17 Times Actors Were Like, "I Am NEVER Playing This Role Again!" And — You Guessed It — Ended Up Playing The Role Again
1.Orlando Bloom said back in 2010 that he was done playing Will Turner in the Pirates of the Caribbean series — one of his most iconic roles — and that he definitely wouldn't be in the fourth film. He emphasized that while he had a great time making the films, he wanted to "do different things."
Except, of course, Bloom did return as Turner, in the fifth film: 2017's Dead Men Tell No Tales.
2.Keira Knightley did the exact same thing. She told BBC Radio in 2014 that she would not return as Elizabeth Swann: "My time has definitely passed. I loved it, it was an amazing experience, but I won't be going back."
But then she, too, was back for Dead Men Tell No Tales, after "the audience demanded it" — though she appeared only briefly.
3.Joseph Morgan played fan-favorite villain Klaus Mikaelson on The Vampire Diaries before pivoting to be one of the leads of The Originals, which ran for five seasons. When asked if he'd appear in the spinoff Legacies (which starred his character's daughter), he said, “No, never, never. You’re never going to see it," he told TV Guide.
"You can hold your breath as long as you want. You know why? I have The Originals box set on my shelf, and it's a beautiful thing because it's five DVD sets that are a complete story from beginning to end of this guy, Klaus Michaelson — well, starting back in The Vampire Diaries Season 2," he continued.
"I just feel like to come back as a ghost or a flashback or something, for me, that journey, that story, has ended. That's the complete story, and it just doesn't feel right to me to do that," he added. Well, joke's on all of us, because Morgan showed up as Klaus in the Legacies series finale this year.
"I’ve been asked again and again to make an appearance on Legacies, and it never felt right … until now," Morgan said on Instagram before the finale.
4.Similarly, Emily Bett Rickards left Arrow (and other Arrow spinoffs) after Season 6. When asked if she'd like to return to the show in its last season in any capacity, Rickards said, "I feel like Felicity has done her time."
"We knew this was coming for a while — for over a year — so the whole thing is exactly what we wanted to happen. I trust the writers, and that’s in their hands," she said of leaving the show.
She did, however, end up returning for the series finale to mourn Oliver — and then reunite with him in the afterlife.
5.One of Harrison Ford's most iconic characters was Han Solo in the Star Wars trilogy. While promoting the third film, however, he seemed to be pretty relieved to be done. "Three is enough for me. I was glad to see that costume for the last time," he said. He has also revealed that he wanted Han to be killed off in the third film.
He returned in 2015's The Force Awakens because of “a really good script, the opportunity to work with J.J. [Abrams], who [he's] admired, and it just seemed like a good idea,” he told Entertainment Weekly. Notably, his character was killed off in the film. He later told GQ, "I'm finished with Star Wars if Star Wars is finished with me,” and said that he'd "rather not" reprise the role. “You know, at this point I'd rather do something else. Just because it's more interesting to do something new.”
However, Harrison returned AGAIN as Solo in The Rise of Skywalker. It was rumored he'd return (de-aged) in The Book of Boba Fett as well, but it never came to be.
6.Ewan McGregor also returned to Star Wars after a longtime denial that he ever would. He recently said in an interview that if you had asked him in 2003 about reprising his character Obi-Wan Kenobi, he "most definitely" would've said no.
Obviously, though, in 2022 he did reprise the role in the series Obi-Wan Kenobi. And he's not done — he wants a Season 2 of the miniseries.
McGregor said that a big reason for his return was that he realized the prequel series actually did have a lot of fans, even though critics disliked the trilogy. He also began to think about there being a story to tell to describe how his Obi-Wan became Alec Guinness's version of the character.
7.Daniel Craig rather infamously said after Spectre that he was done playing iconic character James Bond. When asked if he could imagine doing another Bond film, Craig replied, "Now? I’d rather break this glass and slash my wrists. No, not at the moment. Not at all. That’s fine. I’m over it at the moment. We’re done. All I want to do is move on."
He said if he did do another film, it'd only be for the money...and apparently the money was good, because he would go on to appear as Bond one more time in No Time to Die. Ahead of the film's release, Craig expressed regret for his earlier comments, saying he was joking and was also unsure if he'd even be able to do another film, having just finished filming Spectre with a broken leg and heading toward his 50s.
8.Fans were surprised after the character of Spider-Man/Peter Parker was recast for the third time in nine years*, especially considering it had only been two years since Andrew Garfield last played the character.
*Spider-Man 3 with Tobey Maguire came out in 2007; Captain America: Civil War, which featured Tom Holland's first appearance as Spider-Man, was almost exactly nine years later.
But leading up to the third film with Holland as Spider-Man, fans began to speculate if Garfield and Maguire might have appearances in the film, which was set to be about villains from their movie sagas ending up in the MCU.
However, Garfield — and Maguire, but mostly Garfield — vehemently denied these rumors for over a year, saying he wouldn't return as the character. "No, I...listen, I'm not in the film," Garfield told the Today show. "I love Spider-Man; I always have. I was so happy to have played the part, and I'm so excited to see what they do with the third one." But this all turned out to be lies, because Garfield — along with Maguire — was in the film after all!
