The 1983 movie Burt Reynolds wished he never made: “I really hated myself for doing that”
If Burt Reynolds had accepted just one of the many high-profile roles he turned down throughout his career, things would have turned out very differently.
He might have been one of the biggest stars in the business throughout the 1970s and into the early 1980s, but once he slipped off the top of the ladder, he never came close to returning to his former rung. Instead, successes became increasingly fewer and further between, and saying yes on any of the notable occasions he said no could have completely altered his trajectory.
Reynolds knocked back the chance to be George Lucas’ Han Solo in Star Wars, which became the highest-grossing release of all time when he was already on the A-list. He could have been James Bond, too, but decided that it would have been too much of a departure for 007 to be played by an American.
Jack Nicholson won an Academy Award for the Terms of Endearment part written with Reynolds in mind, which wasn’t even the first time he’d taken home an Oscar at the latter’s expense after beating him to the lead in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Richard Gere swooped in when he passed on Pretty Woman to co-headline a rom-com classic and box office behemoth; he was under consideration to lead Die Hard, and he wasn’t interested in bringing Michael Corleone to life in The Godfather, all of which present a fascinating alternate timeline where Reynolds never slipped from his perch.
What makes those near-misses so compelling is how they reflect Reynolds’ instincts at the time. He was not turning down roles out of uncertainty, but from a position of confidence, trusting his own sense of what suited him. In the moment, those decisions likely felt entirely justified, aligned with the image he had built and the direction he believed his career should take.
However, hindsight paints a different picture. As the industry evolved and new stars emerged, the weight of those choices became more apparent, highlighting just how fine the margins can be in Hollywood. A single yes instead of a no can redefine an entire legacy, and in Reynolds’ case, those decisions gradually reshaped the narrative of his career in ways he could not have anticipated.
Even in the aftermath of his Boogie Nights resurgence, he rejected the opportunity to reunite with Paul Thomas Anderson on Magnolia because he hated the filmmaker so much during their time working together, instead falling back into a state of semi-obscurity after his first and only Oscar-nominated turn.
In an almost cruel turn of events, though, the role that helped cement Reynolds on the A-list came back to haunt him just six years later. Hal Needham’s Smokey and the Bandit was the second top-earning title of 1977 behind Star Wars, ironically, and he reprised the role of Bo Darville in the sequel.
Two was enough, with Reynolds planning to sit out Smokey and the Bandit 3, which used his absence as a plot device. Curious as to how the third instalment was getting on without him, the actor descended upon the set to poke around and say his hellos, only to have his arm twisted into making a cameo appearance.
“Oh, god. That was awful,” he recalled to Ain’t It Cool. “They were down in Delray, and I drove down and walked up. Everybody was happy I was there and all that, and the director said, ‘Can I just shoot one scene?’ I thought, ‘I shouldn’t have come down here, this is stupid’. But I said, ‘Yeah, OK’. I really hated myself for doing that.”
Reynolds was only in Smokey and the Bandit 3 for a matter of moments, which was more than enough for him to wish he hadn’t bothered, a feeling that would have only gotten worse when it died a death at the box office and was torn to shreds by critics.
