Will Smith Admits He Passed on Christopher Nolan's INCEPTION Because “I Didn’t Get It”
Will Smith is no stranger to turning down major movie roles, but in a recent interview with Kiss Xtra (via HuffPost), he revealed a surprising addition to that list… Christopher Nolan’s Inception.
Smith confessed that the mind-bending sci-fi thriller just didn’t click for him at the time. He explained:
“Chris Nolan brought me Inception first and I didn’t get it. I’ve never said that out loud. Now that I think about it, it’s those movies that go into those alternate realities… they don’t pitch well. But I am hurt by those, too.”
Leonardo DiCaprio eventually stepped into the lead role and the film went on to become one of Nolan’s biggest box office hits, raking in $839 million globally and earning eight Oscar nominations.
Smith, meanwhile, added Inception to a short but brutal list of projects he regrets turning down, right alongside The Matrix and Django Unchained.
Back in 2019, Smith broke down his reasoning for passing on The Matrix. Smith recalled the Wachowskis pitch, telling him:
“We’re thinking like… imagine you’re in a fight. You, like, jump. Imagine if you could stop jumping in the middle of the jump. But then, people could see around you 360 degrees while you stop jumping. We’re going to invent these cameras… It hurts too bad to talk about.”
Smith obviously has an issue seeing the big vision for these massive projects. It’s so funny that he passed on these films, but then jumped on board a movie like Wild Wild West.
As for Django Unchained, Smith has always maintained that the creative direction just didn’t align with his vision. Though Quentin Tarantino initially approached him for the lead role, which eventually went to Jamie Foxx, Smith previously said:
“I didn’t want to make a slavery film about vengeance. To me, it’s as perfect a story as you could ever want: a guy that learns how to kill to retrieve his wife that has been taken as a slave.
“That idea is perfect. And it was just that Quentin and I couldn’t see [eye to eye]. I wanted to make that movie so badly, but I felt the only way was, it had to be a love story, not a vengeance story.”
In the end, even some of the biggest movie stars can’t see or grasp the vision of smart filmmakers... especially when it’s buried in a dream within a dream within a dream.