7 Actors Who Rejected Movies For Being Too Evil (And Regretted It)

7. Michelle Pfeiffer - The Silence Of The Lambs

By her own admission, Michelle Pfeiffer is an extremely picky performer and has turned down numerous high-profile hits, from Thelma and Louise to Basic Instinct, Pretty Woman, Sleepless in Seattle, and most shockingly, The Silence of the Lambs.

After working with director Jonathan Demme on his 1988 movie Married to the Mob - which was a major breakout for Pfeiffer - he offered her the lead role of FBI trainee Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs, but she turned it down due to the "evil" in the script. She recently told IndieWire:

"With Silence of the Lambs, I was trepidatious... There was such evil in that film... It was that evil won in the end, that at the end of that film evil ruled out. I was uncomfortable with that ending. I didn't want to put that out into the world."

And so, Pfeiffer passed on a role that instead went to Jodie Foster, who ended up winning the Best Actress Oscar for her sublime performance in the film.

In the same interview, Pfeiffer admitted regret over turning the part down, though it wasn't so much due to missing out on a juicy role that had a strong chance of winning her an Oscar, but because she never got another opportunity to work with Demme, who sadly passed away in 2017:

"The thing I most regret is missing the opportunity to do another film with Jonathan."