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Her entire life, my cousin has been crazy over Burt Reynolds and still is! He was the man of the moment for pretty much all of the 1970s with movies like Smokey and The Bandit, Deliverance and Boogie Nights. At that part of his career, he could have played any role he wanted and there were a lot being offered to him.
I found an interview he did with TODAY's Al Roker where Burt shared some of the classic roles that he actually turned down. One of them being James Bond as 007! Looking back, he regrets it now. He confessed, "I hate to say that because it lowers my IQ by 50 points."Burt told Roker that he "thought no American could possibly play James Bond." But I didn't [take the roll], and I'm, you know, still working."
In an interview with Business Insider back in 2016 Burt said, "I think I was putting myself down in a way, because I think I could have done it very well. Though once you do something like that and it's successful you're bound to play that part for a long time. I think I would have liked it. I like that kind of tongue-in-cheek humor."
Can you imagine a James Bond movie with Burt Reynolds? When I think about it, I can! Sean Connery is though, my favorite James Bond and then Roger Moore took over the character from 1973 to 1985.
Now the other big kicker for me upon reading about Burt and his career is that he also turned down ANOTHER huge role ... he was offered the role of Han Solo in Star Wars!
Even though he made a few acting choices that may have led his career in yet another direction, it seems that Burt Reynolds has quite much, much success. He's 81 years old and still going strong and that makes my cousin and plenty of other people around the world happy.