Brad Pitt declined the role of astronaut Jack Swigert in Ron Howard’s 1995 drama Apollo 13, opting instead to play Detective David Mills in David Fincher’s Se7en. The decision mattered because Se7en became a defining 1990s thriller and helped establish Pitt as an actor willing to take darker, less conventional roles rather than rely on his emerging leading-man image.

Apollo 13, starring Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise and Kevin Bacon as Swigert, recounted NASA’s effort to rescue the crew after an onboard explosion; it received nine Oscar nominations and was a major box-office success. Pitt recalled that his mother called it the best film she had seen and urged him to make more films like it, but his choice of Se7en also proved successful, becoming an influential hit and a landmark performance in his career.