37 Actors Who Openly Criticized Their Movies And TV Shows
"Her being in a love triangle made no sense. ... Everything that [Wednesday] does, everything that I had to play, does not make sense for her character at all."
1.Chris Hemsworth recently said that the fourth Thor film (Thor: Love and Thunder) was "too silly." In fact, he said he heard from his son's friends that the film "had too much humor, the action was cool but the VFX weren’t as good." But this was hard to see while making it, Hemsworth claimed: “It’s always hard being in the center of it and having any real perspective." In the end, he says he thinks they just had "too much fun" with it.
2.Jennifer Lawrence also recently admitted that her 2016 space-flick Passengers made her rethink her choices as an actor. She said of her fans' reaction: “I was like, ‘Oh no, you guys are here because I’m here, and I’m here because you’re here. Wait, who decided that this was a good movie?’” She also revealed Adele told her not to star in the film because "space movies are the new vampire movies" and wishes she had listened to her. “I was not pumping out the quality that I should have,” Lawrence had previously said about that time in her career.
3.Wednesday star Jenna Ortegawasn't a fan of many of the original scripts for Season 1 of her Netflix hit — particularly the romance aspects. "Her being in a love triangle made no sense," she told Dax Shepard on his podcast. "Everything that [Wednesday] does, everything that I had to play, does not make sense for her character at all." She ended up "putting her foot down" and changing lines from the script, saying she grew protective of the character and didn't want her to be a lead with no emotional arc.
4.Jamie Lee Curtis has openly admitted to hating her 1999 movie Virus, calling it "unbelievably shit" and "unbelievably bad...from the bottom.” She said she knew it was bad during filming, but was left with little choice in continuing with the train wreck. “It was maybe the only time I’ve known something was just bad, and there was nothing I could do about it."
5.Colin Farrell was not a fan of his flick Miami Vice. "I didn't like it so much — I thought it was style over substance, and I accept a good bit of the responsibility," he told Total Film. "It was never going to be Lethal Weapon, but I think we missed an opportunity to have a friendship that also had some elements of fun."
6.Alexis Bledel was disappointed with Rory's ending on Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. The revival ended on a cliffhanger, with Rory — who's 32, single, and unemployed — revealing to Lorelai that she's pregnant (most likely with Logan's baby). "It certainly wasn't the ending I expected," Bledel said. "I had told [creator] Amy [Sherman-Palladino] that I hoped Rory would end on a high note after all of her hard work. I wanted to see her succeed and be thriving. So, it was a hard thing for me to digest."
7.John Boyega heavily criticized the decision to sideline his character Finn in The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. "You get yourself involved in projects and you’re not necessarily going to like everything," he told GQ. "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.”
8.Similarly, Harold Perrineau criticized the decision to sideline his character Michael in Lost. Perrineau initially joined the drama because he felt the story "was really equitable" and allowed all the characters to shine. However, as the show went on, he began to feel that the white characters were getting more screen time and meatier storylines, and that he was there to be the token Black character. In particular, he criticized a Season 2 storyline where Walt (Michael's son) is kidnapped and Michael only asks about him once. The script ended up being changed, but Perrineau felt his relationship with the showrunners sour, and they actually ended up letting him go at the end of the season.
9.Also on Lost — while Evangeline Lilly was initially happy with the writing for her character Kate, she became dissatisfied as the show went on. "I felt like she became more and more predictable and obnoxious. I felt like my character went from being autonomous — really having her own story and her own journey and her own agendas — to chasing two men around the island. And that irritated the shit out of me," she said on The Lost Boys podcast. She even admitted to throwing scripts across the room.
10.Robert Pattinson has pretty famously ragged on the Twilight series on multiple occasions. He said that if he hadn't been in the series, he'd probably "mindlessly hate it without having seen anything." He also spoke about how strange the hype, fans, and series were, and when reflecting on photoshoots, he said it was weird "kind of representing something you don’t particularly like." He also joked that the only thing he'd stolen from the set was his dignity.
11.Penn Badgley was pretty critical of the writers' decision to make his character, Dan, Gossip Girl in the series finale of the eponymous show. "It doesn't make sense at all. It wouldn't have made sense for anybody. Gossip Girl doesn't make sense!"
12.While James McAvoy overall enjoyed his experience playing young Professor X in the X-Men films, he did have one gripe with the series: “My biggest criticism of what we did throughout the four movies was that after the first movie, we didn't take advantage of the relationship between [Xavier and Michael Fassbender’s Magneto], which really formed the backbone of the first film. So, it was like, why did we just eject that massive weapon?”
