The 1985 cult classic Kurt Russell abandoned three weeks before shooting: “That’s not for me”
Having starred in more cult classics than the average actor, you would think that Kurt Russell wouldn’t have had any issues adding another one to his collection, but he did.
Of course, it’s impossible to predict which movies are destined for cult status before they’ve been released, but this one seemed like a good shout. Sure enough, that’s exactly what it became, even with the actor leaving everybody in the lurch three weeks before the first day of principal photography.
Whether by accident or design, Russell knows how to sniff out a cult flick. He’s been doing it for decades, too, with his association stretching from 1980’s Used Cars to 2015’s Bone Tomahawk, with Escape from New York, The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, Tango & Cash, Tombstone, and Sky High sandwiched in between.
In the summer of 1983, the cast and crew were gearing up to begin production on Richard Donner’s Ladyhawke, with Michelle Pfeiffer playing a noblewoman cursed to spend each day transformed into a hawk, and Russell set as her love interest, who spends each night as a wolf as part of the same curse.
Things were going off without a hitch, and the director was putting his ensemble through their final paces in rehearsal, only for Russell to decide that he didn’t want to do it anymore. Why? “I don’t wear tights,” he declared. “That’s not for me.” He went to the filmmaker, told him “this was a mistake taking this role and I was sorry,” and off he fucked.
However, screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz remembers things slightly differently. “We’re going to be shooting in three weeks, and there’s something really irritating him,” the scribe recalled. “One day, he said, ‘I don’t want to have that helmet. I don’t like a helmet. I don’t look good in a helmet.'” Donner told him he had to sport the headgear, but he wasn’t having it.
“Kurt said, ‘Kirk Douglas wouldn’t have a helmet,'” Mankiewicz remembered him arguing, only for Donner to immediately shut him down. “Dick said, ‘Kirk Douglas had a helmet in Paths of Glory; it looked great.'” The actor was becoming increasingly difficult, leaving the writer to think that he was looking for a way out.
Mankiewicz called Donner, telling him that “we’re in real trouble here because I don’t think Kurt wants to do the movie,” which wasn’t inaccurate, whether it was the tights or helmet that were getting under his skin, or his aversion to spending months in Italy at a time when his romance with Goldie Hawn was still in its nascent stages, another suspicion the former had.
In the end, Russell got his wish, and he didn’t play the male lead in Ladyhawke, which did what so many of the movies he actually made do by becoming a cult favourite. He was at least kind enough to suggest Rutger Hauer as his replacement, and he was more than happy to hop aboard as a last-minute replacement.
