10 Actors Who Turned Down Iconic Roles For Stupid Reasons
1. Ralph Macchio Thought It Was About "A Kid, A Car & Plutonium Pills" - Marty McFly (Back To The Future)
The Role
The effortlessly charming teenage protagonist who ends up traveling back in time from 1985 to 1955, where he crosses paths with his own parents (Crispin Glover and Lea Thompson) and risks erasing himself from existence.
Though Michael J. Fox was always the first choice to play Marty, scheduling conflicts with Fox's TV show Family Ties initially prevented him from being cast.
Robert Zemeckis consequently settled on Eric Stoltz to be his replacement - who lasted just four weeks before being replaced with a now-available Fox - but the part was first offered to The Karate Kid's Ralph Macchio, who promptly said no.
Why He Turned It Down
This one really takes the cake. Macchio turned the part down after apparently misunderstanding the film's pitch and believing it to be nothing more than "a kid, a car and plutonium pills."
We're going to assume Macchio either didn't get a script before being offered the part or only bothered to read a few pages, because that's...quite the off-base assumption right there.
Needless to say, Macchio never managed to replicate the career success of The Karate Kid ever again, though he's had a neat little comeback recently with the TV continuation Cobra Kai, while post-Back to the Future Fox became a mega-star in both movies and TV.
Yeah, there's no living that one down.