From Madonna and Emily Blunt to Hugh Jackman and Nicolas Cage, these stars passed on movies that turned into huge franchises.

12 actors who passed on some of Hollywood’s most iconic roles

From Madonna and Emily Blunt to Hugh Jackman and Nicolas Cage, these stars passed on movies that turned into huge franchises.

June 26, 2026 3:58 p.m. ET

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Madonna; Nicolas Cage; Emily Blunt. Credit:

The stars of some of our favorite movies often weren't the first choice for the role. We've heard plenty of stories over the years about celebrities who came *this close* to playing a part in a blockbuster that turned into a massive franchise, whether because they lost the role to another actor or simply passed on the opportunity. So many celebs famously auditioned for the original *Star Wars* that it became a beloved recurring *Saturday Night Live* sketch.

It's interesting to consider what *The Matrix* might have looked like if Will Smith had signed on to play Neo, but did you know that Madonna *also* could've starred in the sci-fi epic? The Queen of Pop is just one of the names on our list of actors who surprisingly turned down roles in movies that became huge franchises. Even more surprising, not all of them regret their decision.

Read on to learn all about 12 actors who turned down major franchises.

Emily Blunt, Iron Man 2 (2010)

Emily Blunt at the 'Disclosure Day' premiere in New York City on June 8, 2026.

Taylor Hill/WireImage

There is an alternate reality in which Emily Blunt plays Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe instead of Scarlett Johansson, who reportedly wasn't the first choice to debut the heroic spy in *Iron Man 2*. *Deadline* reported at the time that Blunt had to pass on the role for multiple reasons, including low pay and a contractual agreement that forced her to appear opposite Jack Black in *Gulliver's Travels* that same year.

Blunt later admitted that she "didn't want to do" *Gulliver's Travels*, telling Howard Stern in 2021 that passing on Black Widow "was a bit of a heartbreaker for me," adding, "I take such pride in the decisions that I make, and they mean so much to me, the films that I do."

Nicolas Cage, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

Nicolas Cage receives the Innovation Award at IndieWire TV Honors 2026 held at Nya Studios West on June 4, 2026, in Los Angeles.

Gilbert Flores/Getty

"I don't really have any regrets. I think regret is a waste of time," Nicolas Cage told *Newsweek* in 2015. The actor did admit that there are some movies he "probably would have benefited from" appearing in, including *The Lord of the Rings*.

Cage said that he was offered the role of Aragorn, the Ranger of the North played by Viggo Mortensen in Peter Jackson's acclaimed trilogy. As he explained, "There were different things going on in my life at the time that precluded me from being able to travel and be away from home for three years."

But it worked out fine for Cage, who added, "I get to enjoy the movies as an audience member, because I don't watch my own movies."

Sean Connery, The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Sean Connery attends the 2013 U.S. Open on Sept. 9, 2013, in New York City.

Uri Schanker/WireImage

"Everybody wanted to play that part, gosh, from Dustin Hoffman to Morgan Freeman," *The Silence of the Lambs* director Jonathan Demme told *Deadline** *in 2017. He was referring, of course, to the film's iconic antagonist, Hannibal Lecter, a role that earned Anthony Hopkins an Academy Award. "Sean Connery was the only other person I thought could be amazing for this. Connery has that fierce intelligence and also that serious physicality. I love Tony Hopkins, but Sean Connery could be amazing."

Connery passed on the role, Demme explained, because "he thought it was disgusting and wouldn’t dream of playing that part."

Michelle Pfeiffer had a similar reason for turning down the role of Clarice Starling, which ultimately went to Jodie Foster. In 2021, Pfeiffer said she was "trepidatious" about *The Silence of the Lambs* because she felt "there was such evil in that film."

Hopkins went on to reprise Lecter in two more films: 2001's *Hannibal* (starring Julianne Moore as Starling) and 2002's *Red Dragon*.

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Billy Crystal, Toy Story (1995)

Billy Crystal at the CHANEL Tribeca Festival Artist's Dinner in New York City on June 8, 2026.

Kristina Bumphrey/Getty

2001's *Monsters, Inc.* wasn't the first opportunity Billy Crystal had to lend his voice to a Pixar film. As the comedian and actor told Graham Norton in 2024, he actually passed on *Toy Story* when the studio approached him to voice Buzz Lightyear, the astronaut toy played by Tim Allen.

