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Credit: Far Out \/ Amblin Entertainment \/ Alamy<\/p>\n
Fri 17 July 2026 21:30, UK <\/p>\n
In 99% of cases, there\u2019s barely an actor alive who\u2019d turn down Steven Spielberg when he comes knocking to offer them a role. That still leaves the other percentile, though, which saw one star reject Saving Private Ryan<\/a> in favour of working with Marlon Brando instead.<\/p>\n It was Sophie\u2019s Choice moment, and one they didn\u2019t regret, with good reason. After all, this was late-1990s Brando we\u2019re talking about, with the legendary star approaching the tail-end of a seismic career, and it was basically a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, since the film ended up as Brando\u2019s penultimate credit.<\/p>\n On the other hand, Saving Private Ryan is a modern masterpiece<\/a>, an undisputed classic, and one of Spielberg\u2019s finest hours behind the camera, and it absolutely should have won \u2018Best Picture\u2019 over Shakespeare in Love, with its visceral combat and gut-punching character work turning it into one of the greatest war movies ever made and the highest-grossing World War II flick ever made.<\/p>\n Then again, Brando is Brando. There\u2019s a high chance that he\u2019s your favourite actor\u2019s favourite actor, and while director Yves Simoneau\u2019s 1998 caper Free Money wasn\u2019t very good, as was the case with most things the method man made after Apocalypse Now, Thomas Haden Church regrets nothing.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the exact same time I was offered the lead in Free Money with Charlie Sheen and Marlon Brando, I was offered a role in Saving Private Ryan,\u201d he shared. \u201cAnd I chose to march off to Canada to work with Marlon Brando.\u201d Years later, he ran into Spielberg, and there were no hard feelings between the two.<\/p>\n In fact, the filmmaker even told Church, \u201cYou know what, if I had a choice between me and him, I would choose him.\u201d The actor\u2019s agent didn\u2019t feel the same way, openly questioning his client\u2019s decision to knock back a sure-fire critical and commercial hit<\/a> in favour of a breezy comedy that was almost certain to fall well short of expectations at the box office, which it did.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd he was right!\u201d Church acknowledged. \u201cBut the experience working with Marlon in his penultimate performance was irreplaceable. And I spent ten, 12 weeks with him in Quebec, and it was a remarkable experience, and I wouldn\u2019t trade it for any credit on my r\u00e9sum\u00e9.\u201d<\/p>\n Further reading: Cutting Room Floor<\/p>\n As for which part he could have played? Church revealed years later that he\u2019d \u201cscreen-tested for Tom Sizemore\u2019s role in Saving Private Ryan,\u201d but he didn\u2019t confirm whether or not he\u2019d been offered that part or another one. Either way, he also added that he \u201cwanted to do that movie bad,\u201d but when the opportunity arose to work with Brando, it was impossible to say no.<\/p>\n Saving Private Ryan was more of an ensemble piece anyway, with the exception of Tom Hanks, and as great as the picture turned out to be, and as poor as Free Money was by comparison<\/a>, he\u2019ll always believe that he made the right decision.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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