Thandie Newton turned down the role of Alex in Charlie's Angels.
Thandie ended up dropping out of the film after the director allegedly excitedly described to her how the first shot would be of her butt, and the head of the studio suggested her character wasn't believable as a Black character because she was so educated. The role ended up going to Lucy Liu.
In Will Smith's case for example, if someone just described the concept for " Wild, wild west", it sounds pretty amazing. While you could easily interpret "The Matrix" as: "sounds a bit crazy and out there".
I’m sick of him almost being in every movie.