The Oscar-nominated role John Travolta turned down
Turning down movie roles is a common occurrence for actors once they’ve achieved star status. However, few have declined as many acclaimed, iconic, or award-winning parts as John Travolta.
Not that it prevented him from achieving A-list status, though, with the actor’s breakthrough performance as Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever landing him an Academy Award nomination. He famously achieved the same feat two decades later when Pulp Fiction rehabilitated a career that had been gradually sliding downwards.
However, things could have turned out very differently had Travolta accepted any or all of the parts offered his way, most of which would go on to be played by major stars. Even though Robert Zemeckis was announced to be directing Denzel Washington in April 2011, the Pulp Fiction alum maintained that Flight had been written specifically for him.
It makes sense given his status as a fully qualified and vastly experienced pilot, although that proved to be his undoing when Travolta revealed at an event hosted by The British Film Institute (per The Independent) that the lack of realism was what swayed his decision.
“The funny thing was it was written for me, but it was not written well enough yet,” he said. “The plane stuff was silly from my perspective. Flying upside down, it’s a bit much”. Travolta shared how he “wanted those bits to get redone”, only for Washington to end up securing an Oscar nomination for ‘Best Actor’ in the end when his demands weren’t met.
Travolta also famously knocked back the opportunity to play the lead role in Forrest Gump while he was under consideration to inhabit Pete Mitchell in Tony Scott’s Top Gun. Remarkably, that doesn’t even scratch the surface of the what-ifs to have surrounded the star over the course of his decades in the spotlight.
He was floated as Allen Bauer in Splash before the lesser-known Hanks was hired, turned down Richard Gere’s part in ‘Best Picture’-winning musical Chicago despite being offered it no less than three times, met with Al Pacino when Scarface was looking for its Manny Ribera, was one of the many established names that weren’t interested in being John Rambo, reportedly lobbied to be Jim Lovell in Apollo 13 unaware that pesky Hanks was already attached, and turned down the lead role in The Green Mile before his inadvertent arch-nemesis ended up with the gig yet again.
Perhaps it isn’t entirely fair to suggest Travolta’s career would have been completely different had he accepted the aforementioned parts, then, when the evidence is there to say Hanks was perpetually the shadow looming in the background, looking at how their paths repeatedly crossed over the same parts.
