Madonna on her biggest regrets: “I turned down the role in The Matrix”
Given that her oeuvre is one of the most cherished in all of music, you wouldn’t necessarily expect Madonna to have any artistic regrets. However, she is only human, and like the rest of us, there is one particular moment in her life that the pop star greatly wishes she could change. Interestingly though, her disappointment does not come by way of the music but rather via an iconic Keanu Reeves film.
The realm of cinema is not alien to Madonna, and over the years, she’s proven herself to be equally adept as an actor. From starring as the singer Breathless Mahoney in Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy to giving a critically acclaimed turn as Eva Perón in Evita, much like with her music, Madonna’s acting is dextrous. This has meant that her filmography is a highly varied one, including titles such as A League of Their Own and Arthur and the Invisibles.
However, her list of credits could have included three iconic titles that had the ability to change the course of her career. When appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2021, Madonna was asked by the host about two roles she rejected in the 1990s; Catwoman in Tim Burton’s Batman Returns and Cristal Connors in Paul Verhoeven’s cult classic Showgirls.
Notably, for Batman Returns, which starred Michael Keaton as the caped crusader, Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman and Danny DeVito as the Penguin, Madonna declared that she highly regrets turning down the role: “I saw them both and I regret that I turned down Catwoman, that was pretty fierce”.
Despite regretting turning down the role in Batman Returns, for her, there is one other rejected title that leaves a sour taste in her mouth: this was a role in The Matrix, the 1999 science fiction flick by The Wachowski’s that stars Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne and Hugo Weaving. It transpires that Madonna is such a fan of the film that she even went to the extent of labelling it “one of the best movies ever made”.
“I turned down the role in The Matrix, can you believe that?” she admitted to the host during the interview, expressing much remorse. “I wanted to kill myself.”
“That’s like one of the best movies ever made,” she added before making the concession that she was wrong with that decision. “A teeny-tiny part of me regrets just that one moment in my life.”
