Madonna Turned Down A Role In One Of Hollywood’s Biggest Franchises

Madonna regrets turning this one done.

By Faith McKay | Updated

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Watching late night television interviews with Madonna is always interesting. She takes a lot of pleasure in making the hosts uncomfortable and is likely to say whatever she wants to, which often leads to her dropping surprising information out of nowhere. During a recent interview with Jimmy Fallon, he attempted to end the interview with a round of rumors he’d found online, which the singer and actress could then confirm or deny. He found out that Madonna was fired from her first job at Dunkin’ Donuts for playing with the jelly squirter. He found out that the studio didn’t believe Vogue would become a major hit and wanted to make it a B-side track. And then, when asking Madonna about movie roles she turned down, he got a lot more than he was fishing for. Specifically, some surprising news about what could have been for The Matrix.

As it turns out, according to Madonna, there were two big roles she regrets turning down. She was originally offered Michelle Pfeiffer’s role as Catwoman in Batman Returns opposite Michael Keaton’s Batman. While a lot of successful and famous people insist that they have no regrets in their career, she did say that she regretted turning that movie down. That wasn’t it, though. While Jimmy Fallon didn’t ask about it, Madonna also added that she’d turned down a role in The Matrix. She appeared to have deep regrets about that one in particular. She said:

I also turned down the role in The Matrix. Can you believe that? I wanted to kill myself. That’s like one of the best movies ever made. A teeny-tiny part of me regrets just that one moment in my life.

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Jimmy Fallon jumped into comforting Madonna. He told her that she is an icon and can’t possibly have any regrets. Because he jumped in to comfort her, he cut her off so Madonna didn’t elaborate further on what could have been for her role. Fans will clearly have more questions. Specifically, it would be great to know what part Madonna turned down. Did they offer the star the role of Trinity? It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Carrie-Anne Moss in that role today, but it’s entirely possible. There aren’t a lot of other women in the movie, and it seems doubtful that she was supposed to play someone like Oracle. It’s possible she could have been offered a role like White Rabbit Girl or even Switch. If Madonna had taken on The Matrix, today, we could be seeing her in The Matrix 4.

Whatever the part was, it’s clear Madonna has regrets about it and is definitely a fan of The Matrix, since she called it one of the greatest movies ever made. You can see her enthusiastic reply to Fallon in the original interview below.

Madonna is more well known as a singer than an actress, but in the late 1990s when The Wachowskis were working on The Matrix, she was still building her acting career. Some of her more popular roles have been Eva Perón in Evita (1996), Mae Mordabito in A League of Their Own (1992), and Abbie Reynolds in the rom-com The Next Best Thing (2000).