Hollywood is a funny place. During the early stages of development for movies and TV shows, actors are constantly vying for the most fruitful roles—which makes for fascinating, sliding doors-esque moments (Al Pacino was almost Han Solo?!). It's also a peek behind the curtain of creative projects—which often look very different in development than they do on our screens. Below, celebrities who almost (but not quite!) got iconic roles.
Will Smith
Did you know that Will Smith almost played the main character, Neo, in The Matrix? He was apparently skeptical of the Wachowskis' vision and instead opted to make Wild Wild West. In 2019 he said, "I probably would have messed The Matrix up...I would have ruined it, so I did y'all a favor."
Gwen Stefani
Though it's hard to envision anyone other than Angelina Jolie as Jane in Mr. & Mrs. Smith (especially considering the drama that resulted from her relationship with costar Brad Pitt), apparently Gwen Stefani was considered. The star later noted, "[It was] very competitive and I wanted to do it, but I wanted to do music more."
Vince Vaughn
In 2018, Friends casting director Ellie Kanner noted that Vince Vaughn was in consideration for the role of Joey. He apparently was a great match for the role, but was less of a personality fit with the rest of the group (which led to Matt LeBlanc's being cast in the role instead).
Molly Ringwald
Molly Ringwald was actually offered the role of Vivian in Pretty Woman, but balked at the prospect of playing a sex worker. "Julia Roberts was wonderful in it, but I didn't really like the story," she said in 2023. "Even then, I felt like there was something icky about it."
Eddie Redmayne
Eddie Redmayne auditioned to be Kylo Ren in Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens. In 2016, he revealed, "I was trying again and again with different versions of my kind of 'koohh paaaah' [Darth Vader breathing] voice. And after like 10 shots [casting director Nina Gold] was like, 'You got anything else?' I was like, 'No.'"
Blake Lively
Blake Lively was seriously considered for the role of Karen Smith in Mean Girls. The casting director later noted, "We wanted Blake Lively, who hadn't done The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants yet, for Karen. She came down to the final tests but, at some point, some of the filmmakers said to keep looking."
Emma Watson
Emma Watson wasn't able to play Mia in La La Land in part because of scheduling conflicts with 2017's Beauty and the Beast. "This wasn't a movie I could just kind of parachute into. I knew I had to do the work, and I had to be where I had to be," she later noted.
Yunjin Kim
Yunjin Kim, who memorably played Sun in Lost, was actually in the middle of auditioning for the role of Izzie Stevens on Grey's Anatomy when she was cast on the sci-fi show. She almost kept her Grey's callback. "My agents were like, 'Why? You got cast on an amazing show. You should pack up and try to find a place in Hawaii.' I was like, 'I don't know, I might like Grey's Anatomy more.'"
Adrien Brody
Adrien Brody passed on a role playing "some hobbit-like character" in The Lord of the Rings because he "didn't grasp it," only realizing what a phenomenon it was when he watched the film. Instead, he went on to play a role in another Peter Jackson movie (2005's King Kong).
Millie Bobby Brown
Millie Bobby Brown obviously broke out in Stranger Things in 2016. She later said that her audition for Wolverine's daughter X-23 in Logan around the same time was one of her best, and made her feel like a real actor—but she didn't ultimately get the role.
Hank Azaria
Hank Azaria really wanted to play Joey on Friends. "That's the only job I ever auditioned for twice," Azaria told HuffPost Live in 2014. "I thought it was so good—they had rejected me once—I said, 'I'm going back, I'm gonna do it again, I'm gonna try it again.'" Fortunately he came back in a guest role.
Christina Applegate
Christina Applegate was sent the script for Legally Blonde with the idea that she might play Elle Woods. Worried that it was too close to her character in Married...with Children, she passed—but ended up regretting it when she saw the successful movie.
Liam Hemsworth
If you can believe it, another Hemsworth almost played Thor in the Marvel movies. Chris Hemsworth later noted he was jealous that Liam had done well in auditions. "I came in kind of with a little, I guess, motivation and maybe frustration that my little brother had gotten further than me...It's a little family, sibling rivalry sort of kicked up in me."
John Travolta
John Travolta almost played Forrest Gump? Yup, the role was offered to Travolta before Tom Hanks took on the Oscar-winning role. Instead, Travolta went on to play Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction—and a revitalization of his career followed thereafter.
Eminem
At one point, George Miller really wanted rapper Eminem for the role of Max in Mad Max: Fury Road. "He’d done 8 Mile, and I found that really interesting—I thought, 'He’s got that quality,'" he told Vulture. "We did get in touch with him, though that’s as far as it went because we were going to shoot it in Australia at that point, and he simply didn’t want to leave home."
Joaquin Phoenix
While you probably know him from another comic book character (the Joker), Joaquin Phoenix was apparently in talks to play Stephen Strange in Doctor Strange. Months-long negotiations led to a deadlock, and the role went to Benedict Cumberbatch instead.
