10 Unlikely Actors Who Were Almost Cast In Iconic Movie Roles

7. O.J. Simpson - The Terminator (The Terminator)

oj-simpson-as-terminator O.J. Simpson has gone down in history for reasons unrelated to the movies, though he almost made his name as one of the cinema's most famous bad guys: The Terminator. The hilarious reason that James Cameron didn't cast him? "People wouldn't have believed a nice guy like O. J. playing the part of a ruthless killer," he said. That statement rings with irony nowadays, but the studio really did want O.J. to be the Terminator before Cameron met with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Even more bizarrely, perhaps, Cameron first met with Arnie to talk to him about playing the role of Kyle Reese. Upon chatting with Schwarzenegger, though, he suddenly saw his Terminator. O.J. was quickly disregarded as a result, of course, because why have O.J. when you've got Arnold Schwarzenegger? That's not all for weird casting decisions on Terminator, though: producers also originally sought to cast Sting in the role of Kyle Reese. So, yes, this movie almost had Sting being pursued by a murderous O.J. Simpson robot! Something tells me it just might not have been as popular...
 
Posted On: 
Contributor

All-round pop culture obsessive.