Rachel McAdams Opens Up About Turning Down Huge Roles Like The Devil Wears Prada

Rachel McAdams has admitted she does have regrets about turning down certain big roles in the early years of her career.

Following her break-out roles in Mean Girls and The Notebook, both of which hit screens in 2004, Rachel took some time out from screen acting and returned to her home in Canada, where she was born and raised.

Around this time, she turned down big roles in projects like The Devil Wears Prada, Iron Man and Casino Royale, which marked Daniel Craig’s debut as James Bond.

“There’s certainly things like ‘I wish I’d done that’,” Rachel told Bustle, but added that seeing the roles she turned down go to “the right person” makes her feel good about her decisions.

She said: “I step back and go, ‘That was the right person for that’.”

Rachel continued: “I felt guilty for not capitalising on the opportunity that I was being given, because I knew I was in such a lucky spot. But I also knew it wasn’t quite jiving with my personality and what I needed to stay sane.

“There were definitely some anxious moments of wondering if I was just throwing it all away, and why was I doing that? It’s taken years to understand what I intuitively was doing.”

Rachel previously told The Times of this period in her life: “There were a lot of cooks in the kitchen, a lot of voices around me, and I wanted to step away so I could hear my own voice again.

“Truthfully, I never really wanted to be a big movie star. I never even wanted to work outside of Canada, or outside of the theatre.”

Back in 2021, The Devil Wears Prada director David Frankel said the studio behind the film was “determined” for Rachel to appear in the lead role, to the point she wound up declining three different offers.

Anne Hathaway, who eventually landed the part, has also said there were eight different actors considered for the role before it finally came her way.