Three iconic Kevin Costner roles almost played by Mel Gibson
As two stars of roughly the same age who were at the peak of their popularity around the same time, it was almost inevitable that Kevin Costner and Mel Gibson would find themselves under consideration for many of the same roles.
In fact, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the pair of respective two-time Academy Award winners ended up being drawn into the orbit of some of the biggest and most popular movies of the time. Looking back, the trajectory of modern Hollywood could have turned out markedly different had either of them signed on for so much as one.
Costner rejected the leading role in The Hunt for Red October before it went to Alec Baldwin, turned down the Air Force One screenplay that had been written specifically for him to hand it over to Harrison Ford in favour of The Postman, knocked back Oliver Stone’s Platoon, and chose Waterworld over The Shawshank Redemption.
Gibson, meanwhile, declined an offer to become James Bond before Roger Moore’s tenure had even ended, said no to the part eventually played by Tom Cruise in Rain Man, declared he was too old to take on what was an Oscar-winning lead role for Russell Crowe in Gladiator and was among the many names on the shortlist to headline Tim Burton’s Batman before Michael Keaton was drafted in.
Beyond that, their paths crossed several times over, but on each occasion, Gibson signalled he wasn’t interested, Costner would ultimately step in and steer the project to huge success. It was reported in March of 1986 that “it will be Mel Gibson starring as Eliot Ness in the big-screen version of The Untouchables,” albeit with a caveat.
The start of production would need to be delayed due to the actor already having signed on for another project, although it’s doubtful he would have been too devastated at missing out on Brian De Palma’s gangster classic, given that he opted to lead Lethal Weapon instead.
Having recently played the title character in Franco Zeffirelli’s adaptation of Hamlet, Gibson would also pass on the opportunity to star in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves because he didn’t want to do a pair of back-to-back period pieces, opting to return to familiar ground with Lethal Weapon 3 as his first post-Shakespeare port of call.
When Oliver Stone was seeking his Jim Garrison for the political thriller JFK, both Gibson and Harrison Ford opted not to get involved with the conspiratorial dramatization of the assassination that shocked the world, allowing Costner to step and complete the hattrick of taking on jobs that were earmarked for somebody else initially.
Looking at the sheer breadth of high-profile gigs the pair flirted with during their shared heyday, if anything, it’s remarkable that they only ended up in the running for the same one a measly three times.
