Madonna Reveals She Was Offered Role In The Matrix, Regrets Turning It Down

Madonna was offered a role in The Matrix, but she turned it down. The pop singer/actress/fashion icon recounted her brush with action movie stardom while appearing on The Tonight Show, as she and Jimmy Fallon ran down a list of big hit or cult-hit films that could've starred Madonna. Fallon mentioned Madonna being offered the Catwoman role in Batman Returns, and the lead role in Showgirls, but the singer was much more interested in talking about how she almost became a part of The Matrix franchise. With The Matrix Resurrections due out later this year, it's no wonder why Madonna could be kicking herself for passing on that one... 

"I regret that I turned down Catwoman. That was pretty fierce," Madonna confessed to Fallon. "...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." 

The original Matrix movie truly is a rabbit hole of mind-blowing trivia, if you've never looked into it before. In addition to having Madonna potentially starring (presumably in the role of Trinity that went to Carrie-Anne Moss), The Wachowskis also famously offered the role of Neo to the likes of Will Smith, with Val Kilmer as his Morpheus. Just try to picture that now-iconic poster of Keanu Reeves, Moss, and Laurence Fishburne - only with Madonna, Will Smith, and Val Kilmer. It boggles the mind to consider there possibly somewhere in the multiverse where that is an actual movie that got made... 

As for how our reality actually turned out: Will Smith echoed Madonna in his regret for not joining The Matrix - though he did also offer more insight into why big stars of the time weren't exactly thrilled by The Wachowskis' Matrix pitch: 

"After we made Men in Black, the Wachowskis, they came in, and they had only done one movie, I think it was called 'Bound,' and they made a pitch for The Matrix. As it turns out, they're geniuses, but there's a fine line in a pitch meeting between a genius and what I experienced in the meeting," Smith recalled on his YouTube channel in 2019. "This is the actual pitch that they made for The Matrix. 'Dude, we're thinking like, imagine you're in a fight, then you jump, imagine if you could stop jumping in the middle of the jump... 'But then, people could see around you, 360, while you're jumping, while you stopped jumping, right? And we're gonna invent these cameras and then people can see the whole jump while you're stopped in the middle of the jump.'"

Needless to say, The Wachowskis were dreaming something that no one else could see at that time in cinema - and they certainly reaped the rewards. Fans are hoping The Matrix Resurrections will do it all over again. 

The Matrix Resurrections will be in theaters and on HBO Max on December 22nd.