Actors Who Were Refused Roles For Being Too Famous
In Hollywood, getting a foot in the door can often be the hardest part of being an actor. Famous names like Patrick Stewart, Margo Martindale, and Morgan Freeman didn't achieve fame until later in life, and others struggle to work for decades until they finally get noticed. But becoming a big star and a famous name can have its drawbacks, too, whether it's the attendant inability to lead a quiet life, or sky-high expectations that make every new project stressful. Still, few actors would probably ever expect that being famous and beloved would hurt them when trying out for a role.
Unfortunately, that has been a problem for a number of actors, who've tried out for a part in a talked-about production, a hit TV series, or a film from an acclaimed director they really want to work with. To their likely surprise, their recognizable faces and instant star power weren't the asset they hoped for — in fact, they were a problem. It could be that the director wanted a lesser-known name to avoid the "star" factor for that particular role. But in some cases, they just might not have had the budget for a big name.
Whatever the reason, some of Hollywood's most in-demand stars have actually been turned down for roles — and not because they were wrong for the part, but because they were too famous. Is your favorite actor on this list? Read on to find out.
Jude Law in Control
One of the hottest British actors of the early 2000s, thanks to films like "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and "Enemy at the Gates," Jude Law nevertheless missed out on a number of plum roles, including that of Patrick Stewart's clone in "Star Trek: Nemesis," which went to newcomer Tom Hardy. But half a decade later, Law was under serious consideration for a rock n' roll biopic, the 2007 film "Control." That film chronicles the life of Ian Curtis, the lead singer of new wave rock band Joy Division, though few knew at the time that Law almost played the role.
Word of this came out in a 2011 Guardian interview with the film's eventual star, Sam Riley. According to the outlet, Riley heard Law was being eyed for the part, but the director had reservations about the "Alfie" star's big name and recognizable face. As Curtis told the paper, director Anton Corbijn was intent on casting a relative unknown, and Riley believes that this is the only reason he even had a shot at the part to begin with.
A box office bomb, "Control" still met with strong reviews. Though Riley was given high marks for his performance, it's fair to wonder if it would have been a bigger hit with a superstar like Law playing Curtis.
Oprah Winfrey in Doubt
More movie-goers probably recognize Oprah Winfrey from her long-running daytime talk show than her acting career. But movie buffs certainly remember her for roles in the 1985 classic "The Color Purple" (for which she was nominated for an Academy Award), and the more recent "Selma" and "A Wrinkle in Time." Owner of a veritable media empire, she chooses her acting projects carefully, which is why it's all the more surprising to learn that she was turned down for a major role in the 2008 John Patrick Shanley drama "Doubt."
Based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play, "Doubt" starred Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams, with Winfrey up for a key supporting role. Speaking to paparazzi in 2018, she said, "I wanted to be in 'Doubt' ... the director told me 'no,' because [the screen time] wasn't long enough to lose the Oprah factor." By that, Shanley probably meant that audiences would be so star-struck by Winfrey's presence that the part would have needed to be bigger to allow audiences the time to let go of her recognizability. Ultimately the role went to Viola Davis, who became a star herself years later, but was still relatively unknown at the time.
Jim Caviezel in Superman Returns
In the mid-2000s, comic book movies were facing a new boom and director Bryan Singer had jumped ship from the "X-Men" films to direct a new "Superman" project. Ahead of production, the title role become one of the hottest parts in Hollywood. One actor who wanted to put on the cape was Jim Caviezel. Years before Caviezel became a controversial star nobody wanted to cast, he was a superstar off the back of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." It was a huge box office smash, turning him into an A-lister overnight.
"I like to play iconic characters, and I see the role of Superman as a big responsibility," Caviezel told IESB (via Today). "Playing Superman would be a great challenge." Looking for his new Man of Steel, Singer wasn't sold on Caviezel — but not because he wasn't good enough to play the role. It was because he was just too big of a name. "James Caviezel [is] a wonderful actor," he said, in an interview with Ain't it Cool News. "But, no, I'm committed to casting an unknown."
Instead of Caviezel, Singer did indeed turn to an unknown, putting Brandon Routh behind the "S." Considering the film failed to deliver, Caviezel may have actually dodged a kryptonite bullet by missing out.
Anne Hathaway in Sweeney Todd
Anne Hathaway quickly became an in-demand movie star after breakout performances in "The Princess Diaries," "Brokeback Mountain," and "The Devil Wears Prada." Though it was still several years before she starred in Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight Rises" and gave her Oscar-winning performance in "Les Miserables" — in which she famously sang her own musical numbers — she suddenly found herself fighting her own image when pushing for a part in another musical.
