Every iconic role Harrison Ford turned down
There aren’t many actors who can lay claim to playing a character who inarguably exists as one of the most iconic figures in cinema history, and Harrison Ford is among the even smaller number who can say they’ve done it twice.
The star’s legacy was already secured thanks to Han Solo and Indiana Jones becoming two of the medium’s most enduring heroes, which is only a small drop in the ocean of a career that’s seen Ford remain at the pinnacle of the A-list for almost half a century.
Every noteworthy performer turns down a number of roles, and the biggest names in the business can often reject parts that win awards, acclaim, and legendary status in their own right.
Unsurprisingly, given the length and breadth of his illustrious career, Ford has knocked back his fair share of offers, and in many cases, it was a hugely fortuitous decision for the people who ended up playing them.
The roles Harrison Ford rejected:
10. Benjamin Martin (The Patriot, Roland Emmerich, 2000)
Mel Gibson cut a bloody swathe through his enemies in Roland Emmerich’s blockbuster hybrid of historical epic, war movie, and revenge thriller, but he wasn’t the first choice for the lead.
When the project was sent Ford’s way, he wasn’t only put off by how violent the content was, but wasn’t interested in seeing the American Revolution become distilled down into one man’s quest to exact retribution for the tragedies that befell his family.
The way The Patriot turned out in the end, it’s hard to imagine Ford being anywhere near as gung-ho as Benjamin Martin as Gibson was, although it stands to reason the character was rejigged to better suit the existing sensibilities of well-known action hero ‘Mad Mel’.
9. Bob Barnes (Syriana, Stephen Gaghan, 2005)
Continuing his inadvertent vendetta against screenwriter Stephen Gaghan, Ford was at least a big enough person to admit declining Syriana and being replaced by George Clooney was one of his most painful career regrets.
Clooney packed on the pounds and won an Academy Award for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ as veteran CIA operative Bob Barnes, with Ford admitting that he wasn’t quite as invested in the material as he should have been.
He’s zero-for-two with Gaghan after also rejecting Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic and both of the filmmaker’s features that he turned down ended up winning at least one Oscar apiece.
8. Jim Garrison (JFK, Oliver Stone, 1991)
Three names tended to regularly pop up on casting wish lists across Tinseltown whenever a high-profile director mounted an equally high-profile project, with Oliver Stone putting the feelers out to all three of them.
When he’d finished the script for conspiratorial political thriller JFK, Stone sent it out to Ford, Gibson, and Kevin Costner. Ironically, the latter turned it down before ultimately being convinced by his agent that collaborating with an awards-laden auteur was the right call.
Neither Ford nor Gibson showed much interest in JFK, but looking at the stacked roster of talent assembled, Stone had no issues filling out his ensemble with a litany of heavyweight talents.
7. Perry van Shrike (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Shane Black, 2005)
The movie that lit the fuse on Robert Downey Jr returning from the brink of irrelevancy to the pinnacle of the industry, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a subversive Christmastime classic for the ages.
One of the many fantastic elements of the razor-sharp crime story is the crackling chemistry between Downey Jr’s Harry Lockhart and Val Kilmer’s private investigator Perry Van Shrike, and it would have been an altogether different movie had writer and director Shane Black gotten his way.
‘Gay Perry’ was first offered to Ford, with Warner Bros willing to give the film a larger budget had he signed on. He flat-out refused, which led gossipers to speculate that it may have had something to do with Downey Jr’s conduct on Ally McBeal, which, of course, starred Calista Flockhart.
6. Eliot Ness (The Untouchables, Brian De Palma, 1987)
Another movie that dragged the Ford/Gibson/Costner trifecta into its orbit, Brian De Palma‘s Academy Award-winning crime classic tested the waters with all three before settling on its Eliot Ness.
When The Untouchables was first announced, Gibson was named as the front-runner dependent on his schedule, which fell through when he opted to shoot Richard Donner’s buddy cop classic Lethal Weapon instead.
The Star Wars icon ended up saying no, which opened the door for Costner to wage an unsanctioned war against Robert De Niro’s Al Capone, and his involvement led to Bob Hoskins netting a hefty payday for doing absolutely nothing at all.
5. Eddie Valiant (Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Robert Zemeckis, 1988)
Executive producer Steven Spielberg wanted to reunite with Ford in the ambitious hybrid of live-action and animation, but the technological advancements required to make Who Framed Roger Rabbit rendered it an impossibility.
The groundbreaking techniques used to combine the real world with the cartoon world immediately made Ford’s asking price too high by default, with the movie already costing enough to give Disney the jitters knowing there was no guarantee it would be a hit.
He was far from the only one to miss out on the vibrant mystery, with Bob Hoskins getting the nod after Chevy Chase brushed off an approach, Bill Murray couldn’t be reached, and Eddie Murphy failed to wrap his head around the concept.
4. Paul Sheldon (Misery, Rob Reiner, 1990)
Kathy Bates might be the star attraction of Rob Reiner’s superior Stephen King adaptation, but James Caan’s erstwhile everyman Paul Sheldon carries his share of the load by acting as the grounded counterpoint to the maniacal Annie Wilkes.
It speaks to the levels of ego among the industry’s leading men that William Hurt, Michael Douglas, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Gene Hackman, and Robert Redford all reportedly turned it down, too, presumably because they’d have to play second fiddle to bates.
Caan was the perfect foil, though, and it’s difficult to imagine a version of Misery where it’s Ford who gets his legs shattered into pieces by a sledgehammer-wielding superfan.
3. Oskar Schindler (Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg, 1993)
Liam Neeson confirmed that he’d “heard Harrison Ford’s name” making the rounds when Schindler’s List was casting, but if anything, being a lesser-known star worked in his favour.
Spielberg was open to the idea of working with his Indiana Jones frontman again, but Ford effectively ruled himself out by being too famous, with the hard-hitting authenticity of the story having the potential to be overshadowed by an A-lister in the lead.
For his role, Spielberg admitted that while plenty of names were bandied around, he wanted “a non-movie star for the part,” which opened the door for Neeson’s career-best turn.
2. Sam Wheat (Ghost, Jerry Zucker, 1990)
A man falling in love with a ghost is a simple premise on paper, but apparently confusing enough that a cavalcade of big names turned down Ghost before Patrick Swayze made sensual spectral pottery with Demi Moore.
Per IndieWire, screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin explained that “Harrison Ford said he read the script twice and still didn’t understand it,” asking the question as to why anybody would be interested in playing a dead character for the majority of the running time.
Of course, he was far from the only established star to reject Ghost, which was the wrong move in retrospect when it went on to become one of the biggest releases of the year and a cultural sensation.
1. Alan Grant (Jurassic Park, Steven Spielberg, 1993)
Ford’s mischievous streak got the better of him when he was reflecting on one of his signature roles, and Steven Spielberg interjected to remind him that he had turned down the chance to star in Jurassic Park.
The actor remarked that the filmmaker “only hires me for Indiana Jones”, something Spielberg couldn’t abide by. “I gotta correct this,” he responded. “Do you know who I offered Jurassic Park to? This guy. Alan Grant, I first offered to this guy.”
After Ford said no, William Hurt ended up saying no twice, with Sam Neill only being cast weeks before the start of principal photography and taking top billing in the highest-grossing movie ever made at the time as a result.
