Why Kate Beckinsale Doesn't Regret Passing On Wonder Woman

In the entertainment biz, there's something of a revolving door policy when it comes to casting major roles. Names tend to come as easily as they go on big-budget projects, with various actors' status as "attached" or "in talks" carrying little weight until a contract is actually signed. That policy has, of course, left many wondering what might've been if another actor had played a character instead of the star the one who ultimately claimed the role. 

It's just as frequently left actors with regrets about not playing the part. Will Smith regrets turning down The Matrix, Gwyneth Paltrow was bummed out after the fact about not boarding The Titanic, and the would-have-been Gandalf Christopher Plummer has expressed disappointment about not taking the Lord of the Rings role when it was offered to him.

Actress Kate Beckinsale isn't among that regretful lot, however. In a 2018 interview with Variety, the former star of the Underworld franchise addressed a rumor that she had, at one point in time, been attached to play the lead role in a film adaptation of Wonder Woman, and that she'd passed on the part. 

"Yes, there was a period of time, a long time ago, when [producer] Joel Silver was involved with it," Beckinsale confirmed.

She was quick to point out that she had zero regrets about not taking the lead role in Silver's Wonder Woman, and noted that she's a fan of Gal Gadot's work in the 2017 Wonder Woman film. "It worked out beautifully," said Beckinsale. "That was a wonderful film that Gal [Gadot] did."

When the interviewer questioned whether or not Beckinsale truly had no regrets passing on the potentially life-changing movie, she offered a surprisingly candid response: "No. It would have been a terrible movie based on the script that I read."

Clearly, Beckinsale didn't think much of Silver's vision for Wonder Woman, which leads one to wonder just how different it was from Patty Jenkins' critically-adored 2017 blockbuster.

Beckinsale didn't clarify the exact timeframe of the Joel Silver-produced Wonder Woman project, but she was widely rumored to be in the mix for the role in the mid-2000s when she was at the height of her Underworld fame. That lends to the idea that Beckinsale may have been circling the role around the time Warner Bros. was pushing Joss Whedon's version of Wonder Woman, written in 2007. Opinions continue to vary on what Whedon was planning for that film, but if Beckinsale was indeed reading his script, she was clearly not impressed. 

Beckinsale first admitted as much when talking to Yahoo Entertainment in 2017, just after the release of Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman. She noted, "The incarnations that I was seeing were... they weren't this one [the 2017 film]."

That's hardly a surprise, as the state of superhero cinema has changed dramatically in recent years — thanks in no small part to Christopher Nolan's Batman films and the subsequent dawn of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Given the wild success of Jenkins and Gadot's Wonder Woman, it's clear the world ultimately got the movie about Diana Prince that it wanted. Still, if you've seen Beckinsale in the Underworld films, it's clear she might've made for a powerful Princess Diana had she taken the role years earlier. 

Script issues aside, there were other factors that led her to pass on the role. "I don't know if I was desperate to be in a leotard. I'd already done the rubber trousers," Beckinsale told Yahoo Entertainment. "You have to take in that you have a child at some point and how much could you possibly embarrass them. That's such an oppressive thing. If your mother is Wonder Woman, you're gonna have issues." 

Hopefully, Beckinsale has indeed avoided embarrassing her kiddo (even in spite of her "rubber" Underworld get-up). Either way, she clearly doesn't have any issues of her own about not playing Wonder Woman.