Madonna Reveals Her Two Major Hollywood Regrets

We all have regrets. Some of us regret having shame-eaten an entire pizza last night. Others regret agreeing to be roommates with the first person in an apartment with limited square footage. The span of a person's ability to experience remorse is as wide-ranging as the spectrum of the human experience; as varied as the toppings on the top of a lactose-sensitive person's midnight meal delivery decision.

Factor in the near-infinite choices offered to a show business star at the peak of their success, and you'll agree that there are opportunities aplenty to lament. In the case of Madonna, the '80s and '90s were replete with offers, but only two missed chances made her list of regrets.

This news comes courtesy of a recent interview with Jimmy Fallon, where the multi-platinum artist was asked a series of questions regarding her career, with the ultimate goal of separating fact from urban legend fiction. Viewers learned a lot — she didn't write "Jimmy Jimmy" thinking of the host of "The Tonight Show," and she did get fired from a donut dispensary for playing with the jelly squirter.

But more than any of that, fans got to peek into a world unrealized, where Madonna thought twice and didn't turn down two of the biggest movies of the last 30 years.

"There's a myth or rumor that you turned down the role of Catwoman in the film 'Batman Returns,' and the lead in 'Showgirls' you turned down," Fallon asked Madonna. Spoilers for the upcoming sentence: She regretted not taking one of those.

"I saw them both," Madonna recalled. "And I was — I regret that I turned down Catwoman. That was pretty fierce. 'Showgirls,' no."

But she wasn't done. "I also turned down the role in 'The Matrix,'" she confided in the talk show host. "Can you believe that? I wanted to kill myself (...) a teeny, tiny part of me regrets just that one moment in my life."

The part of Catwoman in Tim Burton's "Batman Returns" famously went to Michelle Pfeiffer, and while Madonna was nonspecific as to which character in "The Matrix" she was being eyed to play, she presumably would have been able to leverage two to three more movies out of the deal had she landed a part. It's tragic, but she'll just have to find some contentment with being the highest-grossing solo act of all time. It can't be easy.