The iconic role nobody wanted Steve McQueen to play

Steve McQueen ended up begging a director to cast him in a movie that might have flopped without him.
The iconic role nobody wanted Steve McQueen to play

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(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)

Film Âť Cutting Room Floor

Thu 23 January 2025 4:30, UK

Even several decades on from his untimely death in 1980, few actors embody the idea of on-screen coolness quite like Steve McQueen. The Indiana-born star was as hot as hot could be during the 1960s, the perfect vessel for the growing counterculture movement that resented authority and respected a headstrong individual who bowed to no one. His performances in The Magnificent Seven, Bullitt, and The Great Escape are still as captivating now as they were over 60 years ago, and McQueen’s legacy has snowballed into a character all of its own.

Another stellar performance from the man also known as ‘Harvey Mushman’ can be found in the 1968 heist movie, The Thomas Crown Affair. The titular character, played by McQueen, is a rich and handsome businessman who has grown tired of getting everything he wants. To inject some excitement into his life, he plans a bank robbery. This gets him entangled with reporter Vicki Anderson (Faye Dunaway), which makes things far more complicated than he could have imagined.

The movie, which was directed by the legendary Norman Jewison, received mixed reviews from contemporary critics, with one of the few consistent high points being McQueen’s acting. A good-looking success story with a self-destructive streak – McQueen basically was Crown. Casting him should have been a no-brainer, but in reality, it was anything but.

At the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in 2008, Jewison told the audience that McQueen had come to him and begged for the role of Thomas Crown. The director, however, had his reservations. “This guy is a Phi Beta Kappa, a brilliant banker,” he recalled saying to the star. “No way… you’re not right for the part.” Jewison wanted a ‘real actor’ to play the part, whereas he saw McQueen as more of a movie star. “He was so cool that somehow he wasn’t acting,” he continued. “He didn’t care about lines. He knew where the camera was. He’s real. There is a big difference between film acting and stage acting.”

Never one to be told what to do – this was the guy who once almost got into a fight with Bruce Lee – McQueen kept pestering Jewison for the part. “He talked me into casting him,” the director, who had previously worked with the actor on The Cincinnati Kid, relayed. “We bought him a $2,500 suit and he became Thomas Crown. He was brilliant.”

As already mentioned, McQueen was seen by many as the highlight of the film and with good reason. His suave presence and electric chemistry with Dunaway elevate what would otherwise be a very run-of-the-mill movie. Without his involvement, there’s every chance the film would be forgotten today.

Instead, The Thomas Crown Affair has a firm foothold in modern culture. The song ‘The Windmills of Your Mind’, which was written for the film by French composer Michel Legrand, has become a standard. The movie itself was remade in 1999, with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo in the lead roles. It was a huge hit and reviewed just as well as the original, if not slightly better.

McQueen was the sort of actor who could transform any project into something entirely new. Without him, Bullitt wouldn’t be the all-out action romp it is, and The Thomas Crown Affair wouldn’t be a beloved classic. 

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Steve McQueen (actor)



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