Avatar star Sam Worthington reflects on being up for Green Lantern and Casino Royale

Now that Avatar: The Way of Water is taking audiences back to Pandora, actor Sam Worthington returns to the spotlight as the Aussie actor took a back step to supporting roles after dealing with the struggles of fame and franchises after the critically panned Clash of the Titans and Wrath of the Titans. He would take smaller parts in films that were lower budget and more critically driven, like The Shack and the series Under the Banner of Heaven.

Worthington is now set for multiple sequels for Avatar, and the actor sits with Variety to talk about his personal life after breaking through with the first film. He reveals in the interview that he was given the opportunity to try out for many roles. However, before Avatar, he tested for James Bond during the casting for Casino Royale. He would fly out to London to do a screen test in a tuxedo for Barbara Broccoli, who even personally cut his hair to match the vision of the character. “I could play Bond as a killer, but I couldn’t get the debonair down for the life of me. The suit did not fit.”

After the success of Avatar, Worthington was sought out for a number of would-be franchises. He nearly had the role of Hal Jordan for Green Lantern. However, the actor somewhat saw the writing on the wall and perhaps, spoke too bluntly about his reservations about the logic of the character. “It didn’t make much sense to me — the suit comes out of his skin? And I was like, ‘He’s got this powerful ring that can create anything. Well, what can beat the ring?’ The answer was, ‘Nothing.’ I was like, ‘Well, something needs to beat it, or it won’t be very interesting.’” 

Turns out he would dodge that bullet as Ryan Reynolds both became a punching bag and administered some of the punches for being in that movie. Worthington would not eventually have a Deadpool to rebound with. As the actor took part in big Hollywood productions that dealt with a lot of special effects, the actor simply didn’t know how to get the most out of his potential working with green screens. However, with Avatar, he knows Cameron will give him lots to do and even dealt with a lot of water sequences for this recent entry.