Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

How many of the roles in the original posts are names considered, rather than flat-out turned down by the actor?

Richard Greico for Speed? I doubt Grieco has passed much of anything down.

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

Glad he turned them down, as those roles went to superior actors. :thumbsup:

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

Sounds like whoever at Warner suggested Kutcher were a part of the remnants from the dark days of Batman & Robin...

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

What a great list of woulda coulda shouldas - thanks.

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

Harrison Ford is a perfectly fine actor, he just chooses terrible projects. Go rent The Mosquito Coast, it's his best performance.

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

No one's mentioned the most astounding case -- Tuesday Weld turned down the lead roles in Lolita, Bonnie and Clyde, Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, The Graduate, and Rosemary's Baby. Think about that -- she could've been the biggest star of her generation, but she chose instead to do modest thrillers like Pretty Poison.

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

I agree, Ford is a great actor... We just haven't seen it in a long time, unfortunately. His next role is a comedy with Diane Keaton, so hopefully that lights a creative fire under his ass. :shrug:

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

I can see Harrison Ford replacing Douglas in Traffic - not too big a stretch. He couldn't have come close to Freemon in Se7en and Nick Nolte was great in The Thin Red Line - Ford has no business even being considered IMO.

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

Although Pretty Poison is definitely worth seeking out - an unsettling, oddball dark comedy. She was also memorable in the truly bizarre Lord Love a Duck, a personal favorite.

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

I'm sorry but Harrison Ford is not a great actor.

He's been very good in a few roles, servicable in most...but not great.

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

exactly what I was going to say. His career over the past 10-15 years has sucked because he couldn't choose a good film if he had a time machine. Other than that he CAN act.

I think his performance in Mosquito Coast is one of the best of the 80's

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

^Ford ain't too shabby in Witness either.

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

You beat me to it. I was just coming here to defend Ford's work in "Witness". But other than "Frantic" and maybe "The Fugitive", those were his award worthy performances.

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

...and Star Wars, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Blade Runner, and Working Girl, and Air Force One, and...

If there was a kid in the '80s who didn't want to be Han Solo, a kid in the '90s who didn't want to be Indiana Jones, or a woman '80s who wasn't in love with his character in Working Girl, I haven't met them. Much of his recent work borders on caricature, but it's hard to deny some very smart choices and solid turns from him in the past.

(Not that the roles I mentioned above are award-worthy, of course, but I'd say he fit them perfectly, and agree with the praise of the other films.)

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

I never wanted to be Han Solo...Indiana Jones on the other hand *makes whip cracking sound*....love Indy!

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

39. Steve McQueen turned down the role of Sundance in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The part went to Robert Redford.

INCORRECT.

Mcqueen was going to be Butch Cassidy and Paul Newman was going to be The Sundance Kid. Steve Mcqueen turned down the role of Butch Cassidy. SO Paul Newman assumed that role and Redford got Sundance.



Sylvester Stallone also turned down Morgan Freeman's role in Seven.

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

There is a god!!

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

Really? I always thought this was the inspiration for all your whipcracking exploits:

<object width="640" height="505"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Yto-qHX7LHA&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1?hd=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Yto-qHX7LHA&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1?hd=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="505"></embed></object>

;)

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

I recognize that this list is handpicked, but it is amazing to me to see so many actors who apparently weren't the first choice for their roles, turn out to make career defining performances out of those opportunities

Hanks in Forrest Gump
Robbins in Shawshank
Hoffman in the Graduate
Costner in Field of Dreams
Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop
Nolte in 48 hrs
Foster in Silence of the Lambs

This are just a few of the examples but for me when you say the actor, these are the roles spring to mind for me. I couldn't imagine anyone else playing these roles, and they almost didn't' get the part...

BCD

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

And prior to Scott, the role was offered to Thomas Jane who turned it down because he didn't see himself as a comic book super hero.

I believe Thomas Jane also rejected the role of Frank Castle three times before finally signing on to The Punisher.

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

I thought I read once that Ralph Macchio turned down the role of Marty McFly because he didn't want to be in a movie about a boy and his car.

Good thing, too. Michael J. Fox IS Marty McFly. That's one movie I hope never gets remade.

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

That and $$ offered.

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

Not a big fan of Harrison Ford, are you?

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

the same people calling Harrison Ford a bad actor probably would have said the same thing about James Cagney a couple generations ago. The definition that I perceive them to be using as a gauge for "good acting" is probably a pretty narrow one. Harrison Ford is a helluva actor in my opinion. But maybe you guys would be more willing to agree if I labeled him as a "performer".

Re: Actors who turned down great roles...
 

It's not *Hedy*, it's *Hedley*. Hedley Lamarr.