50 actors who hate the characters they're known for
Whether it was the character or how they played it, these stars weren't happy with the results
As an actor, you have to be adept on taking on various personalities, motivations, and even looks for different parts. But certain stars still deal with the recognition that comes with playing an iconic role—and some of them don't love that. Whether they hated their character or just hated the fame that came with it, take a look at the stars who definitely see their roles as a blessing, but sometimes also a curse.
Allison Williams, 'Girls'
"Marnie would drive me crazy if we were friends in real life," Williams told BuzzFeed. "But I have to put that out of my head in order to play her. Like, sleeping with Elijah (Andrew Rannells) is crazy, sleeping with Ray (Alex Karpovsky) is crazy, furiously hitting on Desi (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) when he mentions his girlfriend in their first conversation is crazy; but I have to be on the couch with her and Elijah hoping they fuck, I have to be in that apartment with Ray kinda wanting it to happen, and I have to support her quest for Desi."
But the thing Williams' struggled with most was Marnie's decision to sleep with artist Booth Jonathan (Jorma Taccone) in season 2 of Girls. "I was fighting that the whole time as Allison," she says, with a sigh. "I did not want her to go down that road. I thought Marnie was better than that, but she wasn't, so I had to be OK with it too. I had to believe Booth was a genius when I walked out of that TV tower, whereas I, as Allison, couldn't stop thinking, It puts the lotion on its skin."
Robert Pattinson, 'Twilight'
Robert Pattinson hates Twilight, hates Edward, and hates how everyone likes both. (P.S. There's even a Tumblr devoted to his interviews where he has to talk about Twilight, and ultimately makes fun of it.) Perhaps the best quote: "He's the most ridiculous person...the more I read the script, the more I hated this guy...Plus, he's a 108 year-old virgin so he's obviously got some issues there."
Kate Winslet, 'Titanic'
Even though Winslet doesn't hate Titanic the film, she's not too thrilled with her performance as Rose when looking back.
"Every single scene, I'm like 'Really, really? You did it like that? Oh my God...Even my American accent, I can't listen to it. It's awful," she told the Telegraph. "Hopefully it's so much better now. It sounds terribly self-indulgent but actors do tend to be very self-critical. I have a hard time watching any of my performances, but watching Titanic I was just like, 'Oh God, I want to do that again.'"
Adam Brody, 'The O.C.'
It's not that Adam Brody hates the character he played on The O.C., it's that he hates talking about him now.
In an interview with the Huffington Post, the actor got candid about why he's kind of annoyed to keep talking about Seth. "It gets boring, that's all. The only way it bothers me—it's not that I'm not proud of it—it's that I've exhausted the conversations about it, in my mind," Brody said. "Forgive me for comparing myself in any way—and I'm not—but Harrison Ford, I understand why he would be crotchety talking about Star Wars."
Blake Lively, 'Gossip Girl'
In an interview with Allure, Lively explained that playing such a privileged and troubled character on Gossip Girl was at times "personally compromising." "It's a weird thing when people feel like they know you really well, and they don't," Lively said. "I would not be proud to be the person who gave someone the cocaine that made them overdose and then shot someone and slept with someone else's boyfriend."
"People loved it, but it always felt a little personally compromising—you want to be putting a better message out there," she said. "The lines become blurred… It doesn't help when everybody is dating who they're dating on the show, and you're also saying to the costume designer, 'Hey, can I take that home?'"
Megan Fox, 'Transformers'
As the star of the first two Transformers films, when asked whether she'd star in the third, Fox told Entertainment Weekly, "Sure. I mean, I can't sh*t on this film because it did give me a career and open all these doors for me. But I don't want to blow smoke up people's ass. People are well aware that this is not a film about acting. And once you realise that, it becomes almost fun because you can be in the moment and go, 'All right, I know that when he calls Action! I'm either going to be running or screaming, or both.'" She also later called director Michael Bay both misogynistic and a "nightmare," saying that he once had her clean his Ferrari and had her on a skin-tanning regimen.
Colin Farrell, 'Miami Vice'
Farrell starred in the 2006 film alongside Jamie Foxx and clearly wasn't a fan. "Miami Vice? I didn't like it so much," said Farrell in 2010. “I thought it was style over substance and I accept a good bit of the responsibility."
