While it’s hard to think that certain notable film roles wouldn’t be an immediate “yes” for actors, many different factors come into play when performers consider what parts to play. But that’s the thing about hindsight: It factors in the result. So here are just 11 times when actors had to seriously consider if a role was worth the challenge and was actually right for them way before they’d learn that, yes in fact, it was always theirs:
1.Idina Menzel: Wicked
Two people in costume; one as a witch with a hat, black dress, and green face, the other in a sparkling gown, smiling and playful
Person wearing an elaborate gown with ruffled details and decorative star pin, smiling and standing amidst a group of people
Universal Pictures / Via instagram.com
It’s only fitting that the OG Elphaba and Glinda appear in Wicked. Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, who originated the respective characters on Broadway, have rousing roles in the film when Elphaba and Glinda (played by Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande) arrive in the Emerald City. They appear as performers during an updated version of the song “One Short Day.” Even better, Menzel and Chenoweth aren’t the only Wicked legends to pop up during the scene. The team behind the musical — Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman — also cameo during the song as Ozians. Holzman also co-wrote the film.
However, according to Marc Platt (a producer on both the stage musical and film), Menzel was concerned about appearing in the movie: She didn’t want to steal any thunder from Erivo’s performance.
Platt told Variety that he convinced Menzel, as well as Chenoweth, to appear in the film. And thank god he did. “I said, ‘Both of you are going to want to touch the film. You’re part of the Wicked lore forever,'” he told the publication, noting they’d already found “organic” ways to work in Schwartz and Holzman. “‘You’re going to want to be part of something that’s bigger than you, and so for the rest of your lives, you’ll always be part of Wicked even in the film.’ And they both said, ‘Okay, you’re right.'”
2.Taraji P. Henson: The Color Purple
In 2023, Taraji starred as Shug Avery in the film adaption of The Color Purple musical. While promoting the film, Taraji routinely spoke out about having to advocate for fair pay and opportunity throughout her 20-plus-year career. This included almost passing on The Color Purple because of pay.
“[I] almost had to walk away from Color Purple,” she said in an interview with the SAG-AFTRA Foundation last year. “Because, you know what? If I don’t take a stand, how am I making it easy for [her costars] Fantasia [Barrino]and Danielle [Brooks]and Halle [Bailey]and Phylicia [Pearl Mpasi]? Why am I doing this? If it’s all just for me, why are you here?”
Ser Baffo / © Warner Bros. /Courtesy Everett Collection
3.Emma Stone: La La Land
In 2017, Emma Stone revealed to the Hollywood Reporter that she was initially skeptical about starring in La La Land, citing a disinterest in the singing and dancing the role would require. This was because, at the time, she was already doing both while starring on Broadway in Cabaret.
“I was very sick,” she told the publication. “My voice was gone, and I was struggling to get through the shows — I was still doing Cabaret — and the idea of doing another musical was like, ‘You’ve got to be out of your mind.’ After CabaretI wasn’t sure I would ever sing or dance again.”
She eventually reconsidered, taking on the role and ultimately winning her first Best Actress Oscar.
Summit Entertainment / courtesy Everett Collection
4.Chiwetel Ejiofor: 12 Years a Slave
In 2013, Chiwetel Ejiofor told IndieWire he wasn’t sure he could play the role of Solomon Northup in 12 Years a Slavea performance that would go on to garner him an Oscar nomination.
He was anxious about the role for two reasons: the “huge responsibility” of telling Northup’s life story and the self-questioning on whether he felt “capable” of what the role demanded from him as an actor.
Of the latter, he told IndieWire, “You wait your whole life for opportunities to play these great parts and you’re hassling your agent, trying to read all these scripts, figuring all this stuff out. You’re doing that in order to get to the point where somebody sends you a great script and a great part and then it comes through the door and you think, ‘Can I do this? Am I capable of it?'”
Ejiofor said he reviewed the book and script again before deciding to try his best at the part. “This one was different, and it took me a moment to work out in both those parts what my feelings were about that and then I decided to try. I spoke to Steve [McQueen, the director] and I said, ‘Well, listen, I’m going to give it a go.'”
Francois Duhamel/TM and copyright ©Fox Searchlight Pictures. All rights reserved./Courtesy Everett Collection
5.Sandra Bullock: The Blind Side
“I didn’t trust it,” Sandra Bullock told Entertainment Weekly in 2009 of the film that would win her an Oscar. “I thought it would be schmaltzy and soft.”
Inspired by the life of former NFL tackle Michael Oher, The Blind Side chronicled Leigh Anne (Bullock) and Sean Tuohy (Tim McGraw) as they took in Oher as a teen and aided his development into a powerhouse football player.
