15 Actors Who Turned Down Oscar-Winning Roles

Jonathan Demme initially wanted Michelle Pfeiffer to play FBI trainee Clarice Starling, but Pfeiffer later said she was nervous about the subject matter and passed on the film. Jodie Foster, who had pursued the role, stepped in and delivered a performance that earned her a second Academy Award for Best Actress.

Before Sandra Bullock became Leigh Anne Tuohy, Fox wanted Julia Roberts for the role, and Roberts declined it. Bullock herself initially had reservations about taking the part (she found the script "schmaltzy and soft"), but she ultimately signed on, and her performance won her the Academy Award for Best Actress.

James L. Brooks had Burt Reynolds in mind for retired astronaut Garrett Breedlove, but Reynolds had already committed to Hal Needham's racing comedy "Stroker Ace" and honored that commitment. "I felt I owed Hal more than I did Jim," Reynolds later explained, calling it the role he most regretted turning down. (Nobody told him, he said, that he probably could have done both.) Jack Nicholson stepped into the role, bringing humor and vulnerability to the film and collecting the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

Clarice Starling wasn't the only major role in the film that went elsewhere after a rejection. Demme first sent the screenplay to Sean Connery for Hannibal Lecter. According to Demme, Connery thought the script was "disgusting" and declined; Anthony Hopkins took the role and won Best Actor.

Ellen Burstyn had spent a lot of time in psychiatric hospitals because of her husband's mental illness when the opportunity to play Nurse Ratched arose. Burstyn later said she did not want to take on the psyche of a "mean nurse" after those experiences and declined the part. She has described passing on the role as the right decision for her at the time, though she had won Best Actress the year before and couldn't help wondering, "Could I have won two times in a row?" Louise Fletcher ultimately played Ratched and won Best Actress.

Fresh from playing a weary gunfighter in "The Gunfighter," Gregory Peck worried audiences would typecast him in Westerns and turned down Will Kane in "High Noon." Gary Cooper ultimately played the marshal, whose decision to face a dangerous outlaw despite being abandoned by the townspeople became the center of the film. Cooper's performance earned him his second Academy Award for Best Actor.

Angela Bassett declined the role of Leticia Musgrove, calling the character "such a stereotype about black women and sexuality." Halle Berry ultimately took the part, and her performance made Academy Awards history when she became the first Black woman to win Best Actress. More than two decades later, she remains the only one.

Gene Hackman was among the actors considered for Randle McMurphy and declined the part. Jack Nicholson ultimately stepped into the role, bringing a volatile energy to McMurphy's battle with Nurse Ratched and the institution around him. The performance earned Nicholson his first Academy Award, after four previous nominations.

Liam Neeson was attached to play Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's biopic for roughly five years, but as the project stalled, he walked away. "I'm now past my sell-by date," Neeson said at the time. Daniel Day-Lewis (who had initially turned Spielberg down himself) took over the role and won Best Actor, becoming the first man to win the category three times.

Harrison Ford has openly acknowledged regretting his decision to turn down CIA operative Bob Barnes in "Syriana." Ford later explained that he "didn't feel strongly enough about the truth of the material" when he declined the project and subsequently came to believe he had made a mistake. George Clooney took the part and earned the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Joseph Fiennes was Roman Polanski's first choice to play Polish-Jewish pianist Władysław Szpilman in the director's Holocaust drama, but Fiennes opted to return to the stage instead. That cleared the way for Adrien Brody, whose performance made him the youngest Best Actor winner in Oscar history at 29 (a record that still stands). Brody won the category again in 2025 for "The Brutalist."

John Wayne took an immediate dislike to Robert Rossen's screenplay for "All the King's Men" and turned down the role of Willie Stark, writing to his agent that the script was hostile to the American way of life. Broderick Crawford was ultimately cast as the populist politician, a breakthrough performance that transformed his career and earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Emma Watson was originally set to star opposite Miles Teller in Damien Chazelle's musical, but the shoot conflicted with Disney's live-action "Beauty and the Beast." Watson chose the fairy tale, explaining that it "wasn't a movie I could just kind of parachute into." Emma Stone took the role of aspiring actor Mia and won Best Actress.

Hugh Grant was one of the top picks to play King George VI, with director Tom Hooper eyeing him for the part. Early reports said Grant turned it down, around the time he had fallen out of love with acting. Colin Firth ultimately played the king, portraying his struggle with a stammer in the Best Picture-winning film and earning the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Jack Palance was the filmmakers' preferred choice for Curly, but a scheduling conflict initially kept him from taking the part. The filmmakers then asked Charles Bronson to read for Curly, but Bronson declined. Palance later cleared his schedule, joined the film five weeks into production, and turned the relatively compact supporting role into an Academy Award-winning performance.