Al Pacino, the man who has played ambitious gangsters, tough cops, and even the Devil, could have been even more famous had he not rejected some iconic roles. The Oscar winner is synonymous with legendary characters like mafioso Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, druglord Tony Montana in Scarface and bank robber Sonny Wortzik in Dog Day Afternoon. The method actor has not just played criminals as he has also delivered memorable performances like the cranky retired Army lieutenant colonel Frank Slade in Scent of a Woman, notorious McCarthy-era lawyer Rob Cohn in Angels in America and profane real estate salesman Richard Roma in Glengarry Glen Ross.

The long list of Al Pacino roles is also diverse enough to include critical duds like Jack & Jill in which he played a fictionalized version of himself, and Gigli in which he played the cartoonish mob boss Starkman. His filmography, however, could have been extremely different had he taken on some offers that later went to his contemporaries. While Pacino’s work has no dearth of Oscar-winning movies, he could have also been attached to many more award-winning cult favorites and even the Star Wars franchise. Here are the most famous roles Al Pacino turned down.

10 Han Solo (Star Wars)

Harrison Ford’s tenure on Star Wars has involved him playing the beloved bounty hunter Han Solo. But according to Pacino, it was he who gave Ford this life-changing role. “I gave Harrison Ford a career”, Pacino jokingly remarked at a talk at New York’s The 92nd Street Y (as reported by Variety). The actor revealed that he received the script for the first Star Wars movie for which he was being offered the role of the Millenium Falcon’s captain. But Pacino skipped past the offer as he couldn’t understand the script. While it’s unclear how much he could have been paid, Pacino did add that he was offered “so much money”.

9 John McClane (Die Hard)

Al Pacino was among the many actors considered to play John McClane, the cop who bravely saves the employees at Nakatomi Plaza in Die Hard. While Pacino had already proved his dramatic prowess in cop roles in thrillers like Serpico and Cruising, Die Hard could have turned him into a full-fledged action hero. After also being rejected by Pacino’s The Godfather co-star James Caan, the role went to a then-relatively unknown Bruce Willis. The reasons for his rejection are unspecified but Pacino believes Willis owes him much like how Harrison Ford owes him for Star Wars. Evening Standard reported him saying “I gave that boy [Willis] a career”.

8 Ron Kovic (Born On The Fourth Of July)

Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic turned towards anti-war activism after being wounded and paralyzed during his service overseas. His best-selling autobiography Born on the Fourth of July expressed his betrayal by the very country that he fought for. As per Marie Evelyn Mogk’s essay in the anthology Different Bodies, Pacino was interested in playing Kovic in a big-screen adaptation ever since he heard Kovic speak at the 1976 Dramatic National Convention. Kovic even discussed further ideas with Pacino in 1976 but the movie entered development hell and remained unproduced for more than a decade. Tom Cruise played Kovic when Born on the Fourth of July was finally released in 1989.

7 Edward Lewis (Pretty Woman)

Pacino has occasionally dabbled in comedies like Dick Tracy and Ocean’s 13, but he usually strayed away from the romantic comedy genre. This would have changed if he played the wealthy corporate raider Edward Lewis alongside Julia Roberts’ escort Vivian Ward in Pretty Woman. Many actors were almost cast as Edward and Vivian in Pretty Woman but Pacino came the closest before Richard Gere took on the role. As revealed in Netflix’s docu-series The Movies That Made Us, Pacino even had a table read with Roberts but later turned it down as he felt the project was simply not for him.

6 John Rambo (First Blood)

John McClane wasn’t the only action star role that Al Pacino slept on as he was also once considered to play Sylvester Stallone’s traumatized ex-Green Beret John Rambo. First Blood would have been a perfect showcase for Pacino’s dramatic prowess as the movie was also driven by morbid musings on the Vietnam War’s aftermath. According to Prime Movies, Pacino allegedly backed out from the project as he found the story to be too dark. First Blood would have been very different if Pacino was on board as the Scarface star could have delved deeper into the character’s psychology. However, in of physical superiority, Sylvester Stallone clearly fit the part.

5 Dave Kujan (The Usual Suspects)

The Usual Suspects offered a ragtag bunch of crooked characters as well as a driven lawman in the form of Agent Dave Kujan. Throughout the movie, the agent questions the movie’s unreliable narrator Keyser Söze with A Bronx Tale’s Chazz Palminteri playing him. Even though Palminteri was the first choice, the DVD documentary Round Up: Deposing ‘The Usual Suspects’ details how his lack of availability prompted the producers to reach out to Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, and then, Al Pacino who rejected the role because he had just played a cop in Heat that released the same year. Palminteri eventually signed on to play Kujan.

4 Jimmy Conway (Goodfellas)

Robert De Niro vs Al Pacino has been a long-running debate given the two acting maestro’s regular stints with the crime genre. In one of De Niro’s crime epics, he could have been interestingly replaced by Pacino. The role in question was that of Irish-American gangster Jimmy Conway in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. As per a Goodfellas deep-dive by ShortList, Pacino was offered the role but turned it down for fear of typecasting. It’s ironic that he went on to play gangsters in Dick Tracy and Donnie Brasco. Pacino would go on to collaborate with Scorsese in 2019 with The Irishman, which also paired him alongside De Niro.

3 Axel Foley (Beverly Hills Cop)

Eddie Murphy became a household name with the action comedy Beverly Hills Cop but the movie was originally supposed to be way darker and more violent. Before Murphy was on board, Sylvester Stallone and Mickey Rourke were the frontrunners for playing the fast-talking Detective Axel Foley. But in the face of production issues and script rewrites, the titular role of Beverly Hills Cop was offered to Al Pacino along with James Caan, Harrison Ford, and Richard Pryor (as per Uproxx). Even though he missed out on Beverly Hills Cop, Pacino would obviously go on to play many more law-enforcer characters in his career.

2 Ted Kramer (Kramer vs Kramer)

Kramer vs Kramer starred Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep as a couple on the brink of divorce as they struggle to parent their only child. The much-celebrated drama offers some of the best performances of its two leads but before Hoffman, Al Pacino was the first choice to play the husband Ted Kramer. Much like the other roles that he rejected, the character was also offered to James Caan. Once again, Pacino felt the character was not for him (according to the Lawrence Grobel-authored biography Al Pacino). Interestingly enough, Hoffman and Pacino had both rejected playing Han Solo in Star Wars.

1 Captain Willard (Apocalypse Now)

Hoping to bag a lead spot in Born on the Fourth of July, Al Pacino began turning down any other Vietnam War movie that came along his way. These include the Jon Voight-starrer Coming Home and Francis Ford Coppola’s anti-war epic Apocalypse Now. According to Peter Cowie’s 1990 book Coppola, the tumultuous production and development of Apocalypse Now added to Pacino’s unwillingness to film outside America for a long time and the fear of falling sick while shooting in a jungle. And that’s why Al Pacino didn’t forces with his The Godfather director to play veteran assassin-U.S. Army Captain Benjamin Willard with Martin Sheen stepping in his place.

Sources: Variety, Evening Standard, ShortList, Uproxx