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Rachel McAdams admits she felt guilty turning down some of Hollywood's biggest roles

Home> Film & TV

Published 13:40 19 Apr 2023 GMT+1

Rachel McAdams admits she felt guilty turning down some of Hollywood's biggest roles

Though Rachel McAdams has appeared in Mean Girls and The Notebook, the actor admitted that she declined roles in many other iconic films.

Katherine Sidnell

Katherine Sidnell

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.

Rachel McAdams ended up working with  Robert Downey Jnr on Sherlock Holmes.
Warner Brother
Speaking about her role as Dr Christine Palmer, McAdams revealed that she would like to return to the MCU in the not-too-distant future.

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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.

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.

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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.

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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'."

The 44-year-old has starred in iconic films like Mean Girls and The Notebook.
Paramount Pictures

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.”

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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.”

Featured Image Credit: Alamy/Abaca Press/DreamWorks Pictures

Topics: Film and TV, Celebrity

Katherine Sidnell
Katherine Sidnell

Katherine is an entertainment journalist with a love of all things nerdy. Starting out writing Doctor Who fan fiction as a kid, she has gone on to interview the likes of Matt Damon, James May and Dua Lipa to name a few. Published in The Sun, The Daily Mail and Evening Standard - she now joins Ladbible as resident nerd in chief.

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@ksidnell

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