Acting is a tough profession. Sure, those who enter the field aren’t exactly digging ditches for a living, but they also are usually without steady jobs and even if they do hit what most of us would consider the big time and end up starring in, say, films on the 2026 movie schedule or new TV premieres, there’s always the pressure of choosing the right projects for their future career hopes. In fact, history has shown that lots of actors have left gigs in movies or shows that went on to become long-running franchises, and fans have been calling out the ones who “stupidly” left eventually beloved parts.
Actors Fans Are Calling Out For Leaving Hit Franchises
Obviously, whether an actor is well-established or new to the business, they’re going to have thoughts about how they like to work, their particular talents, and how those things should coincide with the projects they appear in. Sometimes, this means saying no when offered a part, or deciding not to return to a role for future movies or seasons of a television show.
Well, fans are now taking to Reddit to throw some shade at the actors and actresses who, seemingly, had it made, but turned down or left what went on to become major franchises. The question posed to those in the AskReddit group was, “What actor or actress stupidly left a movie franchise or tv series thinking they were too good for it, only to be never popular again?” And, man, people had a lot of answers:
- Ja Rule was offered $500,000 to reprise his role as Edwin in 2 Fast 2 Furious but turned it down.
- The original actor for the Mountain in GoT left to be the lead Orc in the Hobbit trilogy, then they replaced him last minute with a shitty CGI character
- Mike Butters was originally going to play Jigsaw in Saw, but turned it down because the role was too small. He was then cast to be the first victim, Paul Leahy, with an accumulative screentime of 10 seconds in the first film.
- Stuart Townsend was originally cast as Aragorn in LOTR. He didn't want to play nice with the cast and refused to learn how to ride horses and train with sword, etc. They fired him and replaced him with Viggo Mortensen, and the rest is history.
From what I can see, all of these tales are basically true. Ja Rule did turn down the chance to reprise his role, but when he spoke with 7PM in Brooklyn with Carmelo Anthony last year, he said that there was a period of time where The Fast and the Furious sequel was in flux, because both the director of that original and Vin Diesel had stepped away. During that time, the rapper set up a tour which was set to make him $14 million, and that’s why he turned down 2 Fast.
As for Stuart Townsend’s part in Lord of the Rings, he was fired, with most reports noting that Peter Jackson simply decided late in the pre-production process that he looked too young for Aragorn. Sean Astin had a very different take in his autobiography (via SlashFilm), where he said that while he and his family liked Townsend, he clearly had a lot of trouble figuring out what he needed to do in the all-important role, and ended up as “a black hole of negative creative energy.”
There is one more tale of an actor turning things down, which might be one of my favorites just for the wild ripple effect it had, and it involves the legendary original star of the James Bond movies, the late Sean Connery. Look at this exchange between Redditors:
- I remember hearing that Sean Connery had been the first choice for Gandalf, but he turned down the role because he didn’t understand it.
- You're half right. It's true that Connery had that reaction to the script for Lord of the Rings. But it was not understanding the script to The Matrix (he was offered Morpheus) and then seeing how successful it was that made him think, ‘Okay, I clearly don't know what's successful anymore, I'll just say yes to things I don't understand,’ and then he signed onto League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. And then when nobody liked that film, he said, ‘Okay, I clearly don't understand this industry anymore,’ and he retired.
Yes, Connery turned down Gandalf in LOTR, but he did the same with Morpheus/the Architect (some reports note he was offered both). While that might seem bad enough, his confusion over what might actually become successful led him to sign on for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which was a huge flop and also reportedly not great to film (he eventually said he hated the movie), so he retired afterward.
There is no shortage of actors who’ve left franchise roles, and whether we understand the reasons or not, sometimes it’s for the best.