Actors Who Turned Down Major Roles

(Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)

 

 

Liam Neeson – Turned down the role of James Bond because his wife said she wouldn’t marry him if he took it.

 

 

Drew Barrymore – Turned down the role of Sidney Prescott in “Scream” because she was sick of the “final girl” horror movie cliché.

 

 

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.”

 

 

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.

 

 

Zendaya – Turned down playing Aaliyah in her Lifetime channel biopic because she said the production value wasn’t there.

 

 

Zac Efron – Turned down the role of Ren in “Footloose” because he wanted to do something new since he just did “High School Musical”.

 

 

Henry Golding – He initially turned down the role of Nick in “Crazy Rich Asians”

 

 

List courtesy of Buzzfeed. Check out the full list here!

 

 

@cole_dunbar