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13 hours ago
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Will Smith Rejected Nolan's ‘Inception' Because He Didn't Get the Plot
The next time Will Smith gets offered an alternate reality sci-fi thriller, he should seriously consider just saying, 'Yes!' First, the actor admitted he turned down The Matrix, which cast Keanu Reeves instead. More from The Hollywood Reporter Box Office: John Wick Spinoff 'Ballerina' Opens to Sluggish $25 Million, 'Lilo & Stitch' Rules With $32.5 Million 'Ballerina' Director Len Wiseman Talks Scrapped 'John Wick 3' Connections and the Truth About Additional Photography 'John Wick' Boss Chad Stahelski Gets Candid About Franchise: "My Process Is F***ed" Now Smith confirms he also turned down the lead role Christopher Nolan's Inception, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio. 'I don't think I've ever said it publicly before, but I am going to say it now because we are opening up to one another,' Smith told the radio station KISS XTRA, with a fair amount of good humor. 'Chris Nolan brought me Inception first and I didn't get it. I've never said that out loud. Now that I think about it, it's those movies that go into those alternate realities they don't pitch well. But I am hurt by those, too … It hurts too bad to talk about.' The Independence Day star turning down 1999's The Matrix is actually pretty understandable, as writers-directors The Wachowskis were still an unknown quantity at the time. Rejecting 2010's Inception when Nolan was coming off his blockbuster masterpiece The Dark Knight, however, seems like a more baffling move. Yet he wasn't the only A-list actor to pass on the role — likely due to Nolan's high-pressure casting strategy. In Inception, the lead character plants ideas in people's dreams as a novel form of corporate espionage. As The Hollywood Reporter revealed at the time, Nolan first offered the twisty script to Brad Pitt but demanded the actor accept within 48 hours. When Pitt didn't commit, Nolan went to Smith. When Smith didn't accept, Nolan sent it to DiCaprio, who took it. 'It's never couched as, 'Hey, I'm more important than you, therefore just say yes,'' said an executive, noting big stars 'are used to having people wait a year or more' before they commit and 'usually don't have to board a moving train.' Inception went on to gross more than $800 million at the global box office. Needless to say, nowadays the Oscar-winning director can probably get top actors to sign onto a project even without showing them a script. As for The Matrix, Smith has candidly detailed the pitch meeting for that project and recently did a music video for 'Beautiful Scars' where Smith played a parody version of Neo. 'I'm not proud of it, but it's the truth, all right, I did turn down Neo in The Matrix,' Smith said in a YouTube video posted five years ago. 'After we made Men in Black, the Wachowskis came in and they'd only done one movie. They did a movie called Bound. And then they made a pitch for The Matrix. And as it turns out, they're geniuses, but there's a fine line in a pitch meeting between genius and what I experienced in the meeting. So this is the actual pitch that they made for The Matrix …' At this point in the video, Smith humorously enacted a meeting where the Wachowskis enthuse confusingly about various wild action moves the character would be doing, but didn't discuss the film's plot or character ('And then we'll put in 50 cameras, and you'll see the whole jump while you stop in the middle of the jump …'). 'So I made Wild Wild West [instead],' Smith admitted, referring to his notorious 1999 sci-fi flop. Having said that, Smith added, 'Keanu was perfect. Laurence Fishburne was perfect. If I had done it, because I'm Black, [Fishburne's character] Morpheus wouldn't have been Black because they were looking at Val Kilmer [for] Morpheus. So I probably would have messed The Matrix up. I would have ruined it. I did y'all a favor.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter 13 of Tom Cruise's Most Jaw-Dropping Stunts Hollywood Stars Who Are One Award Away From an EGOT 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now
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a day ago
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After turning down Keanu Reeves' The Matrix, Will Smith admits rejecting Leonardo DiCaprio-Christopher Nolan's Inception: 'I am hurt by those...'
After admitting that he rejected The Matrix, which later featured Keanu Reeves, the Bad Boys: Ride or Die star revealed that he turned down Christopher Nolan's mind-bending sci-fi, Inception which went finally to Leonardo DiCaprio read more Academy Award winner Will Smith has been giving shocking revelations regarding her filmography, which has stunned his fans. After admitting that he rejected The Matrix, which later featured Keanu Reeves, the Bad Boys: Ride or Die star revealed that he turned down Christopher Nolan's mind-bending sci-fi, Inception which went finally to Leonardo DiCaprio. 'I don't think I've ever said it publicly but I am going to say it because we are opening up to one another,' Smith said in an interview with radio station Kiss Xtra. 'Chris Nolan brought me Inception first and I didn't get it. I've never said that out loud. Now that I think about it, it's those movies that go into those alternate realities… they don't pitch well. But I am hurt by those, too,' he added. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The 2010 blockbuster earned $839 million worldwide and is considered to be one of the finest movies in the history of World cinema. It also featured Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Elliot Page, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Dileep Rao, and Michael Caine. The actor admitted that the one role, which he still regrets turning down is Neo from The Matrix, which turned out to be one of the biggest franchises and made Keanu Reeves a humongous star. 'It hurts too bad to talk about,' Smith said. Directed by The Wachowskis, The Matrix also featured Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantoliano in prominent roles. On the professional front, Will Smith was last seen in Bad Boys: Ride or Die . Directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, the movie also featured Martin Lawrence, Tasha Smith, Joe Pantoliano, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Paola Núñez, Jacob Scipio, John Salley and DJ Khaled in prominent roles. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