13.Ian Harding seemed to suggest he was not a fan of the way Pretty Little Liars presented his character Ezra's relationship with his student, 16-year-old Aria. He once called Ezra "America's most beloved pedophile," though he said he tried to play it as a love story. But when an advertiser dropped out early on, Harding believed it was because of his character's illegal relationship — only to find out it was actually Emily's lesbian relationship. "So, I could be seen as a statutory rapist, and people are like, 'I know, but love knows no bounds, as long as there is a penis and a vagina involved,'” he said dryly.
14.Andrew Garfield has admitted that his AmazingSpider-Man films were mass-marketed, suggesting they catered to too many different audiences, though he understood they needed to make money. He said he couldn't live that way, calling it a prison to live with those expectations. "You end up pleasing no one, or everyone just a little bit. Like, ‘Eh, that was good.’"
15.Sally Field, who played Aunt May in the films, was a lot more scathing in her critique. “It’s not my kind of movie," she told Howard Stern. "It’s really hard to find a three-dimensional character in it. You work it as much as you can, but you can’t put 10 pounds of shit in a five-pound bag."
16.Isaac Hempstead Wright was a little less obvious, but he threw a bit of shade at the Game of Thrones writers after the disastrous last season, which ended with his character, Bran, becoming king. "I genuinely thought it was a joke script and that [showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss] sent to everyone a script with their own character [ending] up on the Iron Throne," he said. "‘Yeah, good one, guys. Oh s--t, it's actually real?'"
17.Alec Guinness has very openly criticized his character Obi Wan's dialogue inStar Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope. He even reportedly begged George Lucas to kill him off. ”I just couldn’t go on speaking those bloody awful lines. I’d had enough of the mumbo jumbo," he said. He also has recounted a story where a young boy who had seen Star Wars dozens of times asked for his autograph. Guinness said he'd give it on the condition that the boy never watched Star Wars again.
18.Another Star Wars one — while Mark Hamill certainly didn't hate starring in the original trilogy, he was unhappy with the version of Luke that The Last Jedi introduced, even telling director Rian Johnson, "I hate what you’ve done with my character." He said after the film was released that this version of Luke was so different from the original trilogy that he had to think of Luke as another character: “Maybe he’s Jake Skywalker. He’s not my Luke Skywalker." He later apologized for these comments.
19.Shailene Woodley was not a fan of the writing for her character on Secret Life of the American Teenager. She didn't say the quality was bad, but she didn't like the messages it gave: "Toward the end, morally, the things that we were preaching on that show weren't really aligned with my own integrity. So, that was a bit hard to show up to work every day knowing that we were going to project all of these themes to thousands — millions — of young adults across the country, when, in fact, they weren't what I would like to be sending out," she said after her time on the show was done.
20.Angus T. Jones similarly didn't like the moral content of his show Two and a Half Men. “It was difficult for me to be on the show and be part of something that was making light of topics in our world where there are really problems for a lot of people,” he said. “I was a paid hypocrite because I wasn’t OK with it and I was still doing it.” A year before, he had said his character "means nothing" and compared watching the show to "filling your head with filth."
21.George Clooney pannedBatman & Robin, though he did take a lot of the blame, saying it “physically hurts” to watch his performance. He also called the screenplay "terrible." He even revealed he won't let his wife or kids watch the film because “There are certain films I just go, ‘I want my wife to have some respect for me,’” and "It’s bad when your 4-year-old kid goes, ‘This sucks.’ That could be painful.”
22.Turns out there are lots of superhero actors who have criticized their films. Like Ben Affleck, who starred as Marvel superhero Matt Murdock in Daredevil, and later said the movie “didn’t work at all.” “If I wanted to go viral, I would be less polite," he continued. "That was before people realized you could make these movies and make them well. There was a cynical sense of ‘Put a red leather outfit on a guy, have him run around, hunt some bad guys, and cash the check.'” He later called the film the only one he regrets, saying it "killed" him that "it got f--ked up the way it did."
23.And Halle Berry criticized the story of her film Catwoman, asking why her character couldn't save the world like other superheroes, as she instead fought a villain who ran a cosmetics line. "But I was just the actor for hire," she said. "I wasn’t the director. I had very little say over that.”
24.Katherine Heigl subtly shaded Grey's Anatomy over the writing decisions, saying she wasn't a huge fan of the storyline where her character, Izzie, sleeps with ghost-Denny. She also pretty famously withdrew herself from Emmy consideration in 2008, saying, "I did not feel I was given the material this season to warrant a nomination," although she's since expressed regret over this, saying that it was between her and the writers, and a lot of it was about her own performance.
