishburne remained associated with the Matrix trilogy character of Morpheus for many years after the last film in the franchise, despite having had every chance to avoid this situation. When Quentin Tarantino was developing Pulp Fiction: Time of Violence, he asked Laurence to play Jules Winnfield, however the actor turned down the offer.

The character then went to Samuel L. Jackson, who ended up winning a BAFTA Award in the Best Supporting Actor category for his work.

When actress Shannen Doherty left the project at the end of the third season of Young Witches, uncertainty arose regarding the fate of the character of Prue Halliwell. It was then that Jennifer Love Hewitt received an invitation to take on the role. The actress, however, refused to participate in the series. As well as Tiffani Thiessen, who also received a proposal from the director. In the end, it was decided that Prue Halliwell would be removed from the series.

In recent years, Jennifer Love Hewitt has acted more in sitcoms than in feature films. Among her works, we have, for example, performances in Criminal Minds and In the Heat of Cleveland. Currently, we can see the actress starring in the series 9-1-1.

Rapper Ja Rule made a cameo as Edwin in the first Fast and Furious film. And for the recording of the second feature, + Fast + Furious, director John Singleton increased the character’s screen time and tried again to include the rapper in the cast, but Ja Rule refused. In fact, the singer did not respond to the production’s attempts to contact him and was uninterested in continuing the project. In the end, he gave up nearly half a million dollars in fees, but certainly not his acting ambitions.

The rapper tried to work with other directors, but he was not very successful in launching his career in Hollywood. For example, the feature films in which he participated, such as On Death Row and Love Never Dies received, respectively, scores of 4.6 and 4.9 in the IMDb ranking. While Ludacris, who took on the role of Tej Parker to replace Ja Rule’s Edwin after he left production, ended up so involved in the project that he appears in almost every film in the franchise, including the most recent — Fast & Furious 9 .

The fearless Aragorn of The Lord of the Rings trilogy could have been played by Nicolas Cage. However, for personal reasons, the actor turned down the offer: he didn’t want to be away from home for a long period. And so the Heir of Isildur turned out to be played by Viggo Mortensen, who thanks to this role achieved worldwide fame.

Nowadays, Nicolas Cage can often be seen acting in dramas and light comedies, and on a professional level he has certainly changed from quality to quantity: in one year, the actor can shoot many films. And yet, his roles often receive negative comments from netizens and longtime fans.

Before Julia Roberts was confirmed for the role of Vivian Ward in the hit Pretty Woman, many actresses had turned down the offer to participate in the feature, including Molly Ringwald, Meg Ryan, Michelle Pfeiffer and Valeria Golino. However, Molly Ringwald later acknowledged in an interview that she regretted her decision.

Which is not surprising, after all, in the 1990s, the actress lost much of her popularity, starting to appear mostly in films and series with little success, while Julia Roberts, after giving life to Vivian, came to be recognized as a star. from Hollywood.

Uma Thurman and John Travolta’s legendary dance in the feature Pulp Fiction could have been different, as the character Vincent Vega could have been played by Michael Madsen. The actor, however, turned down the offer, claiming he was already busy with another project: at that time, he was recording the western biographical film Wyatt Earp. This production, however, ended up not being as successful as Quentin Tarantino’s police drama, and received five nominations for the Golden Raspberry Award, winning in two categories. On the other hand, it is fair to mention that the film was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Cinematography category.

Michael remembers his refusal of the offer with humor and says that hardly anyone would want to see him play Vincent instead of John Travolta. The actor, by the way, has been acting in low-budget films for a long time, and in recent years he even began to appear in projects of Russian cinema. Furthermore, Michael decided to expand his professional horizons and released several poetry collections.

Oliver Hudson had every chance of winning the character of Jack Pearson on This Is Us, but the actor opted to go on a ten-day fishing trip instead of dedicating himself to filming the series. Thus, the protagonist was played by Milo Ventimiglia, who ended up receiving some Emmy Award nominations for his performance.

Oliver’s best known work is still the sitcom The Rules of Love, in which he appears for seven seasons.

Her performance as Rose brought 22-year-old Kate Winslet to worldwide fame and an Academy Award nomination. The actress instantly became a Hollywood star. However, initially, Claire Danes was invited to this role, but she turned it down, mainly because she felt a certain monotony between this character and the love story she had just played with Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie Romeo + Juliet. Moreover, the actress did not want to play opposite DiCaprio again in such a short period of time.

In recent years, Claire’s most successful work was on the series Homeland — National Security, which remained on the air for almost ten years, until April 2020. On the other hand, her performances in feature films almost did not bring her awards and rave reviews from critics. In addition to not having attracted much sympathy from the public, like the feature films As Cool as I am and A Child Like Jake.

Can you imagine other actors bringing your favorite characters to life on the big screen? Who? Tell us in the comments section.