Could the Oscar nomination have come to be, if Shaquille O’Neal had taken the role he was offered?
Shaq was a guest on this week’s “Marchand and Ourand” sports media podcast, a joint production between the Post and Sports Business Journal, and was asked by Marchand about a role in Hollywood that he turned down.
“That was my role in ‘Green Mile,'” O’Neal said. “I turned it down.”
How come?
“I didn’t want to play the down-South African American guy during slavery,” he said. “I didn’t want to play that role. But the guy who played it, Michael Clarke Duncan, did an excellent job. I think I made the right decision because he did way better than I could have done, but I got offered that role.”
Clarke Duncan, who passed away at the age of 54 in 2012, was nominated for best supporting actor at the 2000 Academy Awards for the role. “The Green Mile” was also nominated for Best Picture. Those awards were won by Michael Caine for “The Cider House Rules” and “American Beauty,” respectively.
This role certainly would’ve been a departure from Shaq’s other acting roles, which included the 1990’s films “Kazaam” and “Steel.” Clarke Duncan played a prisoner who is wrongly convicted of murdering two girls and has special powers that can cure people of their ailments.
It’s almost impossible to imagine how he would have done in the spot.