This example is kind of fun because Sony/Disney/Marvel very obviously asked Garfield to lie — most of the other examples are times the stars just changed their minds.
9.Chadwick Boseman similarly lied about his involvement in Avengers: Endgame, essentially telling a reporter that he wasn't in the films because his character had died.
However, Boseman was obviously in Endgame, returning with the other characters who had been snapped out of existence in Infinity War.
10.We've got another superhero example for you! Jennifer Lawrence said she was done playing Mystique after X-Men: Apocalypse, confirming it would be her last X-Men film.
However...she ended up appearing in Dark Phoenix a few years later. Director Simon Kinberg said that she only came back because he was directing, and that she'd approached him saying she would not return otherwise.
Apparently, it was a mutual agreement where Lawrence wanted Kinberg to direct, and he wanted her to act in the film, so they agreed to each other's request.
11.Steve Carell memorably starred as Michael Scott in The Office for seven seasons, but he left the series after his contract ended. When the show ended two years later, Carell said he wouldn't be returning for the finale season or the finale. “I just didn’t think it was right for the character, because that character had had an arc within the story and kind of grew and sort of evolved past the idea of the documentary,” he said while promoting a film at Sundance.
He added, "Do you really think that people want to see Michael Scott again? I think the people who say they want to see Michael Scott reappear would be ultimately slightly disappointed," and said that it would be better to "imagine where Michael and Holly are at this point than actually see it."
He also said, "It's like, once you graduate from college, you don't want to be that guy two years out who's sleeping on the dorm floor." However, he ended up making a short appearance at Dwight's wedding in the series finale. In fact, it was the wedding that convinced Carell to return.
Carell didn't want the finale to be about him, but felt it was appropriate for his character to return to support Dwight.
12.Michael Keaton famously played Batman/Bruce Wayne in both Batman and Batman Returns in the late '80s/early '90s, but he ended up dropping out of continuing to play Bruce in a third film, saying, "I just can't do it" and that he'd "blow [his] brains out" if he did another Batman film.
After Tim Burton directed the first two films, Joel Schumacher was brought in to direct Batman Forever. However, Keaton said that he and Schumacher clashed over the story, as he saw it as a story about Bruce Wayne and Schumacher saw it as a story about Batman.
Keaton was done playing Bruce/Batman for decades, during which time, multiple other actors took on the role. However, he's now set to return as his version of Batman in The Flash. "It took a long time," he acknowledged about being convinced to come back. "I’m not just gonna say I’ll do it. It has to be good. And there has to be a reason.”
13.Ben Affleck also said in 2019 that he was done playing Batman after Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League*. He said that he'd tried to write a solo film, but he "couldn't crack it" and it was time to "let someone else take a shot at it." Robert Pattinson ended up taking on the role in The Batman.
*And also in the post-credits scene of Suicide Squad.
However, Affleck is also set to return as his version of Batman in The Flash — in fact, he calls it his best work as the character.
Affleck agreed to join the film in 2020, a year after he'd said he was done.
14.Sylvester Stallone has said multiple times that he's done playing Rocky. For example, after Rocky IV, Stallone said, "Oh, this is it for Rocky. Because I don’t know where you go after you battle Russia. You know what I mean? You have that clash of ideologies and you take on supposedly the greatest fighting machine ever built — a biochemically produced Soviet fighter. Where do you go after that?"
"Everything subsequent is anticlimactic. And I don’t think I can do any better," he finished.
However, he returned for the critically panned Rocky V and for Rocky Balboa, and then for the Creed film series starring Michael B. Jordan — though he says he's now done with that, too.
15.Stallone also said in 2016 that he was retiring from the role of Rambo, suggesting he was too old to play the character. “The heart’s willing, but the body says, ‘Stay home!’” he joked, saying he was satisfied with where the fourth film left the character.
"There’s nothing left. When they asked me to do another Rambo, I said, ‘If I can’t do better than I did last time, and I can’t, then why?’” he added.
But a fifth film, which had long been planned and just never seemed to pan out, ended up going ahead, with the then–72-year-old reprising his role in 2019's Rambo: Last Blood.
16.Keanu Reeves told agents for years that he wasn't interested in making another Matrix film, despite interest from Warner Bros. — especially considering that his character, Neo, had died at the end of the third film.
However, when director Lana Wachowski approached him and suggested a way to bring him back for The Matrix Resurrections, he was in — but only because of her involvement (Wachowski and her sister Lilly had created the saga).
17.And finally, Snooki (Nicole Polizzi) said she was retiring from Jersey Shore: Family Vacation in 2019. “I am not coming back for Jersey Shore Season 4, if there is one. The main reason is I just can’t do it anymore. Literally, leaving my kids to film it is really hard on me. I try and quit every single day. I just hate being away from the kids."
However, not only did Snooki return in Season 4 (albeit briefly), but she also became a main cast member again in Season 5.
Initially, she went back because she wanted to return for certain events on the show, like a party celebrating Mike Sorrentino's sobriety, and then decided she was willing to return to the show as long as she wouldn't spend more than three days apart from her kids at a time.
