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Will Smith reveals the one movie role he regretted turning down

Home> Entertainment> Film

Published 20:00 6 Jun 2024 GMT+1

Will Smith reveals the one movie role he regretted turning down

This is another big 'what if?' moment in film history

Anish Vij

Anish Vij

Will Smith is one of those actors who has seemed to have played every single role you can think of.

From The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to Agent J in Men in Black, and Christopher Gardner in The Pursuit of Happiness, he's played them all.

Despite going on to win a coveted Academy Award (we'll ignore the slap for today), there is one movie Smith regrets turning down.

Before we reveal, or you scroll down, let's see if you can guess first.

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Smith opened up about the situation recently. (Full Send Podcast)
Smith opened up about the situation recently. (Full Send Podcast)

The movie classic came out in 1999 and it starred Keanu Reeves, who played a normal dude one day finding out that he's a superpowered messiah sent to free us from a digital prison.

Yep, as you have probably guessed - Smith missed out on The Wachowskis' The Matrix.

Back in 1998, the casting team were looking for the right man to play Neo.

But Smith claims the way they pitched it to him was not convincing.

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On a recent episode of Full Send Podcast, the veteran actor revealed: "So yeah, I had Neo, so it was going to be me, and Val Kilmer was Morpheus."

However, Smith admits that he wouldn't have been right for the role.

"But it would have been a whole different thing, when you see it, like Keanu was absolutely a perfect Neo," he said.

"I would have been trying to do jokes and stuff like that I think I would have messed it up."

“It was a crazy time in my life,” Smith also said in a 2019 YouTube video on his channel.

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“It was like however I threw the ball, it was going in.

“[The Wachowskis] came in and 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.

“Imagine you could stop in the middle of the jump.

“But then people could see around you 360 while you stopped jumping.”

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It could have worked? (Will Smith/YouTube)
It could have worked? (Will Smith/YouTube)

“I had so much success that I started to taste global blood,” Smith told The Hollywood Reporter in 2016.

“And my focus shifted from my artistry to winning. I wanted to win and be the biggest movie star, and what happened was there was a lag—around Wild Wild West time. I found myself promoting something because I wanted to win versus promoting something because I believed in it.”

Featured Image Credit: Full Send Podcast/Karwai Tang/WireImage

Topics: Film, Will Smith, The Matrix, Keanu Reeves, Entertainment

Anish Vij
Anish Vij

Anish is a Journalist at LADbible Group and is a GG2 Young Journalist of the Year 2025. He has a Master's degree in Multimedia Journalism and a Bachelor's degree in International Business Management. Apart from that, his life revolves around the ‘Four F’s’ - family, friends, football and food. Email: [email protected]

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@Anish_Vij

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