Up for the role of Johanna in Tim Burton's "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," Hathaway was probably surprised to learn that the director wasn't interested because she was too famous. According to published reports at the time, Burton was looking for a complete unknown for the part, possibly to balance out an already star-studded cast led by Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Alan Rickman. Jayne Wisener would eventually land the part, but don't weep too hard for Hathaway: Burton would pay her back with a starring role as the White Queen in 2010's live-action "Alice in Wonderland."
Harry Styles in Baz Luhrmann's Elvis
Musician, singer, and songwriter Harry Styles started out as a member of British boy band One Direction, but it wasn't long until he was flexing his acting chops. His first theatrical role came in Christopher Nolan's "Dunkirk." Then he snagged a part in the MCU in the 2021 cosmic adventure "The Eternals." But around that same time, there was a role he desperately wanted above all else: the King of Rock N' Roll himself, Elvis Presley.
Co-written and directed by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Baz Luhrmann, the eponymous biopic "Elvis" needed a man who could play the legendary musical icon, and Styles went hard after the role. According to Variety, the singer-actor was a serious contender, but they decided against a well-known face. "Harry is a really talented actor," Luhrmann said while speaking with the podcast Fitzy & Wippa. "I would work on something with him [but] the real issue with Harry is, he's Harry Styles. He's already an icon. Harry and I came to a place, genuinely I mean, he was just desperate to put the suit on and explore. He's such a great spirit and I have nothing but great things to say about Harry Styles."
Robert Redford in The Godfather
In his heyday of the 1960s and 1970s, there was no bigger actor in Hollywood than Robert Redford. Alongside fellow legend Paul Newman, he starred in the all-time great Western "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." A few years later, Redford was almost cast in what would become the undisputed greatest gangster film ever made: Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather." With a roster of stars that already included Marlon Brando, James Caan, and Robert Duvall, Redford was up for the part of the young Michael Corleone.
A risky movie project — gangster movies weren't popular at the time — the studio sought even more big names and wanted Redford (or Ryan O'Neal) to play the part of the young, upstart Corleone son. But Coppola felt strongly about a young actor named Al Pacino. Feeling that a lesser-known actor would allow audiences to view Michael as a clean slate, he didn't back down, and the studio eventually relented. Losing out on "The Godfather" didn't actually hurt Redford, though. He re-teamed up with Paul Newman for the classic caper "The Sting" a year later, while Pacino became a superstar himself.
Dustin Hoffman in The Elephant Man
Dustin Hoffman came to fame in the 1967 drama "The Graduate" before hitting it even bigger in the 1970s with the likes of "Midnight Cowboy," "All the President's Men," and "Marathon Man," making him the go-to for political thrillers. Though some of his biggest movies were in the 1980s, he did miss out on a classic from auteur director David Lynch at the start of the decade, which got its star an Academy Award nomination.
Based on the remarkable true story of John Merrick, "The Elephant Man" wound up starring John Hurt as the Victorian Londoner. According to a retrospective published in iNews, Hoffman was eager to audition, and got in touch with the film's producer, Mel Brooks, according to fellow producer Jonathan Singer. But Singer outright rejected Hoffman as a candidate for the role due to his famous name.
With the actor playing Merrick required to be covered in extensive prosthetic makeup, Singer felt that Hoffman's fame would draw the audience's attention away from the story being told. "We're always going to be looking to see where the Elephant Man ends and Dustin Hoffman begins," he remarked.
Tom Jones as James Bond
A half dozen actors have played James Bond since Sean Connery originated the role in "Dr. No." It's always thought to have been a requirement that any actor playing the super-spy has to be from the United Kingdom, what with the likes of Clint Eastwood and Adam West being passed over for the role of Bond. But if one is to believe legendary crooner Tom Jones — who famously appeared in the 1996 Tim Burton sci-fi farce "Mars Attacks" — the only thing that stopped him from playing Bond was being too famous.
Speaking to the Radio Times in 2012 (via The Guardian), Jones reminisced about his career, and lamented opportunities missed. This includes the chance to do more acting in his younger days. "The only thing I regret is that I'd like to have had a pop at acting when I was younger," Jones said. "My name was up for James Bond at one time, but [series producer Albert] Broccoli apparently said I was too well known for people to believe it." Though he never did play 007, Jones did become associated with the franchise, singing the title track for the film "Thunderball" in 1965.
Carla Gugino in Mad Men
Carla Gugino may not be a big screen A-lister like Robert Redford or a superstar singer like Tom Jones, but by the late 2000s, she was a recognizable face on screens big and small. She'd appeared in three "Spy Kids" movies and starred as a U.S. Marshal in crime drama "Karen Sisco" in 2003. She got even tougher in Robert Rodriguez's noir classic "Sin City," and suited up as a superhero in Zack Snyder's "Watchmen." But when she went in to audition for one of TV's hottest cable dramas, she was surprised to learn that the show's creator wouldn't give her a role.
