10 Actors Who Were Too Scared To Accept Movie Roles

2. Jude Law Was Scared Of The Pressure Of Playing Superman

Sherlock Holmes Jude Law
Warner Bros. Pictures

Getting to play a superhero on the level of Superman or Batman is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and you'd think that most actors would jump at the chance.

Well... some don't.

Just ask Jude Law, who came startlingly close to bagging the title role in 2006's Superman Returns, only to back out at the last minute.

Director Bryan Singer was eager for Law to be his Man of Steel, and he attempted to convince the actor by sending him the costume to try on. But in an odd twist, it was actually the costume that made Law realise he shouldn't accept Singer's offer, with the star realising just how much pressure he'd be putting on his shoulders:

“I take the suit into the bathroom and I’m putting it on and I look around and I look in the mirror and suddenly I’m Superman... then I have this picture of me in that costume in posters all over the world and I was like, ‘No way!’ And I unzipped it. But I was Superman for two minutes, that was enough.”

In addition, Law admitted that he "just didn't fancy" the outfit, and hey, who in their right mind would agree to wear their underpants on top of a skintight suit?

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Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!