Matthew Modine regrets rejecting the lead role in 'Big'.

The 61-year-old actor was offered the chance to star in the iconic 1988 movie and revealed that it had a "much darker" tone before Tom Hanks joined the cast.

He shared: "I wish I’d done 'Big'. When the script was sent to me, it was a much darker movie.

"They had offered the film to Robert De Niro and Harrison Ford before coming to me, so it didn’t make sense, ’cause those guys are almost 20 years older than me.

"I thought if I was cast in the film, it wouldn’t have the irony it needed. Obviously, the tone changed so much, and Tom Hanks is terrific in the film. It would have been very different with me."

Meanwhile, Matthew is confident that rifts in American society can be healed over the coming months.

However, the Hollywood star thinks the country needs to dig deep following a year of unrest.

He told The Independent: "America has never dealt honestly with what its history is - the slaughter of the indigenous people, the enslavement of millions of Africans that were brought over to build our country.

"The dream is for everyone to have an equal voice, for racial and social justice, but you can’t do that until you deal with cracks in the foundation that this country was built upon."

Matthew thinks the US needs to be more realistic and honest about its problems in order to avoid repeating "mistakes".

He said: "The truth is, if we look in the mirror to see ourselves as who we are, it’s bull****.

"The only way I believe we can recover is if we honestly look at our past - otherwise, we’re going to continually make these mistakes."