25.Ed Harris, like Heigl with Grey's, was not a fan of a particular storyline on Westworld. Specifically, he disliked Season 3. "You do what you gotta do. I mean, I signed on to play the Man in Black. I didn’t sign on to play the Man in White. So, it wasn’t the most joyous season for me, I gotta say.” He also didn't like how he didn't know where his character's arc was heading.
26.Viola Davis openly criticized The Help for its white savior narrative and not putting the maids at the forefront of the film, Davis said, "There’s a part of me that feels like I betrayed myself, and my people, because I was in a movie that wasn’t ready to [tell the whole truth]." She also said the movie was made "in the filter and the cesspool of systemic racism" and that she regrets taking the role.
27.Bryce Dallas Howard, who played Hilly (the villain) in the film, ended up agreeing with Davis's criticism: "The Help is a fictional story told through the perspective of a white character and was created by predominantly white storytellers. We can all go further. Stories are a gateway to radical empathy, and the greatest ones are catalysts for action," she said.
28.Jean Yoon had issues with some of the storylines on Kim's Convenience and said that they were "overtly racist." She says the cast came together to express their concerns, and most of the racist jokes and scenes were taken out. She also felt that her character getting multiple sclerosis was unrealistic, and said she was told she "doesn't understand comedy" when she expressed concerns.
29.Richard Gere calledPretty Woman "a silly romantic comedy" and his "least favorite thing." He also criticized the film's glorification of Wall Street types and corporate raiders. “It made those guys seem dashing, which was wrong,” he said. “Thankfully, today, we are all more skeptical of those guys.”
30.Sarah Michelle Gellar had a hard time with her character's trajectory in Season 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. “I’ve always said that Season 6 was not my favorite. I felt it betrayed who she was," Gellar said. The season notably featured her character entering a sexual relationship with the soulless vampire Spike. "It was tough for me to see these situations and think, But Buffy wouldn't do this...," Gellar said at a fan convention. "And I felt pressure from the force of the fans."
31.Alexander Siddig was also upset with a later version of his character when he played Dr. Bashir on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. When his character was revealed to be genetically modified, Siddig actively rebelled against acting "Data-esque," as the producers wanted him to, messing up lines on purpose until eventually they changed the character back a bit. He also distanced himself from the Star Trek universe after the show was over.
32.And Denise Crosby, who played Tasha Yar on Star Trek: The Next Generation, was also not fond of what her character was given to do. "I was struggling with not being able to do much with the character. I had all these ideas and couldn't do them. I was just stage dressing. I chose to leave instead of just being satisfied with that," she said. Her character was killed off at the end of the first season to accommodate her. "I couldn't wait to get off that show," she said in another interview. "I didn’t want to spend the next six years going, 'Aye, aye, Captain,' and standing there, in the same uniform, in the same position on the bridge."
33.Johnny Depp compared starring on his show 21 Jump Street in later years to being "in a prison creatively," saying, "It started to get a little showboat-y, you know what I mean? It just started to become false. It started to become this action-packed can of soup, you know? You just market it and send it out.”
34.Christopher Plummer never liked The Sound of Music. "It was so awful and sentimental and gooey,” he told the Hollywood Reporter. Plummer also called it his most challenging role, as “You had to work terribly hard to try and infuse some miniscule bit of humor into it.” He also said he was bored with the character: "Although we worked hard enough to make him interesting, it was a bit like flogging a dead horse. And the subject matter is not mine. I mean it can't appeal to every person in the world. It's not my cup of tea."
35.Michelle Pfeiffer reportedly hated her film Grease 2 "with a vengeance" and "could not believe how bad it was," saying she was "young and didn't know any better" when she took the role.
36.Mark Wahlberg called his film The Happening a "bad movie," telling Amy Adams she "dodged the bullet" in not getting cast. "You can’t blame me for not wanting to try to play a science teacher," he said of his role.
37.And finally, Eddie Murphy basically admitted that all the movies he made in the 2000s were "shitty." In fact, it was acting in these films that caused him to take an extended hiatus from acting. "I was like, 'This shit ain't fun. They're giving me Razzies.' ... Motherfuckers gave me the 'Worst actor ever' Razzie. Maybe it's time to take a break," he said. Luckily, he's come back with a vengeance, winning the Razzies' comeback award for Dolemite Is My Name.
