{"id":324691,"date":"2025-12-03T09:49:26","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T09:49:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/324691\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T09:49:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T09:49:26","slug":"actors-who-lost-iconic-roles-10-tv-and-movie-parts-your-favourite-stars-missed-out-on-including-forrest-gump-titanic-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/324691\/","title":{"rendered":"Actors who lost iconic roles: 10 TV and movie parts your favourite stars missed out on, including Forrest Gump, Titanic and more"},"content":{"rendered":"

We all know the feeling of rejection \u2013 but not all of us know what it’s like to be rejected specifically from one of the highest grossing movies of all time.<\/p>\n

Or one of the most popular TV shows of all time. Or an Oscar winning role.<\/p>\n

Some people, like Nicole Kidman, Matthew McConaughey and Jake Gyllenhaal do know that feeling. <\/p>\n

We’ve rounded up a list of your favourite actors who missed out on (or totally blew) the chance to play TV and film’s most iconic roles\ufeff, from Forrest Gump to Titanic’s Jack Dawson: <\/p>\n

Nicole Kidman \u2013 Notting Hill\ufeff<\/p>\n

It’s hard to imagine a world where Nicole Kidman was ever turned away from a role for not being famous or talented enough.<\/p>\n

However, in the ’90s, that was an actual thing that happened!<\/p>\n

\ufeffWhile promoting her TV show The Undoing in 2020, the Oscar winner told Marie Claire<\/a> she’d hoped to star alongside her co-star in that series \u2013 Hugh Grant \u2013 a lot earlier in her career.<\/p>\n

\"ThisKidman hoped to be Grant’s co-star in Notting Hill but waited until The Undoing in 2020. (HBO via AP)<\/p>\n

“\ufeffI really wanted the role that Julia Roberts played in Notting Hill,” Kidman said.<\/p>\n

“Did you?” a surprised Grant replied.<\/p>\n

“Yeah, I did. But I wasn’t well known enough, and I wasn’t talented enough…” she reckoned. As if!\ufeff<\/p>\n

\"JuliaIt’s hard to imagine anyone else in this scene but Julia Roberts! (Universal Pictures)<\/p>\n

READ MORE: After 9 years on Travel Guides, Kevin and Janetta tease ‘ripper’ twist in upcoming season\ufeff<\/a><\/p>\n

Amanda Seyfried \u2013 Wicked<\/p>\n

The world has been living in Oz\ufeff for more than a year as Wicked took over the box office, but in another life, it would be Amanda Seyfried dressed in pink on the global red carpets instead of Ariana Grande.<\/p>\n

\"ArianaThis could’ve been Amanda Seyfried. (WireImage)<\/p>\n

The Mean Girls star went through six rounds of auditions to play Glinda\ufeff while working on The Dropout, a drama miniseries about the rise and fall biotechnology company Theranos and its founder, Elizabeth Holmes.<\/p>\n

“I literally bent over backwards while playing the hardest role of my life. But I think it also taught me how far I’ve come as a singer, which I really wanted to prove,”\ufeff she told Backstage<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"AmandaSeyfried worked overtime to try and secure the role of Glinda, while she missed out she says it’s reignited her passion for singing. (Jordan Strauss\/Invision\/AP)Vince Vaughn \u2013 Friends<\/p>\n

Vince Vaughn auditioned to be one of everyone’s six friends, Joey Tribbiani\ufeff, but of course lost out to Matt LeBlanc.<\/p>\n

Casting director \ufeffEllie Kanner remembered Vaughn as “handsome and tall” and a “good actor,” but told Huffington Post<\/a> he just didn’t fit as well as LeBlanc.<\/p>\n

The Friends cast, without Vince Vaughn of course! (Getty)<\/p>\n

READ MORE: 30 little-known ‘Friends’ facts and trivia you didn’t know about the show<\/a>\ufeff<\/p>\n

Oddly enough, he later starred in The Break Up alongside Jennifer Aniston, and they briefly dated in real life!<\/p>\n

\"VinceLuckily, Vaughn did alright for himself without the Friends job. (Chris Pizzello\/Invision\/AP)<\/p>\n

There were dozens of big names who tried and failed to be one of the leads in what would become one of the most iconic sitcoms of all time: Jon Cryer, Hank Azaria, Kathy Griffin, Jon Favreau\ufeff and Eric McCormack\ufeff to name a few.<\/p>\n

\ufeffMatthew McConaughey \u2013 Titanic<\/p>\n

James Cameron’s Titanic\ufeff held the title of highest grossest film of all time for 12 years, so it was probably one audition you didn’t want to bomb.<\/p>\n

No such luck for Matthew McConaughey, whose time in front of Cameron didn’t go so “alright, alright, alright”.<\/p>\n

\"MatthewIf only Jack was proudly Texan. (Getty)<\/p>\n

In a posthumous memoir, producer Jon Landau said McConaughey was the favourite to play Jack and even did a reading alongside Kate Winslet.<\/p>\n

However, he read the part in his own Texas accent \u2013 and when asked to mix it up, he reportedly told Cameron: “No. That was pretty good. Thanks.”<\/p>\n

“Let’s just say, that was it for McConaughey,” wrote Landau.<\/p>\n

\"LeonardoOf course, Leonardo DiCaprio went on to play Jack Dawson. (Paramount Pictures)<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Fans do double take as Cody Simpson makes surprise acting debut – catch a first look at the feisty series here\ufeff<\/a><\/p>\n

\ufeffJamie Foxx \u2013 Jerry Maguire<\/p>\n

Even celebrities get star struck!\ufeff<\/p>\n

That was the downfall of Jamie Foxx as he auditioned for Cuba Gooding Jr’s role of Rod Tidwell in \ufeffJerry Maguire.<\/p>\n