"I'm the dope who turned down *Toy Story*," Crystal admitted, explaining that "it wasn't about the character or anything like that, it was a business thing that all the agents and managers said, 'I don't think you should do it.'"

Two years later, when he got a call from Pixar about *Monsters, Inc*., Crystal said he told them, "Whatever it is, yes."

Jodie Foster, Star Wars (1977)

Jodie Foster at the Marrakech International Film Festival on Nov. 30, 2025.

Stephane Cardinale/Getty

In the nearly five decades since *Star Wars* first hit theaters, dozens of actors have shared stories about auditioning for the iconic space opera, including Al Pacino and, more recently, Glen Powell. But one actor managed to keep their *Star Wars* story quiet until 2024.

During a 2024 appearance on *The Tonight Show*, Jodie Foster confirmed what had then been long rumored: that she was up for the role of Princess Leia. "They were going for a younger Princess Leia but I had a conflict," the actress explained to host Jimmy Fallon. "I was doing a Disney movie and I just didn’t want to pull out because I was already under contract."

"I don’t know how good I would have been. I might have had different hair, you know. I might have gone with a pineapple," Foster added, referring to Carrie Fisher's famous space buns. Of course, Fisher ultimately landed what would become the most iconic role of her career, and one that she reprised in 2015's *The Force Awakens* and 2017's *The Last Jedi* — the latter of which was released a year after her death.

Hugh Jackman, Casino Royale (2006)

Hugh Jackman in New York City on June 10, 2026.

Raymond Hall/GC Images

In 2005, before Daniel Craig was officially chosen to replace Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, Hugh Jackman was among the actors considered for the role. As Jackman later explained, "I got a call from my agent saying, 'There is some possible interest in you for Bond, are you interested?'" Unfortunately, the actor was a little preoccupied with another franchise.

"At the time I wasn’t [interested]," Jackman said. "I was about to shoot *X-Men 2*, and Wolverine had become this thing in my life and I didn’t want to be doing two such iconic characters at once." Still, he didn't want to rule out the possibility, adding, "I think every male at some point thinks about playing James Bond, so it was not right then, *but it may be right if it comes back*."

007 never circled back, but as we all know, Jackman returned to the *X-Men* franchise multiple times. He's now played Wolverine in 11 films.

Madonna, The Matrix (1999)

Madonna at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 1, 2017, in New York City.

Taylor Hill/FilmMagic

Madonna was apparently offered a role in *The Matrix*, Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski's ambitious sci-fi film that launched a blockbuster trilogy (or quadrilogy, if you include *The Matrix Resurrections*). During an appearance on *The Tonight Show* in 2021, the pop star told Jimmy Fallon that she had turned down the part.

"Can you believe that?" Madonna said. "That's like one of the best movies ever made. A teeny-tiny part of me regrets just that one moment in my life."

During the same interview, Madonna also revealed that she passed on playing Catwoman in Batman Returns (1992) and starring in Showgirls (1995).

Viggo Mortensen, X-Men (2000)

Viggo Mortensen at 'The Dead Don't Hurt' premiere in Rome on Oct. 18, 2024.

Daniele Venturelli/WireImage

Before he accepted the role of Aragorn in *The Lord of the Rings* trilogy, Viggo Mortensen turned down another iconic franchise role: Wolverine in *X-Men*.

"The thing that bothered me at the time was just the commitment of endless movies of that same character over and over," Mortensen explained in 2021. "I was nervous about that." The actor also decided to heed advice from his son, Henry. "And also there were some things — I mean, they straightened most of them out, but I did take Henry to the meeting I had with the director as my sort of good luck charm and guide," he continued. "In the back of my mind, I was thinking he could learn something, too, because I did let Henry read the script and he goes, 'This is wrong. That's not how it is.'"

Mortensen's son also had no qualms about sharing his opinion with *X-Men* director Bryan Singer, who asked Henry if he was familiar with the character. According to Mortensen, the youngster replied, "Yeah, but he doesn't look like this."

"All of a sudden, the director is falling all over himself and then the rest of the meeting was him explaining in detail to Henry why he was taking certain liberties," Mortensen recalled. "We walked out of there, and Henry asks if he will change the things he told him about, and I say, 'I don't think so. I'm not going to do it anyway, because I'm not sure I want to be doing this for years.'"

