10 Actors Who SAVED Their Careers By Turning Down Movie Roles

hello all of you lovely people jules here for whatculture.com and you know what hollywood is an extremely fickle beast at the best of times we've seen time and time again that talent is only a small part of what allows an actor to become a hugely successful star things like good timing successful marketing and more than a little dash of luck are what catapulted most a-listers to reach those heights though in some cases it's also the result of smart judgment when faced with a questionable project these 10 actors they all turned down roles that on paper would have netted them huge paydays and further boosted their career profiles yet whatever their reasons for saying no their standing in hollywood was ultimately saved as a result so let's make the best decision of our lives and crack on with this list as i'm jewels this is whatculture.com and these are 10 actors who saved their careers by turning down movie roles number 10. russell crowe turned down cutthroat island in the mid 90s russell crowe was on the cusp of his big hollywood breakthrough largely due to the international attention he'd received for his acclaimed performance in the 1992 skinhead drama romper stomper and so as mgm was putting together their 1995 swashbuckling blockbuster cutthroat island crowe was offered the lead role of william shaw as was originally written for michael douglas crowe ultimately passed on the part which instead went to matthew modine who hoped it would be his breakthrough into lead actor roles sadly production on renny harlan's tentpole was a disaster from the jump with the budget quickly spiraling wildly out of control but the real issue came with its actual release where the film grossed a pathetic 10 million dollars worldwide against its 98 million dollar price tag cutthroat island's failure caused hollywood to leave pirate themed movies well alone until pirates of the caribbean in 2003 instead crowe went on to try and find other work and two years later landed la confidential and given that la confidential effectively put crowe on the a-list turning down cutthroat island was the smartest decision of his entire career 9. jack black turned down son of the mask jack black was certainly a well-known actor long before 2005 having had bit parts in countless 90s comedies and thrillers before becoming a comedy star in his own right throughout the early 2000s but that trajectory was nearly stopped dead in its tracks when black was offered the lead role in 2005's son of the mask the 100 million dollar sequel to jim carrey's legendary comic vehicle the mask despite the huge scale of the production and presumably fat resulting payday black turned down the role which instead went to jaime kennedy son of the mask was ultimately lambasted by critics and tanked at the box office while kennedy received two razzie nominations for worst actor and worst screen couple kennedy's career suffered a severe downturn as a result and he hasn't had a major star in comedy movie role since even appearing more recently in the straight to video on demand tremor's sequel black meanwhile went on to appear in peter jackson's king kong instead and in the years that follow became one of the most reliably bankable comedy actors in hollywood while also proving his dramatic chops in projects like bernie and the poker king while we can't assume that black would have definitely been razzie bound had he appeared in the film son of the mask's failure would have absolutely hobbled his career in a totally devastating way number eight natalie portman turned down dirty dancing havana knights now don't feel bad if you didn't even know that there was a second dirty dancing movie released in 2004 this prequel to the classic 1987 dance romance flick ditched patrick swayze and jennifer gray though swayze did actually appear in a minor cameo in this film for which he was paid a stonking 5 million dollars but instead they went with new leads diego luna and ramola garai and the project was about as cynical and forgettable as you could expect bizarrely natalie portman was initially offered the role of bookish lead katie but quite sensibly turned it down though ramola's career has relatively been solid since even netting two golden globe nods for a performance in emma and the hour the outcome for portman could have been much more dire portman's standing in hollywood was already extremely questionable at the time given the disappointment of the first two star wars prequels which portman later admitted may producers assume that she was a horrible actress portman turned down havana knights and instead chose to start in mike nicholas's drama closer which in addition to being a commercial success netted her a best supporting actress oscar nomination it isn't exaggerating to say that the avalanche of three disappointing star wars movies combined with a dirty dancing prequel that nobody asked for would and could have been the death knell for portman's career however closer helped nudge her towards a slew of more worthy dramatic roles in the years that followed especially viva vendetta and black swan number seven tim robbins turned down soul man the 1986 comedy soul man follows a young man who in order to qualify for a college scholarship for black students overdoses on tanning pills in order to change the color of his skin yup though the film's heart is most definitely in the right place by drawing attention to the suffering of black people in everyday life the decision to have white actor c thomas howell don blackface was widely criticized enough that it effectively derailed his promising leading man career confining him to supporting roles for most of the last 35 years yet the part nearly went to another actor entirely with tim robbins initially offered the lead which he ultimately had to turn down due to scheduling conflicts with his work on wait for it howard the duck needless to say robin's career would have likely been haunted by appearing in blackface just as howls is today and may well have prevented him from winning juicy lead roles in the likes of jacob's ladder the player the hudsucker proxy and the shawshank redemption in the decade that followed number six matthew mcconaughey turned down 14.5 million dollars to make another rom-com as much as matthew mcconaughey has accepted to be a terrific actor today even having a best actor oscar to his name it wasn't too long ago that he was stuck in a rut of low-effort high-paying rom-coms however the actor's career rejuvenation affectionately referred to as the mcconness happened after he made the difficult decision to turn down another payday that most jobbing performers could only ever dream of in his recent memoir mcconaughey turned down a whopping 14.5 million dollars in 2010 to star in another rom-com vehicle the name of which he didn't actually disclose almost immediately after this the actor began starring in more worthy dramas such as bernie killer joe mudd magic mike dallas buyer's club for which he scooped the oscar and of course the wolf of wall street before starring in christopher nolan's sci-fi tentpole interstellar though nobody could have blamed mcconaughey for accepting the payday artistic integrity won out and his career rebounded almost immediately number five drew barrymore turned down show girls paul verhoeven's showgirls is one of the most infamous films ever made an erotic drama blockbuster which tanked critically and commercially ultimately being skewered for its unexpectedly campy tone