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

1989's delirious black comedy Heathers remains one of the most controversial - if brilliant - films of the 1980s, so it's little surprise that many prominent actors turned down roles in it.

One such actress was Heather Graham, who was offered the part of the Heathers' ruthless leader Heather Chandler.

However, with Graham being just 17 years old at the time of production, she required parental approval, and her parents took serious objection to the script's edgier elements, calling the film "offensive" and refusing to let her star in it.

Director Michael Lehmann spoke to EW in 2014 about Graham being forced to turn the role down:

"I really wanted to cast Heather Graham [as Heather Chandler], and her parents wouldn't let her do it. She was 16 or 17. I even talked to Heather's mother at great length to convince her we weren't tools of Satan, and she would have nothing of it. I really tried. I mean, I begged her. Heather's reading was just great. Then the casting director said, 'Well, Kim Walker might be good. She doesn't have a lot of experience, but…'

And indeed, Kim Walker won the part in Graham's place, while Graham was left to lament a project her parents wouldn't let her appear in - one which received rave reviews and still endures as a cult classic almost 35 (!) years later.

Graham wasn't left without work, though, as the very same year she appeared in Gus Van Sant's acclaimed crime drama Drugstore Cowboy.