We should all be grateful for Rachel McAdams’ decision to decline a number of big-budget films

Mission Impossible, Casino Royale, and The Devil Wears Prada were among the films McAdams rejected, but if things had turned out differently, there wouldn’t be Game Night.

Hollywood etiquette states that actors are not supposed to discuss declining roles. It wouldn’t be fair to the actor who ultimately played the part to do that because it would condemn them to a life of comparisons, comparisons that could be hurtful.

Naturally, there are some exceptions. The reason Matt Damon didn’t want to be in Avatar as a star was partly because of feigned resentment over the money he would have earned. Brad Pitt will also disclose that he declined the role of Neo in The Matrix, but he will infamously only mention this one incident. Of course, Rachel McAdams is the other exception. This is so that everyone can hear about the peculiar two years of Rachel McAdams’ life, during which time she essentially turned down every outstanding position that was available.

Between 2006 and 2008, McAdams declined five projects in total. They were all significant, and each one of them would have unquestionably changed the course of her professional life. She declined roles in the movies Get Smart, Casino Royale, Iron Man, The Devil Wears Prada, and Mission: Impossible III.

McAdams expresses sorrow and a healthy sense of perspective in a new Bustle profile about her wasted years. Because I was in such a fortunate position, she added, “I felt bad for not seizing the chance that was being offered to me. “However, I was also aware that it didn’t completely fit with my personality and what I required to remain sane. There were undoubtedly some worrying times when I wondered if I was just throwing everything away.

But should she regret rejecting those positions? I doubt it very much. Get Smart was a terrible movie that no one remembers, so we can quickly remove it from the discussion. She probably would have played the part in Mission: Impossible III that Michelle Monaghan ultimately ended up playing (only because everyone gets them mixed up). This was likely a dodged bullet because Monaghan’s role wasn’t particularly thrilling and now calls for her to appear in later Mission: Impossible movies and do virtually nothing.

The Devil Wears Prada and Casino Royale can likewise be discounted on the grounds that their ideal performers were finally discovered. Anne Hathaway’s almost superhuman need to be liked by everyone she encounters made her the ideal contrast for Meryl Streep in Prada. Eva Green’s Vesper Lynd had a frigid aloofness to her that virtually no other actor could touch.

Iron Man is the only option now. And what do you know? She most likely made the best decision there as well. There would have been a 14-year age gap between her and Robert Downey Jr. if she had played Pepper Potts, which is nearly twice as much time as there is between Downey and Gwyneth Paltrow. She might have instead chosen a different character, like the one subsequently played by Leslie Bibb. And that would have been even worse because nobody still remembers Leslie Bibb from Iron Man. In reality, the one drawback of Rachel McAdams declining Iron Man was that it allowed her to continue to star in the subpar Doctor Strange films, in which she was horribly wasted.

But it’s obvious that declining each of these roles had an effect on her career. She spent a few years after her break attempting to fit in with a variety of thankless love interest roles. In the film The Vow, Channing Tatum has a crush on her. In “About Time,” she portrayed the romantic interest of Domhnall Gleeson. Because her character died to serve as inspiration for Jake Gyllenhaal’s character, she was only able to play his love interest for a brief period of time in Southpaw. McAdams’ situation deteriorated to the point where she even accepted a role in True Detective’s worst season.

However, consider this. Would Rachel McAdams’ career have eventually led her to 2018’s Game Night if she had been a Bond girl? No, of course not, as she would have had a difficult time escaping the 007 typecasting and would have simply bumbled through a lot of pointless tragedies for the rest of her life. And that would have been tragic since Rachel McAdams in Game Night is widely regarded as the greatest actor to have ever lived. She was destined to perform that role. Though it can be amusing to try to imagine Iron Man with Rachel McAdams playing Pepper Potts, it is absolutely hard to conceive what the world would be like if Rachel McAdams had not portrayed Annie in Game Night. The fact that her prior decisions brought her to Game Night is evidence that the universe is functioning as it should, regardless of whatever regrets she may have about them.