Rachel McAdams admits she felt guilty turning down some of Hollywood's biggest roles
Topics: Film and TV, Celebrity
Katherine Sidnell
Featured Image Credit: Alamy/Abaca Press/DreamWorks Pictures
Topics: Film and TV, Celebrity
Rachel McAdams has admitted her regret over turning down roles in some major Hollywood films.
The Mean Girls actor stepped away from the industry for two years after a photoshoot made her question what her boundaries were.
Despite knowing it was what she needed at the time, McAdams still feels guilty about not ‘capitalising on the opportunity’ she was given.
However, it seems to have worked out for the 44-year-old actor who has since starred in films like Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Strange.
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Having already returned for Multiverse of Madness and the animated series What If…, she told Variety: "I mean, it's a great gig. So I wouldn't be sad to keep going with it."
She continued: "It's a fun part. And I liked that she's gone in different directions now. And now that the multiverse is open, you know, anything could happen. The world's your oyster."
However, this wasn’t her first opportunity to be in a Marvel film as she actually turned down a role in 2008’s Iron Man.
For Bustle’s photo shoot, April cover star #RachelMcAdams requested the images be edited as *minimally* as possible.
— Bustle (@bustle) April 18, 2023
“I love that juxtaposition of beauty, glam, fantasy, and then truth.”https://t.co/cyBc43l3kW pic.twitter.com/Nqao17Sima
Though she’d spent over a decade in Hollywood by that point, McAdams still felt she was being pushed to do things she was uncomfortable with - due to industry pressure.
This culminated in her walking off a Vanity Fair shoot in 2006 after seeing other A-listers agreeing to pose nude, which McAdams was hesitant to do.
Walking away from the shoot and the industry, The Notebook actor had a two-year hiatus, during which she stopped acting and moved back to Canada to be with her family.
It was during this time that she also refused parts in Casino Royale as well as the iconic rom-com The Devil Wears Prada and spy-spoof Get Smart.
McAdams even chose not to accept a mission with Tom Cruise, after execs asked about her starring in Mission Impossible: III.
Speaking about this time in her life, she told Bustle in her latest exclusive interview: “There’s certainly things like ‘I wish I’d done that…. [but] I step back and go, ‘That was the right person for that'."
Despite protecting her mental health, McAdams still wondered if she’d made a mistake and felt intensely guilty.
She admitted: “I felt guilty for not capitalizing on the opportunity that I was being given, because I knew I was in such a lucky spot. But I also knew it wasn't quite jiving with my personality and what I needed to stay sane.”
However, the actor is now at peace with her decision and revealed that she should have more faith in her younger self.
“There were definitely some anxious moments of wondering if I was just throwing it all away, and why was I doing that?” she told the publication, adding: “It’s taken years to understand what I intuitively was doing.”