and worst of all a shambolic performance from elizabeth berkeley in the lead role berkeley who was fresh off her squeaky clean role and saved by the bell banked on the part of naomi malone kickstarting her movie career but alas she ended up with worst actress and worst new star razzies for her trouble and was then dropped by her agent and struggled to find a new one as much of hollywood wouldn't return her calls ouch the role was originally offered to a fleet of actresses before berkeley took it including an on the rise drew barrymore who ultimately turned it down due to being too uncomfortable with the amount of nudity required it was certainly a good call as barrymore's career skyrocketed almost immediately after with memorable roles in the likes of batman forever scream the wedding singer and never been kissed throughout the second half of the 90s berkeley's career conversely never recovered such that her first major project in over a decade is an upcoming saved by the bell reunion series number four charlie hunnam turned down fifty shades of grey before jamie dornan was cast in the fifty shades of grey franchise as tortured playboy christian grey the part was offered to charlie hunnam who actually initially accepted halum's casting was actually announced during the pre-production stages but barely a month later he departed the project due to scheduling conflicts with his hit tv series sons of anarchy hunnan for the part called quitting the project the worst professional experience of his life but in retrospect it was probably for the best as while the fifty shades series was a huge commercial success it also proved to be a major thorn in the side of hunnam's replacement jamie dornan who could scarcely hide how much he load the spotlight that the franchise had shot on him dornan's a talented actor but has struggled to escape the series as shadow in the years since it's wrapped up while the other actor has enjoyed a diverse career working with revered filmmakers such as gilmodo toro james gray guy ritchie jc chanda and justin kerzel number three kim basinger turned down boxing helena the saga of boxing helena the 1993 directorial debut of david lynch's daughter jennifer is practically mythical in hollywood given the lengthy legal dispute which took place between the film's producers and original star kim basinger basinger agreed to appear in the film that ultimately backed out after requested script revisions to make her titular protagonist more sympathetic were rejected this led to basinger being sued for pulling out with the judge ruling that she had to pay 8.1 million dollars in damages to the production basinger entered bankruptcy as a result though ultimately the amount was revised to 3.8 million dollars on appeal as terrible as all of this might sound it's still preferable to actually starring in the film as the career of basinger's replacement cheryl fenn ground to a halt almost immediately after boxing helena was released due to scathing reviews despite being a regular david lynch alum fenn's high profile offers quickly began to dry up and her career has since largely been comprised of intermittent tv work and supporting film roles often in indies conversely basinger's career rebounded from her bankruptcy a few years later being cast in 1997's la confidential for which she won a best supporting actress oscar though hardly an ideal situation for basinger overall in the end she made it clear that she wouldn't be cowed into a project that her heart wasn't in number two leonardo dicaprio turned down the star wars prequels before hayden christensen was cast as anakin skywalker in the latter two star wars prequels george lucas sought out none other than leonardo dicaprio for the part despite meeting with lucas dicaprio turned down the role and later said of his decision i don't think i was ready for anything like that i just didn't feel ready to take that dive at that point this was obviously an incredibly smart call given not only the highly divisive response to the entire prequel trilogy but also the fact that anakin actor christensen has failed to escape the long shadow cast by that part ever since despite being a fine actor i mean what shattered glass if you don't believe it christensen has appeared in barely a dozen projects in the 15 years since most of which have been poorly received genre films many even going straight to video on demand as for leo well he became a serious actor during the years that the latter two star wars prequels were released appearing in gangs of new york catch me if you can and the aviator to considerable acclaim even getting a best actor oscar nod for the latter since then it goes without saying that leo has gone from strength to strength as a performer yet had he signed on with george lucas who's to say how adversely his career would have been affected and number one matt damon turned down daredevil though it was well known that matt damon turned down the lead role in avatar that would have seen him net 10 of its 2.79 billion gross which is 279 million if you're not aware earlier in the decade he also passed on the role eventually accepted by his pal ben affleck in the form of daredevil damon said this of his decision to turn it down that's the comic we read when we were kids but when that one came along i chickened out because i couldn't tell i hadn't seen the director's work and i didn't know so i just said no ben was like i gotta do it as we know daredevil was a critical and commercial disappointment and the first in a string of high-profile dunts for affleck throughout the early 2000s also including the likes of paycheck jersey girl and surviving christmas as a result in 2010 he received a razzie nomination for worst actor of the decade damon meanwhile enjoyed tremendous success reinventing himself as an action hero in the bourne franchise while also starring in the oceans franchise working with acclaimed auteurs such as terry gillum and martin scorsese and even flexing his comedy chops in stuck on you and that unforgettable euro trip cameo affleck eventually bounced back of course but damon spared him quite the headache by letting his pal take the part instead and there we go my friends those were 10 actors who saved their careers by turning down movie roles i hope that you enjoyed that and please let me know what you thought about it down in the comments section below if you want to chat to me further you can do so over on twitter at retro j with a zero or you can swing by liv and let's dice is my personal gaming channel when i stream every single wednesday and sunday be great to see you over there but before i go my friends i just want to say one thing we detailed today a lot about actors who turned down options and that ended up being the right thing for them and in life we will sometimes be peer pressured coerced or feel like we are being forced to make a decision but you just need to remember something you are in control of your own life you are the only one that gets to make actions that affect you do not let anything or anyone else tell you otherwise live for yourself treat yourself with love and respect and make sure that you take your time making the right decisions big love from me to you now go out there and absolutely crush at your big ledge as always i've been jules you have been awesome never forget that and i'll speak to you soon bye

Channel: WhatCulture

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Length: 13min 50sec (830 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 29 2021