Yep, you’re seeing this right…the original “Lucious Lyon” is Wesley Snipes! Can you believe this dude said ‘no’ to that role? I mean, let’s be honest, he really could have used that type of comeback after living through what he’d just lived through- serving time for tax evasion. In my humble opinion this would have been the perfect opportunity for Wesley to put his foot down and let the world know he was BACK. But instead, he turned it down.
Here’s what Empire director/co-creator Lee Daniels and Wesley Snipes said about the Empire role:
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Via TheGrio: Creator Lee Daniels said back in January that Snipes was originally one of his choices for the role, but when Taraji P. Henson suggested Howard to play the role (and further suggested she might bow out as Cookie otherwise), we got our current music mogul.
On Thursday, Snipes confirmed the rumors that he had been offered the part, saying, “Yeah, the ‘Empire’ thing did come across my desk and it just, the combination of things and the time demands didn’t make it viable.”
Asked if he would have liked to play the role if he could have found the time, Snipes remarked, “I could’ve walked through that no problem. Nino could’ve done that,” a reference to his drug kingpin role in “New Jack City.”
“[Lucious] would’ve been a refined Nino,” laughed Snipes. “If Nino didn’t die, he would’ve been Lucious.”
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Wesley’s right, “Nino Brown” reincarnated would have been the perfect foundation for “Lucious.” I just hope Wesley learned a valuable lesson from this because he seems like a wise man…and besides, we’d love to see him in a new role on TV or in film ASAP…he deserves it.
