![\"Kurt](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Randy-Miller-Kurt-Russell-Quentin-Tarantino-Once-Upon-a-Time-in-Hollywood-2019-Far-Out-Magazine-f-11.jpeg\")
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Credit: Far Out \/ Sony Pictures Releasing \/ YouTube Still<\/p>\n
With an actor for a father, a dancer for a mother, and with his formative years spent as one of Walt Disney\u2019s go-to child stars, it was only natural that Kurt Russell<\/a> wanted to be\u2026 a baseball player.<\/p>\n In the 1970s, with dozens of film and television credits to his name already, Russell had no inclination to commit his long-term future to the screen, so he decided to try his luck on the diamond instead. He wasn\u2019t bad, either, but after suffering a serious shoulder injury, his dream was left in tatters.<\/p>\n That placed him in a tricky spot. Baseball hadn\u2019t worked out, and now that he was in his early 20s, he was approaching a pivotal moment in his life. He was no longer the Disney kid<\/a>, but he still wasn\u2019t 100% invested in his acting career, making the latter years of the decade a make-or-break period on all fronts.<\/p>\n Little did he realise it at the time, as few others did, but turning down the chance<\/a> to play one of the two male leads in George Lucas\u2019 Star Wars in favour of a TV series that was axed before its first season had even finished airing was a sliding doors moment, but salvation was lurking just around the next corner.<\/p>\n Despite keeping himself relatively busy on the small screen, Russell didn\u2019t appear in a feature film between 1975 and 1980. In danger of going out of fashion, he bet it all on what might have been the most daunting role available to any actor at the time: the recently deceased Elvis Presley.<\/p>\n \u2018The King\u2019 passed away in August 1977, and in August 1978, John Carpenter\u2019s made-for-television film, Elvis, started shooting. \u201cWhat are you thinking of? Playing Elvis? Do you think you can play Elvis?\u201d he remembers being asked at the time, and it was a question he\u2019d already posed to himself.<\/p>\n That didn\u2019t mean he was confident that he could pull it off, though, but with few better options on the table, he placed all of his eggs into a single, rhinestone-studded basket. \u201cI know one thing, there\u2019s no in between,\u201d he acknowledged before its premiere. \u201cIt\u2019s either going to be really great, or really horrible; just stinking.\u201d<\/p>\n Either way, it was an opportunity he couldn\u2019t pass up, with Russell knowing that if he didn\u2019t suck as Elvis, then new doors would open up. \u201cI have waited 17 years to take this big chance,\u201d he pointed out. \u201cAnd I thought about it for ten minutes.\u201d Mind made up, he embodied \u2018The King\u2019, and it was far from horrible.<\/p>\n The comeback kid was rewarded with a Primetime Emmy nomination for \u2018Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or a Special\u2019, and the following year, he ended his five-year sabbatical from cinema in Robert Zemeckis\u2019 Used Cars, igniting his career\u2019s second act. All that, and he met that Carpenter fella<\/a>, too.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Sony Pictures Releasing \/ YouTube Still With an actor for a father, a dancer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,51226,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-564946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-kurt-russell","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}