Wesley Snipes explains why he passed on 'Lucius Lyon' role on 'Empire'

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We all love Terrence Howard as Empire‘s Lucius Lyon, but the part was almost given to Wesley Snipes.

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.”