10 Actors Who Turned Down Iconic Roles For Stupid Reasons

3. Tim Roth "Wasn't Ready To Be On A Lunchbox" - Severus Snape (Harry Potter)

The Role

The legendarily cold Hogwarts Professor who, despite his earlier animosity towards Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), is ultimately revealed to be one of the saga's unsung heroes.

Before Alan Rickman accepted the part and made it so dryly and wonderfully his own, it was first offered to Tim Roth.

Why He Turned It Down

Roth, who steered clear of franchise fare and clung pretty aggressively to low-key indie dramas throughout most of the 1990s, wasn't prepared for the commitment required of a large-scale, multi-film production that ultimately spanned almost a decade.

Roth elaborated, "If I had done it, everything would have changed. That's the nature of the randomness of life. It would have been nice to have a 7 year gig, that's a nice and comforting space to be in. But no, I think the better man for the job did the job."

In a more recent interview, he perhaps put it best, "I wasn’t ready to be on a lunch box, I really wasn’t."

Ironically, Roth turned down a colossal payday in order to appear in Tim Burton's much-maligned Planet of the Apes reboot instead, where any franchise potential was quickly stamped out due to critical disdain and Fox's dissatisfaction with the end result.

As much as Roth seems like an actor whose primary motivation isn't money, it goes without saying that he walked away from the most lucrative gig of his career here.

Rickman nailed it beyond any fan's expectation, of course, but it's easy to imagine Roth giving his own remarkable rendition also.