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Credit: Far Out \/ United Artists<\/p>\n
Fri 16 October 2026 21:45, UK <\/p>\n
Some actors are better criers than others, and there are some, like Steve McQueen<\/a>, who couldn\u2019t cry at all. As a result, he missed out on what would have been the biggest hit of his entire career.<\/p>\n Shedding tears on command isn\u2019t a necessity to reach the top in Hollywood, but it definitely helps. Take Claire Danes, for instance: she\u2019s one of the best blubberers in the business, with four Golden Globes and three Primetime Emmys to her name, and all of those award-winning performances involve her crying face.<\/p>\n Admittedly, movie stars don\u2019t need to start sobbing as much as their thespian counterparts, and a lot of it has to do with their fragile egos preventing them<\/a> from playing characters who show their emotional side. Even if he wanted to, though, McQueen has no idea how to turn on the waterworks.<\/p>\n In general, he didn\u2019t need to. He earned the nickname the \u2018King of Cool\u2019 because he was, in fact, about the coolest cat in cinema at his peak. He was the macho, man\u2019s man embodiment of Americana, which meant that he never found himself drawn to roles that required him to cry anyway.<\/p>\n However, he was also honest, and when he was approached by Tinseltown\u2019s newest wunderkind, Steven Spielberg, to play the leading role in his follow-up to Jaws, the highest-grossing release of all time that completely turned the industry upside down, he knew he was all wrong for Roy Neary<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cSteve said, \u2018I love the script, but I can\u2019t do your movie,’\u201d Spielberg recalled. \u201cAnd I said, \u2018Why not?\u2019 And he said, \u2018Because the character at the end cries, and I\u2019ve never cried in a movie before, and you\u2019ve got to get an actor that will really cry, and not fake it with the glycerin in the eyes.’\u201d<\/p>\n He could have, perhaps, figured out a way to make himself cry as and when the scene required, which is something that many performers learn at the very beginning of their careers to showcase their emotional range, but instead, since he couldn\u2019t do it and didn\u2019t want to try, he simply said no to Close Encounters of the Third Kind.<\/p>\n Further reading: Cutting Room Floor<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018I\u2019ll cut it out!’\u201d Spielberg went on. \u201c\u2018I\u2019ll cut out the scene where he\u2019s crying\u2019. And he said, \u2018Nope. You\u2019ve got to have the integrity to get an actor who will give you everything, and, emotionally, I don\u2019t think I can get there.\u201d With that, he was out of the running, but he wasn\u2019t the only one who rejected the part.<\/p>\n Before Richard Dreyfuss headlined his second consecutive Spielbergian blockbuster, offers were made to Jack Nicholson, Gene Hackman, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, and James Caan, all of whom followed McQueen\u2019s lead<\/a> and said no, although it wasn\u2019t for the crying thing, because everyone\u2019s seen them do it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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