\"CubaShow me the money! (Sony Pictures Releasing)<\/p>\n

“Imagine you’re from Texas, and you’ve done a little bit of s–t, but you ain’t seen no real f–king stars, right?” Foxx told Howard Stern in 2007.<\/p>\n

Things only went from bad to worse as he mistook Cruise taking a dramatic pause to mean he’d lost his place in the script.<\/p>\n

“So I blew it, but I blew it so bad that he just started laughing at me,” Foxx said.<\/p>\n

Sounds rough, but Foxx got it right in the end as he starred alongside Cruise in 2004’s Collateral.<\/p>\n

He also won an Oscar and had a successful music career, so he’s done just fine. (Parrish Lewis\/Netflix via CNN Newsource)<\/p>\n

READ MORE: 10 iconic Hollywood movies that were almost never made<\/a><\/p>\n

John Travolta \u2013 Forrest Gump\ufeff\ufeff<\/p>\n

Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump\ufeff is as iconic as it gets, but it almost wasn’t to be!<\/p>\n

\"ForrestTom Hanks IS Forrest Gump, but he almost wasn’t. (Paramount Pictures)<\/p>\n

Originally, the role was offered to none other than John Travolta \u2013 yep, director Robert Zemeckis didn’t even require him to audition!<\/p>\n

However, Travolta\ufeff turned down the role to instead work on Quentin Tarantino’s cult classic, Pulp Fiction.<\/p>\n

\"UmaNot a bad trade-off!\ufeff (Getty)<\/p>\n

Hanks went on to win his second Best Actor Oscar\ufeff \u2013 beating Travolta in the category at the 1994 awards.<\/p>\n

Tom Holland \u2013 Star Wars<\/p>\n

Sometimes, co-stars can be a little unconventional.<\/p>\n

That’s often the case in the Star Wars franchise \u2013 and it was the \ufeffreason for Tom Holland’s most disastrous audition as he looked for a role in The Force Awakens.<\/p>\n

\"JohnHolland auditioned for John Boyega role as Finn in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. (Walt Disney Studios)<\/p>\n

“I was like four or five auditions in, and I think I was auditioning for John Boyega’s role. I remember doing this scene with this lady, bless her, and she was just a drone,” Holland recalled to Backstage<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“So I was doing all of this, like, ‘We gotta get back to the ship!’ And she was going, ‘Bleep, bloop bloop, bleep bloop.’ I just couldn’t stop laughing. I found it so funny.”<\/p>\n

\"TomBeep boop bleep bloop bloop. (Getty)\ufeffBritney Spears \u2013 The Notebook<\/p>\n

Crossroads was an iconic film starring Britney Spears (okay, maybe “iconic” is subjective), but to follow it up with The Notebook? Now that’d be one for the books!<\/p>\n

Speaking of, in her memoir Spears said she was \ufeffone of the final two contenders for the role of Allie alongside eventual star Rachel McAdams.<\/p>\n

\"TheIt’s one of the most iconic romance scenes of all time. (New Line Cinema)<\/p>\n

Spears even read alongside Ryan Gosling, who she knew from their years on The All New Mickey Mouse Club, but admitted she was glad to lose out in the end as she struggled to separate herself from an acting job.<\/p>\n

“I ended up walking differently, carrying myself differently, talking differently. I was someone else for months while I filmed Crossroads,” Spears wrote.<\/p>\n

\"BritneyAllie could’ve been ‘Britney B—h’. (Valerie Macon\/AFP\/Getty Images\/File)\ufeffJake Gyllenhaal – The Lord of the Rings<\/p>\n

Jake Gyllenhaal is definitely not the worst actor in the world, but for a moment, Peter Jackson thought he was.<\/p>\n

Gyllenhaal auditioned to play Frodo in Jackson’s epic trilogy but it was doomed from the start.<\/p>\n

\"ElijahElijah Wood as Frodo Baggins in Lord of the Rings. (New Line Cinema)<\/p>\n

“I did a scene with lines and I didn’t have an accent, because everyone has a British accent in that,” Gyllenhaal recalled on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.<\/p>\n

“Literally, [Jackson] turned to me \u2013 he’s like, ‘You are the worst actor that I have ever seen.'”<\/p>\n

\"JakeNot your average hobbit… (Getty)<\/p>\n

Rough!<\/p>\n

READ MORE: 10 of the highest grossing TV shows of all time\ufeff<\/a><\/p>\n

Jennifer Lopez\ufeff \u2013 Evita<\/p>\n

JLo spent weeks preparing \ufeffto audition for the role of Eva Per\u00f3n in Alan Parker’s 1996 film adaptation of Evita.<\/p>\n

But when she actually did it, the director had some bad news.<\/p>\n

“I had been practicing for weeks and I sang my heart out and [Parker] goes, ‘You’re amazing. You know Madonna has the part, right?’ ” she recalled at a Q&A for her 2025 musical Kiss of the Spider-Woman. “I said, ‘Okay, bye-bye. Nice to meet you.'”\ufeff<\/p>\n

\"MadonnaHard to compete with the Queen of Pop. (Buena Vista)<\/p>\n

Turns out that wasn’t the only musical she missed out on either!<\/p>\n

\ufeff”I remember auditioning for Evita, I remember auditioning for Chicago and for Nine \u2014 getting very close on Nine,” she told The Hollywood Reporter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"JenniferJLo finally had her movie musical dreams come true with Kiss of the Spider-Woman in 2025. (Getty)<\/p>\n

FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP HERE<\/a>: Stay across all the latest news from your favourite shows via our WhatsApp channel. No comments, no algorithm and nobody can see your private details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We all know the feeling of rejection \u2013 but not all of us know what it’s like to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-324691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}