The role Burt Reynolds only played because Gene Hackman said no: “We were not enthusiastic”
Has there ever been another actor who became a major star in spite of themselves quite like Burt Reynolds? Based on how successful he was relative to the insane number of iconic and award-winning roles he turned down, probably not.
On one hand, after a decade and a half of making largely terrible films – which are his words, for posterity’s sake – Reynolds finally broke through to the mainstream with Deliverance, a ‘Best Picture’ nominee that also happened to be unlike anything he made after he cracked the A-list.
He became synonymous with crowd-pleasing thrillers that usually had an automotive element, and audiences couldn’t get enough. He was named Hollywood’s biggest draw for five years in a row, earning millions of dollars and enjoying the luxuries and trappings that come with being a movie star.
However, once his career started sliding downward, it never truly recovered. Even Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights, which earned Reynolds the only Academy Award nomination of his career, was a blip. It was a brilliant performance in a great movie but didn’t lead to a long-term upturn in his fortunes, best illustrated by his first film afterwards, Big City Blues, a straight-to-video thriller where he played a hitman.
In another world, though, he could have had it all. He wanted Jack Nicholson’s Oscar-winning role in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, turned down Nicholson’s Oscar-winning role in Terms of Endearment, knocked back the chance to play Han Solo in Star Wars, and counts James Bond and Pretty Woman among the other nailed-on hits he declined to participate in.
By the 1990s, Reynolds was reduced to being a casting director’s last resort. When Striptease producer Mike Lobell was searching for a distinguished veteran to play Lane Dilbeck, the powerful and corrupt congressman who developed an unhealthy obsession with Demi Moore’s Erin Grant, Gene Hackman was the first port of call.
When he made it clear he wasn’t interested, Reynolds got an audition. And yet, he was almost overlooked for the most bizarre reasons. The actor had a reputation for being a bit of an arsehole on occasion, which understandably made Lobell wary. The fact he wore a toupee to cover his thinning locks was decidedly less understandable, especially when Hackman was hardly sporting a full head of hair in the ’90s.
“To be honest, we were not enthusiastic at first,” he admitted to The New York Times of testing Reynolds for the part. “There was the hair and his reputation, but we were curious.” He clearly did well enough to get the job, and it was ironic that he was also one of the few people to emerge from Striptease unscathed.
Director Andrew Bergman’s widely panned dark comedy thriller was shortlisted for seven Razzies and won six of them. The only one prize it didn’t claim? Reynolds’ nomination for ‘Worst Supporting Actor’.