Tom Hiddleston
While Tom Hiddleston's portrayal of Loki in the MCU movies and TV shows might be indelible at this point, he was apparently hoping to play...Thor. "They were always looking for Loki as well, and I think—the closer I got, they were like, 'Actually, you should play the bad guy,'" he later said.
Jake Gyllenhaal
Ben Stiller was always hoping Owen Wilson would play Hansel, Zoolander's model frenemy, in Zoolander. But when there were worries there might be scheduling conflicts, Stiller held auditions. "The only one that I remember clearly was a young Jake Gyllenhaal doing this wide-eyed version of Hansel that was really funny," he remembered.
John Krasinski
The title role in Captain America: The First Avenger almost went to another famous American actor. John Krasinski was even asked to screen test in costume, but the second he saw Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Krasinski joked, "I went, 'I'm good. This is stupid. That's okay, I'm not Captain America.'"
Jennifer Lawrence
Twilight would have been a very different movie if Jennifer Lawrence had played Bella. And yet, the actor later noted she was glad not to get it. "I remember when the first movie came out, seeing Kristen Stewart on the red carpet and getting papped wherever she went...For me, and assuming for her, it was just another audition. Then it turned into this whole other thing."
Amanda Seyfried
If you can imagine anyone other than Ariana Grande in the role of Glinda (good luck trying), a number of actors were vying for the role. Including Amanda Seyfried: "Last summer while I was playing Elizabeth [Holmes on The Dropout], on the weekends I was auditioning in person to play Glinda in the movie version of Wicked, because I wanted it that much that I was like, 'You know what? Yeah, I have to play the last scene of The Dropout on Tuesday. I'll give my Sunday to you,'" she later explained.
Mindy Kaling
Mindy Kaling got candid with Andy Cohen when talking about Bridesmaids. She was almost up for the role of Lillian (Maya Rudolph's part), admitting that she "loved the whole cast" as well as the resulting film. "That was one that was a heartbreaker," she said.
Matthew McConaughey
It's kind of unfathomable to think of someone else other than Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack in Titanic. But Matthew McConaughey auditioned and really thought he "had it," so to speak. James Cameron later said that the actor lost the role because he refused to try a version in a non-Southern accent.
George Clooney
In early talks for The Notebook, George Clooney would have played young Noah, and Paul Newman would have played the older version. Clooney got cold feet after watching some early Newman movies. “He’s one of the handsomest guys you’ve ever seen...We met up [again], and I said, ‘I can’t play you. I don’t look anything like you. This is insane.’ We just wanted to do it because we wanted to work together, [but] it ended up being not the right thing for us to do.”
Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman almost played Juliet in Romeo + Juliet. In fact, she was originally cast, but because of her age at the time (13), Leonardo DiCaprio's age (21), and the potential for the two to do love scenes as required by the story, the directors decided the pairing was inappropriate.
Ben Affleck
While Paul Rudd went on to be Josh in Clueless, Ben Affleck was apparently a frontrunner for the heartthrob role. Apparently, according to casting director Carrie Frazier, "I thought [Affleck] would be fabulous for it." I can see this one, actually.
Emily Blunt
Emily Blunt was Jon Favreau's first choice to play Natasha Romanoff, also known as Black Widow, for Iron Man 2. Apparently, she was also considered to play Peggy Carter, Captain America's love interest. In both cases, she had to bow out due to scheduling conflicts.
Hugh Jackman
Once Hugh Jackman played Wolverine, he got offered a lot of roles. "I was about to do X-Men 2, and a call came from my agent asking if I'd be interested in Bond. I just felt at the time that the scripts had become so unbelievable and crazy, and I felt like they needed to become grittier and real." He suggested changes, but they were not accepted; Daniel Craig ended up playing the role.
Peter O'Toole
Dumbledore in the Harry Potter movies was almost played by another iconic actor: Peter O'Toole. After Richard Harris passed away, O'Toole was approached. "He was close except Richard was his best friend and he felt it was intrusive from an acting point of view so he decided not to do it," noted Chris Columbus.
Robert De Niro
Apparently the original thinking for Big was to make it a horror movie, according to lead actor Elizabeth Perkins. "Robert De Niro was actually cast in the role of Josh in the movie Big. It fell apart because he had a scheduling conflict, and then they went to Tom Hanks," she said. "It's like a totally different movie in my brain with Robert De Niro—and dark."
Julia Roberts
Shakespeare in Love apparently went through several iterations before it finally made it to the screen. As Gwyneth Paltrow later noted, "Julia Roberts was going to do it for a long time, and then that version fell apart. It ended up in Miramax, and I was the first person they offered it to."
Al Pacino
Wait—Al Pacino was going to play Han Solo? He told MTV in 2014, “It was at that time in my career where I was offered everything...I was in The Godfather. They didn't care if I was right or wrong for the role, if I could act or not act...I remember not understanding it when I read it."
