10 actors who turned down the biggest paydays
Given the capitalist nature of the Hollywood movie industry, it’s always surprising to learn of actors being motivated by a sense of artistic vision and turning down substantial financial rewards for certain movies. Of course, sometimes, actors reject a given role, despite its commercial rewards, because it just doesn’t fit in with their schedules, and the handsome offers eventually fall into someone else’s lap.
Financial gain is not everything in the world, even for the wealthiest of stars, and there are indeed some instances where certain actors have turned down eye-watering amounts of money to feature in a given movie. Looking through the list of the biggest offers turned down, there are some of Hollywood’s most prominent names with wallets slightly less swollen had fate not played its inevitable hand.
We begin with good old Keanu Reeves, who decided not to return to the classic Speed movie that cemented his position as an action movie star. Sandra Bullock returned for Speed 2, but Reeves was too busy with other (and better) projects, and even $12million couldn’t tempt him back into his famous role.
There are several instances on this list where actors didn’t want to return to a role they’d previously been known for, and alongside Reeves sits Michael Keaton, who refused to come back as The Caped Crusader for Batman Returns after its comic shift despite being offered $15m, and Christian Bale, who’d played Batman in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, reportedly decided to reject $50m rather than getting back into his armoured suit for Justice League.
At one point, though, Bale had profited from a rejection offer for big money back at the turn of the millennium. For Mary Harron’s American Psycho, the role of Patrick Bateman was originally offered to Leonardo DiCaprio, but when he allegedly turned down a handsome $21m to play the psychotic Wall Street banker, Bale swooped in to take home the good.
Bale was not the only one to gain from another actor’s rejection, though, as Keanu Reeves was not the first person asked to play Neo/Thomas Anderson in The Matrix, a rather shocking piece of information to learn as it’s nearly impossible to imagine anyone else in the role. The truth is, though, that Will Smith had been offered a salary of $35m to play the famous hacker, but he’d not been impressed with The Wachowskis’ vision.
There are some rejections of some of the biggest movie franchises of all time, too, in the shape of Sean Connery allegedly turning down $30m to play the role of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings, supposedly because he couldn’t be bothered to travel to New Zealand, while Russell Crowe, fresh off the back of Gladiator also decided to reject Peter Jackson’s offer to play Aragorn, despite an eye-watering offer of $100m.
Where Batman had received his fair share of rejections, so too had his old mate in blue, Superman, most notably by Josh Hartnett. Hartnett had also been offered the Batman role along the way, too, and when he was reported to be paid a figure of $45m for The Dark Knight, he might have been tempted but decided not to don a superhero costume of any kind.
Tom Hanks practically embodied the lead character in Robert Zemeckis’ Forrest Gump, but he might not have gotten the job were it not for John Travolta turning the role down. He was set to bring in a whopping $70m if playing the daft-but-lovable character but decided to take on Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction instead, marking the beginning of a career revival.
The list is rounded off by an actor who was set to make a rather stupid amount of money from a film. Seeing as James Cameron’s Avatar became one of the highest-grossing movies of all time, anyone with half a mind might have wished to say yes to a percentage-of-profits offer for a role in the fantasy movie, but Matt Damon’s loss of 10% of Avatar’s takings was Sam Worthington’s gain, and the rest is history.
The 10 actors who rejected huge roles:
- Keanu Reeves – $12 million for Speed 2
- Michael Keaton – $15 million for Batman Forever
- Leonardo DiCaprio – $21 million for American Psycho
- Sean Connery – $30 million for The Lord of the Rings
- Will Smith – $35 million for The Matrix
- Josh Hartnett – $45 million for The Dark Knight
- Christian Bale – $50 million for Justice League
- John Travolta – $70 million for Forrest Gump
- Russell Crowe – $100 million for The Lord of the Rings
- Matt Damon – 10% of Avatar