Jack Nicholson, The Godfather (1972)

Jack Nicholson in East Hampton, N.Y., on Aug. 16, 2014.

Kevin Mazur/WireImage

It's more or less impossible to imagine anyone but Al Pacino playing Michael Corleone in *The Godfather*, but it came very close to happening. As Pacino recalled in his 2024 memoir, *Sonny Boy*, he was "a week and a half" into shooting the first film in Francis Ford Coppola's trilogy when the director told him, "You're not cutting it."

"Paramount didn't want me to play Michael Corleone," Pacino wrote, writing that the studio was eager to replace him. "They wanted Jack Nicholson. They wanted Robert Redford. They wanted Warren Beatty or Ryan O'Neal."

Nicholson, however, had already turned down the role. When asked in a 2004 interview if there were any movies he'd passed on because he felt he wasn't "right" for the part, the actor cited *The Godfather*. "Back then I believed that Indians should play Indians and Italians should play Italians," Nicholson said. "There were a lot of actors who could have played Michael, myself included, but Al Pacino was Michael Corleone. I can't think of a better compliment to pay him."

Tom Selleck, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Tom Selleck at PaleyFest NY 2017 in New York City.

Noam Galai/Getty

Indiana Jones is one of the coolest movie protagonists of all time, but might he have looked a teensy bit cooler with... a mustache? Tom Selleck was Steven Spielberg's first choice for the role, though the director did say that he would've made the *Magnum P.I.* star shave his iconic 'stache.

According to Spielberg, he and collaborator George Lucas "discovered and decided that Tom Selleck should play Indiana Jones" after interviewing and testing "a lot of people" for the part. "He came in, he read for the part, his test was good. I loved it," Spielberg said of the actor.

"I was offered the role and wanted it, but I had done a pilot of *Magnum*," Selleck previously told *TODAY*. "[Spielberg and Lucas] said, 'We’ll work it out and you can do both.' And the more they wanted me, the more CBS said, 'No, we don’t want to let him do it.'" The actor has said he doesn't regret choosing the TV series, calling it "the best thing that ever happened to me."

Amanda Seyfried, Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Amanda Seyfried at the 76th Berlinale International Film Festival on Feb. 19, 2026, in Berlin.

Dominique Charriau/WireImage

Amanda Seyfried is another actress who walked away from an opportunity to join the MCU. Seyfried said she was offered the part of Gamora in James Gunn's *Guardians of the Galaxy*, the green-skinned alien played by Zoe Saldaña across multiple Marvel films.

Reflecting on the offer during a 2025 appearance on the *Happy Sad Confused* podcast, Seyfried said she "milled over it for a couple of days" but ultimately decided it wasn't for her. "I didn’t want to live in London for six months out of the year, for whatever reason," she explained. "I thought that because this was about a talking tree and a talking raccoon that it was going to be Marvel’s first bomb, and that Chris Pratt and I would never work again." She added, "Well, I was wrong."

"I was at a precarious moment in my career and I didn’t want to suffer for the work," Seyfried continued, referring to the extensive time required in the makeup chair. "I just didn’t want to do it because I had done some green screen stuff and it wasn’t in my cup of tea."

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Amandla Stenberg, Black Panther (2018)

Amandla Stenberg at the Whitby Hotel on June 3, 2024, in New York City.

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Letitia Wright became an instant fan favorite as Shuri, the tech-savvy sister of Chadwick Boseman's eponymous hero in *Black Panther*, paving the way for her to reprise the role in subsequent MCU films. But the part nearly went to another actor: Amandla Stenberg.

"One of the most challenging things for me to do was to walk away from *Black Panther*," Stenberg revealed shortly after the film's release. The actor, who was 19 at the time, explained that they had "no regrets" about passing on the opportunity. "These are all dark skin actors playing Africans and I feel like it would have just been off to see me as a biracial American with a Nigerian accent just pretending that I’m the same color as everyone else in the movie."

"I recognize 100 percent that there are spaces that I should not take up," Stenberg continued, "and when I do take up a space it’s because I’ve thought really, really critically about it and I’ve consulted people I really trust and it feels right."

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