Not every movie role the actors take on has been successful; perhaps they don’t get along well with their coworkers, their employer, or the task itself.
While working in Hollywood may seem more glamorous and exciting than your typical 9–5 job, not all of their positions are glamorous or easy.
Numerous well-known actors have since criticized parts they played in previous films, such as Megan Fox in Transformers, Channing Tatum in G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra, and Dakota Johnson in Madame Web.
“Of course it’s not nice to be a part of something that’s ripped to shreds, but I can’t say that I don’t understand,” Johnson said of the negative reaction to Madame Web–but more on that later.
Some people’s hatred was a result of negative interactions they had with a studio executive or director. Others criticized the screenwriter or the source material for their dislike of the character itself.
Some actors also felt compelled to issue public apologies in response to criticism or unfavourable comments from fans who thought their performances fell short.
These 10 celebrities have expressed dislike for the parts they played in earlier films, regardless of the reason behind their dissatisfaction.
Robert Pattinson (Twilight)
In the fantasy-romance television series, Robert Pattinson portrayed the vampire Edward Cullen. He is arguably one of the actors most likely to voice his displeasure with a production. He has stated his opinion about the character in numerous interviews.
“He’s the most ridiculous person who’s so amazing at everything,” he once said to Empire Magazine. “The more I read the script, the more I hated this guy, so that’s how I played him, as a manic-depressive who hates himself. Plus, he’s a 108 year-old virgin, so he’s obviously got some issues there.”
Channing Tatum (G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra)
Tatum played the titular role in the 2009 flick G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra, but he later revealed he wasn’t a fan of the movie or the experience.
“I’ll be honest, I f**king hate that movie,” he later told Howard Stern. “I was pushed into doing it. The script wasn’t any good. And I didn’t want to do something that I was a fan of since I was a kid and watched every morning growing up, and didn’t want to do something that was, one, bad, and two, I just didn’t know if I wanted to be GI Joe.”
John Boyega (Star Wars)
With his role as former Stormtrooper Finn in the most recent Star Wars sequel trilogy, John Boyega achieved great success.
The actor said at the time that he was “very genuinely happy to be a part of it.” However, he expressed dissatisfaction with the way the filmmakers treated characters of colour in retrospect.
“It’s so difficult to maneuver. You get yourself involved in projects and you’re not necessarily going to like everything,” he told British GQ in 2020. “[But] what I would say to Disney is do not bring out a Black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are, and then have them pushed to the side. It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up,” he said.
Boyega added: “Like, you guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver. You knew what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know f**k all. So what do you want me to say? What they want you to say is, ‘I enjoyed being a part of it. It was a great experience.’ … Nah, nah, nah. I’ll take that deal when it’s a great experience.”
Matt Damon (The Bourne Ultimatum)
In the action trilogy from the 2000s, Matt Damon played the title character, Jason Bourne. The actor skipped the fourth Bourne movie but came back for the fifth because the third, The Bourne Ultimatum, left him with a bad taste in his mouth.
“I don’t blame (screenwriter Tony Gilroy) for taking a boatload of money and handing in what he handed in,” he told GQ in 2011. “It’s just that it was unreadable. This is a career ender. It’s terrible. It’s really embarrassing. He took his money and left.”
Ben Affleck (Daredevil)
Daredevil, a 2003 Marvel film, stars Ben Affleck. Speaking on TimesTalk more than ten years later, Affleck expressed that the superhero movie he was hoping to star in, Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, had not lived up to his hopes.
“I wanted for once to get one of these movies and do it right–to do a good version. I hate Daredevil so much,” he said.
George Clooney (Batman & Robin)
Even though George Clooney is now a well-liked actor, his 1997 portrayal of Batman in Batman & Robin was a box office disaster.
It received a tonne of bad reviews, and caused studio executives to shelve any more Batman films for the time being. about years to follow, Clooney continued to express regret about the part.
“Let me just say that I’d actually thought I’d destroyed the franchise until somebody else brought it back years later and changed it,” he once said. “I thought at the time that this was going to be a very good career move. It wasn’t.”
Jessica Alba (Fantastic Four)
In the films Fantastic Four (2005) and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), Jessica Alba portrayed Susan Storm/Invisible Woman. She later recalled that the event wasn’t pleasurable.
“I hated it. I really hated it,” she told Elle. “I remember when I was dying in Silver Surfer. The director was like, ‘It looks too real. It looks too painful. Can you be prettier when you cry? Cry pretty, Jessica.'”
Halle Berry (Catwoman)
On Rotten Tomatoes, the 2004 Catwoman movie has an astounding 8% rating. The rating for Star Halle Berry would probably be comparable.
“I want to thank Warner Bros. for casting me in this piece-of-shit, god-awful movie,” laughing on stage at the Razzie Awards, the actress accepted the award for worst actress while clutching the Oscar that she had won only a few years prior.
Sally Field (The Amazing Spider-Man)
In the early 2010s, Sally Field appeared in two separate episodes of Aunt May opposite Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man, but the Oscar-winning actress didn’t feel that the part was her most satisfying.
“It’s really hard to find a three-dimensional character in it, and you work it as much as you can, but you can’t put 10 pounds of shit in a five-pound bag,” she once told Howard Stern.
Emilia Clarke (Terminator Genisys)
Emilia Clarke had already collaborated with director Alan Taylor on Game of Thrones, and she starred alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in this 2015 version of Terminator.
Taylor got “eaten and chewed up on Terminator. He was not the director I remembered. He didn’t have a good time. No one had a good time,” she told Vanity Fair in 2018, adding that she was “relieved” by the movie’s lackluster box office receipts as it meant she wouldn’t have to come back for a sequel.