Ralph Nelson/©Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection
6.Meryl Streep: The Devil Wears Prada
Though it’s impossible to imagine anyone but Meryl Streep playing Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Pradathe legendary actor nearly turned down the part due to pay.
“The offer was to my mind slightly, if not insulting, not perhaps reflective of my actual value to the project,” Streep told Variety in 2016. “There was my ‘goodbye moment,’ and then they doubled the offer. I was 55, and I had just learned, at a very late date, how to deal on my own behalf.”
20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection
7.Ralph Fiennes: Harry Potter
“I was ignorant of the delight of the books and what they offered young people,” Ralph Fiennes told CBS Sunday Morning of his initial hesitation to play the iconic villain Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter films.
“In my ignorance, I thought, ‘Well, I’m not sure I want to do that.’ Luckily, I had my sister Martha, who has three children, said, ‘They offered you Voldemort? What — you’re not going to do it? You’re mad. You’re mad.’ I said, ‘Why?’ ‘But Ralph, it’s Voldemort. You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘He’s it. He’s the whole, the antagonist…he is the one. The bad guy. The one. The one.’ She was emphatic, and I said, ‘Oh OK.'”
Beginning with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in 2005, Ralph would ultimately star in five of the eight films in the franchise.
Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection
8.Julia Roberts: Notting Hill
In a January 2024 British Vogue interview with Notting Hill writer Richard Curtis, Julia Roberts said the beloved rom-com where she played a Hollywood star falling for a British bookseller (played by Hugh Grant) was one of the “hardest things” she’s had to do.
“I was so uncomfortable!” she said of playing an actress. “I mean, we’ve talked about this so many times, but I almost didn’t take the part because it just seemed — oh, it just seemed so awkward. I didn’t even know how to play that person.”
Universal Pictures / Via youtube.com
9.Ewan McGregor: Star Wars
Shortly after his critically acclaimed role in Danny Boyle’s 1996 film TrainspottingEwan McGregor joined the Star Wars universe as Obi-Wan, beginning with the 1999 film Episode 1 — The Phantom Menace. However, he wasn’t sure the film was for him at first.
“By that time I was so full of myself,” he said on the SmartLess podcast in 2022. “I was like, ‘I am Danny Boyle’s actor. I am f*****g urban grunge. I am the Oasis of the British movie industry,’ and then when Star Wars came along, I thought, ‘I don’t know if I want to do this. This isn’t me.'”
He added that he was concerned about typecasting if he joined a film as “big” as Star Wars. “I was so into being this sort of antihero, if you like…indie British actor is what I felt like. More than anything, I felt like I was Danny Boyle’s actor, and I felt that sort of defined me,” he said. Ultimately, following rounds of auditioning, he became “so attached to the idea” of what the franchise meant to him as a kid that he did the film.
Ewan has appeared as Obi-Wan in three Star Wars films, voiced the character in another film and the Star Wars Galaxy of Adventures animated series, and starred in his own 2022 series aptly titled Obi-Wan Kenobi.
©Lucasfilm Ltd./courtesy Everett / Everett Collection
10.Will Smith: Men in Black
Will Smith followed up the hit 1996 film Independence Day with another hit film: 1997’s Men in Black. However, the actor initially didn’t think Men in Black was the best project for him at the time.
“I didn’t want to make two alien movies back to back,” he told Kevin Hart on Hart to Heart in 2023. How was he convinced to take on the role? “Steven Spielberg sent a helicopter for me,” he said. The film was produced by Spielberg’s production company, Amblin Entertainment.
“He had me at ‘hello,'” Will said, noting Spielberg asked why he didn’t want to star in the film. “I didn’t want to be the alien guy,” he recalled telling him.
Obviously, Will eventually changed his mind and starred in the film and two sequels.
Columbia Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection
11.Finally, Audrey Hepburn: Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Of all her iconic roles, Aubrey Hepburn is perhaps best known for starring as Holly Golightly in the 1961 adaption of Truman Capote’s novel of the same name. However, in an interview with the New York Times before the film’s release, Hepburn admitted she was “terribly afraid” of not being the right person for the role.
“This part called for an extroverted character,” she told the publication. “I am not an extrovert. I am an introvert. It called for the kind of sophistication that I find difficult. I did not think I had enough technique for the part. But everyone pressed me to do it. So I did. I suffered through it all. I lost weight. Very often while I was doing the part I was convinced I was not doing the best possible job.”
Hepburn’s performance later garnered her a fourth of five Best Actress nominations in her lifetime. She won one time, in 1953 for Roman Holiday, which was also her first nomination.
Paramount Pictures / Getty Images
Which of these examples surprised you most, and are there other actors you know of who nearly turned down iconic roles? Let us know in the comments below!
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