Rachel McAdams Turned Down ‘Iron Man’, ‘Casino Royale’, ‘Devil Wears Prada’ and more in two years
In a recent interview, Rachel McAdams confessed to turning down offers for Casino Royale, The Devil Wears Prada, Iron Man, Mission: Impossible III and Get Smart following the success of Mean Girls and The Notebook.
“There’s certainly things like ‘I wish I’d done that,’” McAdams told Bustle. “[But] I step back and go, ‘That was the right person for that.’” The five movies McAdams rejected – all released between 2006 and 2008 – wound up being box-office hits.
Casino Royale, for example, welcomed Daniel Craig as the new James Bond and reignited the franchise. Iron Man, meanwhile, was responsible for launching the Marvel Cinematic Universe, paving the way for The Avengers. McAdams only entered the MCU in 2016 with Doctor Strange, reprising the role of Dr Christine Palmer in 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
“I felt guilty for not capitalizing on the opportunity that I was being given, because I knew I was in such a lucky spot,” McAdams said about her decision to reject the films and take a two-year break from acting. “But I also knew it wasn’t quite jiving with my personality and what I needed to stay sane. There were definitely some anxious moments of wondering if I was just throwing it all away, and why was I doing that? It’s taken years to understand what I intuitively was doing.”
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