That creator was Matthew Weiner, and the show was "Mad Men." Gugino was a huge fan and asked to be in the series. "I said, 'I am perfect for Mad Men,'" she recounted in an interview with Vulture in 2012. "And he said, 'You're too famous.'" As Gugino laid out, Weiner never wanted actors in his series whose famous faces might make the audience unable to lose themselves in a scene, or whose name recognition would overshadow the series itself. This made her a no-go.
Harrison Ford in Schindler's List
Since he hit it big as Han Solo in "Star Wars," Harrison Ford has been one of the world's biggest movie stars. If there were anyone who could reasonably be refused a role because of insurmountable fame, it would be him. But it may raise some eyebrows to discover that the man who ruled him out for a role was the same one who cast him in "Indiana Jones" — Steven Spielberg.
Around the same time that Ford declined the role of Alan Grant in Spielberg's "Jurassic Park," the director apparently nixed the idea of his "Raiders of the Lost Ark" star playing the title role in "Schindler's List." Spielberg revealed in a chat with Inside Film Magazine that he didn't want a famous star for the part that ultimately went to Liam Neeson. "I didn't want the distraction of a whole bunch of other movies to cloud this one," he remarked. "It would have been easy — I had the movie stars coming to me for this part. I just didn't want to go that way." While rumors have persisted for years that Ford himself thought a Jewish actor should play the part, it seems Spielberg also didn't want a superstar leading the film.
Tobey Maguire in The Life of Pi
Tobey Maguire shot to superstar status after playing Spider-Man in the 2000s. Apparently, those flicks made him a little too well-known for director Ang Lee when he embarked on his 2012 opus "The Life of Pi." After over a decade stuck in development hell, Tobey Maguire was cast in the film — but when it hit theaters, he was nowhere to be found. That's because after production was complete, the director made the jaw-dropping decision to replace him at the last minute.
In the only instance on this list of an actor actually filming all his scenes, Maguire's role was entirely reshot because, with a cast of almost entirely lesser-known actors, his famous face just didn't feel right among them. "I misjudged the situation. I underestimated the power of stars," Lee told USA Today. "I love Tobey. But it's a small part. So when it's a movie star sitting there, it captures attention. It didn't really work out."
Thankfully, Maguire dealt with the situation with sincere professionalism. "I fully support Ang's decision to go a different direction for this role in 'Life of Pi,'" he said in a statement published by The Hollywood Reporter. "Ang shared a lot of the film with me, and what I saw was absolutely beautiful."
David Bowie in The Lord of the Rings
When Peter Jackson set out to adapt "The Lord of the Rings," he originally wanted Sean Connery for Gandalf. But another living legend came to him looking to play a part: Ziggy Stardust himself, David Bowie. Though Bowie's acting career isn't as robust as most on this list, he was one of the biggest musical stars of the '70s and '80s, and few can forget his performance as Jareth the Goblin King in Jim Henson's "Labyrinth." So when actor Dominic Monaghan came in to read for the part of Merry Brandybuck, he was star-struck to see Bowie auditioning too.
"As I was reading a magazine waiting, David Bowie came in," Monaghan told HuffPost. "I'm a huge David Bowie fan ... just seeing him in person was pretty special to me." And that was exactly the reaction that Jackson was concerned about. In 2001 he spoke about wanting to avoid big stars. "These are famous, famous characters, loved for nearly 50 years," he said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. "To have a famous, beloved character and a famous star colliding is slightly uncomfortable." Though it's unknown what role Bowie tested for, many have speculated that it was the elven king Elrond, eventually played impeccably by Hugo Weaving.
Orson Welles in Star Wars
Most famous actors are rejected because their faces are simply too recognizable, and a director would rather have someone who can more easily disappear into their role. In the case of actor-director Orson Welles, though, it was actually his distinctive voice that got him ruled out for one of the most iconic roles in movie history. The acclaimed filmmaker of "Citizen Kane" was originally on the shortlist to lend his dulcet pipes to the villainous Darth Vader in George Lucas' "Star Wars." Seeking a voice to dub over stand-in actor David Prowse, Lucas needed someone with a deep, menacing growl, and Welles fit the bill. But he fit it a little too well.
Over the years, Lucas has acknowledged that it was Welles who he originally had in mind for the part, which would have given the film two big names atop its lesser-known cast list, alongside British star Alec Guinness. He soon realized, however, that Welles' voice was too recognizable, and might take audiences out of moments in which they're supposed to be intimidated by Vader's presence. James Earl Jones got the job, and one might even argue the reverse phenomenon happened — few can hear Jones speak without instantly thinking of the Dark Lord of the Sith.