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Real ones have been in love with Noah Wyle<\/strong> since his early days on the ’90s beloved NBC medical drama ER as Dr. John Carter<\/strong>. While Wyle<\/strong> has been “back” in ER with his second starring role in the medical drama The Pitt, that doesn’t mean he hasn’t had opportunities to widen his range.<\/p>\n On a podcast recently, he revealed he had to turn down some pretty iconic roles, including Good Night, and Good Luck as well as what was sure to be an incredible performance in Saving Private Ryan.<\/p>\n The film, which won 5 Academy Awards out of 11 nominations, plus a boatload of other notable accolades, was a huge opportunity to miss, but one Wyle<\/strong> doesn’t necessarily “regret” or hold any grudges over.<\/p>\n \u201cI’m almost glad that I didn’t do them because those guys made those parts,” Wyle<\/strong> explained to the Still Here Hollywood podcast. “I got offered the part of ‘[Corporal] Upham,’ which was Jeremy Davies\u2019<\/strong> part. And he was so phenomenal in that, I couldn’t imagine doing anything close to what he did.\u201d<\/p>\n Wyle<\/strong> went on to say that he also was offered the role of Private Ryan<\/strong>, played by Matt Damon<\/strong>, but his ER obligations kept him out of the running.<\/p>\n Related: Noah Wyle Wins First Emmy After 26-Year Nomination Drought<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Wyle’s<\/strong> story is a fairly common one across Hollywood. In fact, some of the most notable silver screen names have had to reject a really incredible role or two.<\/p>\n Will Smith<\/strong> cited scheduling<\/a> and the story\u2019s concept as too \u201cweird\u201d at the time as the reason for passing up The Matrix. Instead, he took on Wild Wild West, a move People reported he claims to regret.<\/p>\n John Travolta<\/strong>was busy <\/a>with Pulp Fiction, so he had to turn down the iconic role of Forrest Gump<\/strong>, which Tom Hanks<\/strong> ultimately took on and turned into an Oscar-worthy performance.<\/p>\n Sean Connery<\/strong>could have been <\/a>the one screaming “You shall not pass” as Gandalf<\/strong> in The Lord of the Rings, but reportedly turned down the role because he didn\u2019t understand the script. Ian McKellen<\/strong> ended up turning it into a legendary and beloved performance.<\/p>\n George Lucas<\/strong>almost didn’t cast <\/a>Harrison Ford<\/strong> as Han Solo<\/strong> in Star Wars due to a self-imposed rule of not casting anyone he’d worked with before. The two had worked together on American Graffiti. Ford<\/strong>, still relatively unknown, was also working as a carpenter in Francis Ford Coppola’s<\/strong> offices when Lucas<\/strong> and Richard Dreyfuss<\/strong> walked in and began the interviews for the role. They asked Ford<\/strong> to read lines for them as a favor, but ultimately ended up casting him anyway.<\/p>\n As they say: That’s showbiz, baby!<\/p>\n \ud83c\udfac\u00a0<\/strong>SIGN UP for Parade\u2019s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\ud83c\udfac<\/strong><\/p>\n This story was originally reported by Parade<\/a> on Sep 20, 2025, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Real ones have been in love with Noah Wyle since his early days on the ’90s beloved NBC medical drama ER as Dr. John Carter. While Wyle has been “back” in ER with his second starring role in the medical drama The Pitt, that doesn’t mean he hasn’t had opportunities to widen his range. On […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2038646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[371926,50575,321599,376866],"class_list":["post-2038645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-dr-john-carter","tag-francis-ford-coppola","tag-noah-wyle","tag-saving-private-ryan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/The-Pitt-Star-Noah-Wyle-Reveals-Major-Hit-Movie-Role.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2038645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2038645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2038645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2038646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2038645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2038645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2038645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Other Iconic Actors Who Turned Down Equally Iconic Roles<\/h2>\n