Justin Guarini, 'From Justin to Kelly'
On a 2013 episode of Oprah: Where Are They Now? Guarini called the 2003 film "abysmal," although he did call the production an "unbelievable experience." Guarini starred alongside Kelly Clarkson in the 2003 musical/comedy after Clarkson won the first season of American Idol and Guarini was the runner-up.
Kelly Clarkson, 'From Justin to Kelly'
Clarkson wasn't a fan of it either. In a 2015 interview with Rolling Stone she was asked whether she burned all of the copies of the film yet to which she replied, "No, I think I would have to own it first. But that is something I will look into. I have a little joke with our nanny, because she told me she loves that film. She was like, 'My roommate and I used to watch it all the time! I'm totally going to show your daughter From Justin to Kelly.' I'm like, 'I will fire you.'"
Brad Pitt, 'The Devil’s Own'
In a 1997 issue of Newsweek, Pitt admits the thriller/drama released the same year was "the most irresponsible bit of filmmaking, if you can even call it that, that I’ve ever seen.”
Penn Badgley, 'Gossip Girl'
Though Badgley didn't directly state he hated his character on Gossip Girl, he did reference the show and its flaws on multiple occasions. He tweeted in 2015, "Lol shit we are *reclining* on New York City. I'm posted up like its a futon. Talk about an image of white privilege." He also told Salon back in 2013, "To be proud of something is a really nice feeling...and it’s a new feeling. It’s something that I wanna keep going with." (Gossip Girl aired from 2007-2012.)
Cher, 'Burlesque'
"It could have been a much better film. It was always sad that it was not a good film," she told The Guardian in 2013, calling director Steve Antin a "really terrible director." "I remember [Antin] saying to me, I don't care about what you say, I just want to shoot the dance numbers."
Jim Carrey, 'Kick-Ass 2'
Carrey starred in the 2013 thriller Kick-Ass 2, released less than a year following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. He tweeted, "I did Kick-Ass a month before Sandy Hook and now in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence."
Katherine Heigl, 'Knocked Up'
When asked about the 2007 film Heigl told Vanity Fair, “It was a little sexist. It paints the women as shrews, as humourless and uptight. I had a hard time with it, on some days. I’m playing such a b*tch; why is she being such a killjoy? Why is this how you’re portraying women? 98 percent of the time it was an amazing experience, but it was hard for me to love the film.”
Jennifer Garner, 'Elektra'
Garner called her 2005 movie Elektra "awful," according to her ex-boyfriend Michael Vartan. In an interview with Us Weekly, Vartan is quoted as saying, "I heard [Elektra] was awful. [Jennifer] called me and told me it was awful. "She had to do it because of Daredevil. It was in her contract."
Shia LaBeouf, 'Indiana Jones'
LaBeouf played Mutt in the 2008 film, Indiana Jones."I feel like I dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved and cherished," he told the LA Times. "You get to monkey-swinging and things like that and you can blame it on the writer and you can blame it on Steven [Spielberg]. But the actor's job is to make it come alive and make it work, and I couldn't do it. So that's my fault. Simple." LaBeouf's character won't be returning for a sequel.
Jamie Foxx, 'Stealth'
During his promotion for The Kingdom, Foxx reportedly said he was glad he didn't have to lie and say it was good like he'd had to with Stealth. He also said, "Sometimes you do a film and you have to go promote it, so on Stealth I was like, ‘Yeah, this is the greatest.’ And people would see me after seeing the film and say, ‘I can’t believe you lied to me like that.'”
Sarah Jessica Parker, 'Sex and the City 2'
Sex and the City 2 didn't go over as well by fans as the series did. Speaking at Vulture festival earlier this month, Parker admitted she "can see where we fell short. I understand, I actually get it. I will say, I also understand how much frickin’ money it made,” she added. “I feel like that is forgotten in the discussion.”
Jason Bateman, 'Horrible Bosses 2'
Indifference says a lot. "The second one was garbage, as far as box office goes," said Bateman of the 2014 film. "Who knows whether it was on the merits or when they released it, but it did not do any money."
Channing Tatum, 'G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra'
On Howard Stern's radio show, Tatum told the host, "I'll be honest. I f*cking hate that film. I was pushed into doing it. The script wasn’t any good. And I didn’t want to do something that I—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 1) bad, and 2) I just didn’t know if I wanted to be G.I. Joe."
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