Will Smith Turned Down Christopher Nolan’s ‘Inception’ Offer Because ‘I Didn’t Get It’: ‘Movies That Go into Alternate Realities Don’t Pitch Well’

Will Smith shocked fans during a recent interview with radio station Kiss Xtra (via HuffPo) by revealing he turned down the lead role of Christopher Nolan‘s “Inception” because he didn’t understand the plot. Leonardo DiCaprio ended up headlining the cerebral action thriller instead. “Inception” is on a painful list for Smith alongside “The Matrix” and “Django Unchained” of iconic movies he turned down during his career.

“I don’t think I’ve ever said it publicly but I am going to say it because we are opening up to one another,” Smith said. “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.”

Smith’s potential involvement in “Inception” was first revealed by THR several months after Nolan’s blockbuster opened in theaters and went on to gross $839 million at the worldwide box office. Sources revealed at the time that Brad Pitt was actually Nolan’s first choice but he did not commit to the project. Smith was up next, now revealing he didn’t understand the plot. DiCaprio signed on after and ended up with one of his biggest hit movies.

While Smith knows rejecting “Inception” was a career blunder, it wasn’t as painful in retrospect as his decision to turn down Neo in “The Matrix.” The part went to Keanu Reeves, which gave him an iconic action franchise. As Smith said during the radio interview: “It hurts too bad to talk about.”

Smith posted a YouTube video in 2019 explaining why he turned down “The Matrix.” The main reason was because he didn’t connect to the Wachowski siblings’ pitch, which he said was more about their intended directing style and not about the actual story. Smith re-told the pitch as follows: “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 and then people can see the whole jump when you stop in the middle of the jump.”

Then there was “Django Unchained,” which Quentin Tarantino offered to him before ultimately going with Jamie Foxx in the title role. Smith told GQ magazine that he “didn’t want to make a slavery film about vengeance,” so he turned Tarantino down.

“It was about the creative direction of the story,” Smith previously told THR about skipping “Django.” “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 . 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.”