15 Actors Who've Opened Up About The Roles They Reallyyy Regret
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1.Sarah Paulson
The actor faced criticism for wearing a fat suit to portray Linda Tripp in Impeachment: American Crime Story. "It’s very hard for me to talk about this without feeling like I’m making excuses," she told the Los Angeles Times. "There’s a lot of controversy around actors and fat suits, and I think that controversy is a legitimate one. I think fatphobia is real. I think to pretend otherwise causes further harm."
"I regret not thinking about it more fully. And that is an important thing for me to think about and reflect on. I also know it’s a privileged place to be sitting and thinking about it and reflecting on it, having already gotten to do it, and having had an opportunity that someone else didn’t have. You can only learn what you learn when you learn it. Should I have known? Abso-fucking-lutely. But I do now. And I wouldn’t make the same choice going forward," she said.
2.John Boyega
In a GQ interview, John reflected on his role as Finn in Star Wars and called out Disney for giving nuance and proper storylines only to the white characters. "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."
"Like, you guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver," he continued. “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 fuck 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."
3.Theo James
After portraying Four/Tobias in the Divergent franchise, the actor told Vanity Fair that he struggled with typecasting. "You do a certain type of film and you sign contracts where you are beholden to those roles for a certain period of time and people see you in a certain light that you have to wrestle your way out of. That is 100% the case with actors — and it was definitely the case with me."
"I felt I didn't have the fluidity to move in the directions that I wanted," he added. "You're very much in a certain type of role — and those roles can be pretty fucking boring."
4.Shailene Woodley
She's long been vocal about her issues with Amy in The Secret Life of the American Teenager. "There were a lot of things that were written into the scripts that not just me, but a lot of the cast, disagreed with," she told Bustle. "There were belief systems that were pushed that were different than my own. Yet legally, I was stuck there. To this day, it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do."
When she first agreed to the show, she read three episodes and signed a contract for six years. "[Those episodes] all hit home. I had friends in high school who were pregnant. It felt like everything that I wanted to be sending into the world." But the show ended up promoting abstinence and shaming characters who had sex.
5.George Clooney
Over the years, George has been brutally honest about wishing he hadn't played Batman. When the Guardian asked him which aspects of his youth he'd approach differently, he replied, "Now, the obvious answer to your question would be to joke, 'Batman & Robin.' And I wouldn’t do it at all." According to Deadline, he even kept a picture of himself as Batman in his office "as a cautionary reminder of what can happen when you make movies solely for commercial reasons."
George also said, "With hindsight, it’s easy to look back at this and go, 'Whoa, that was really shit, and I was really bad in it.' It was a difficult film to be good in."
6.Zoe Saldaña
The actor said she never should have played Nina Simone in the controversial biopic Nina. For the movie, she wore a prosthetic nose and darkened her skin. "I thought back then that I had the permission because I was a Black woman, and I am. But it was Nina Simone, and Nina had a life, and she had a journey that should've been honored to the most specific detail. ... And she was so honest. She deserved better," Zoe said.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry because I love her music. It wasn't enough. With that said, she's one of our giants and someone else should step up. Somebody else should tell her story," she concluded.
7.Jessica Alba
After playing Susan Storm in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Jessica nearly quit acting altogether. She said the director criticized her while she cried during an emotional scene. "'It looks too real. It looks too painful. Can you be prettier when you cry? Cry pretty, Jessica.' He was like, 'Don’t do that thing with your face. Just make it flat. We can CGI the tears in.'"
"And then it all got me thinking: 'Am I not good enough? Are my instincts and my emotions not good enough? Do people hate them so much that they don’t want me to be a person? Am I not allowed to be a person in my work?' And so I just said, 'Fuck it. I don’t care about this business anymore.'"
8.Eddie Redmayne
Eddie's portrayal of Lili Elbe in The Danish Girl drew wide criticism for not starring a trans actor. During an interview with the Times, he said he wouldn't take the role if it were offered to him today. "I made that film with the best intentions, but I think it was a mistake."
"The bigger discussion about the frustrations around casting is because many people don’t have a chair at the table. There must be a leveling, otherwise we are going to carry on having these debates."
9.Viola Davis
She told Vanity Fair that she deeply regrets playing Aibileen Clark in The Help. "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 that many Hollywood movies aren't actually invested in the humanity of Black people. "They’re invested in the idea of what it means to be Black, but…it’s catering to the white audience."
10.Ben Affleck
In 2013, the actor told Playboy, "The only movie I actually regret is Daredevil. It just kills me. I love that story, that character, and the fact that it got fucked up the way it did stays with me. Maybe that’s part of the motivation to do Batman."
11.Will Smith
He told Esquire that After Earth — a box office flop — was "the most painful failure" in his career. "Wild Wild West was less painful than After Earth because my son was involved in After Earth, and I led him into it. That was excruciating."
12.Katherine Heigl
In 2008, the actor stirred up some controversy when she told Vanity Fair that Knocked Up is "a little sexist." She said it "paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys. It exaggerated the characters, and I had a hard time with it on some days. I’m playing such a bitch; why is she being such a killjoy? Why is this how you’re portraying women?"
Years later, she clarified her statements on The Howard Stern Show and said her real problem was the character. "She was kind of like, she was so judgmental and kind of uptight and controlling and all these things. ... Judd allows everyone to be very free and improvise and whatever and afterwards, I was like, 'Why is that where I went with this? What an asshole she is!'"
13.Alison Brie
On Instagram, she apologized for voicing a Vietnamese character in BoJack Horseman. "In hindsight, I wish that I didn't voice the character of Diane Nguyen," she wrote. "I now understand that people of color should always voice people of color. We missed a great opportunity to represent the Vietnamese American community accurately and respectfully, and for that I am truly sorry."
14.Mahershala Ali
The actor played Don Shirley in Green Book, a film inspired by a true story. However, Don's relatives called the movie "jarring" and "a symphony of lies." They said they were never consulted during development and found elements of Don's portrayal "deeply hurtful." Mahershala called the family directly and apologized.
Edwin Shirley III, Don's nephew, told NPR, "He called me and my Uncle Maurice, in which he apologized profusely if there had been any offense. What he said was, 'If I have offended you, I am so, so terribly sorry. I did the best I could with the material I had. I was not aware that there were close relatives with whom I could have consulted to add some nuance to the character.'"
15.And finally, Rooney Mara
When she played Tiger Lily in Pan, the backlash was swift and severe. "I really hate, hate, hate that I am on that side of the whitewashing conversation," Mara told the Telegraph. "I really do. I don’t ever want to be on that side of it again. I can understand why people were upset and frustrated."
"Do I think all of the four main people in the film should have been white with blonde hair and blue eyes? No. I think there should have been some diversity somewhere."
