10 Actors Who Stupidly Turned Down Iconic Roles

8. Matt Damon - The Dark Knight

The Role: Harvey Dent When interviewing for the release of Invictus with MTV News, Damon apparently confirmed that he had been forced to turn down the opportunity to play Harvey Dent in Chris Nolan's The Dark Knight, thanks to a scheduling conflict, which meant he never actually got to sit down with the director to discuss the role:

"I couldn't €” there was aschedulingthing," Damon replied. "I never spoke to Chris Nolan. I'm a big Chris Nolan fan, but I never spoke to him. Look, Aaron is a great actor, so the movie didn't suffer for it."

To his credit, Damon isn't bitter:

"Look, Aaron is a great actor, so the movie didn't suffer for it. Every now and then you get one and you can't do it."

He probably didn't need the career boost, but Damon could probably have enjoyed a huge boost in his profile had he been able to take the gig, and it would have been great to see the actor playing a darker role when the film took the character in the dark direction for the climax.