10 actors who can’t stand the movie they’ll always be remembered for
Any actor with a solid career likely has dozens of major roles, and they’re almost always of varying quality, with the rare exception of someone like Daniel Day-Lewis, who has pretty much exclusively appeared in masterpieces.
Every actor is bound to have to take on a role that they don’t end up enjoying, and just as much, they have no autonomy over which roles they end up being best known for, because, unfortunately, what an actor personally finds satisfying isn’t always what ends up being their most recognisable part.
Arnold Schwarzenegger famously talked about how Last Action Hero was one of his favourite roles ever, but that the negative buzz for the film drowned out any chance of it being celebrated. While it’s depressing when a truly great role is forgotten, actors tend to be even more infuriated when something they don’t like ends up taking the world by storm.
There isn’t one performance so good that someone can be declared a great actor, nor is there one so terrible that they should be deemed incompetent at their profession, as building a filmography is what every actor sets out to do, but the public has a way of crystallising someone’s essence into the one part that they are most famous for.
Whether it was the quality of the film or their experience making it, some actors reject the roles that are destined to be mentioned within the first lines of their obituaries, and below we list ten such examples.
10 actors who hate their most famous role:
Burt Reynolds – ‘Boogie Nights’ (1997)
Burt Reynolds had been one of the industry’s biggest stars since the ’70s, but a series of flops and public scandals led him to be desperately searching for work by the time the late ‘90s rolled around.
Paul Thomas Anderson had assembled an all-star cast for Boogie Nights, his second feature, but Reynolds was by far the biggest name involved. Although the film would be celebrated as both one of the best films of the ‘90s and what minted Anderson as one of the greatest modern filmmakers, Reynolds felt that it was exploitative and gross.
He hated working with Anderson and didn’t think that Boogie Nights was saying anything about pornography. Although it ironically earned Reynolds his first Oscar nomination ever, after years of being passed over by the Academy, he did not change his mind about the experience of making it or the shame he felt for being involved in it.
Chris Hemsworth – ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ (2022)
Chris Hemsworth was a true discovery on the part of Marvel Studios when he was cast to star in Thor. While Robert Downey Jr was already an established actor and Chris Evans had been in a different Marvel franchise, Hemsworth had only a few roles before he was cast as the Norse God.
The character of Thor evolved over time, as it was in Thor: Ragnarok that Hemsworth was able to start introducing more comedy into the role; however, Taika Waititi leaned too hard into silliness with the most recent instalment, Thor: Love and Thunder, in which Hemsworth admitted that he had become a “parody” of himself.
Since there has not been any announcement about a fifth instalment in the Thor franchise, Hemsworth’s upcoming return to the character for Avengers: Doomsday might be his attempt to wash the bad taste of Thor: Love and Thunder out of everyone’s mouth.
Alec Guinness – ‘Star Wars’ (1977)
Alec Guinness had already been recognised as one of the best actors ever by the time he was cast in Star Wars to grant legitimacy to George Lucas’ risky original sci-fi film. He said that the role was “lamentable” and that he felt “old and out of touch with the young” because of the infamously haphazard process behind making the first film, which included a constant rewriting of the script.
Star Wars was expected by many to be a flop, but it took Guinness by surprise when it became the biggest hit of all-time and earned him an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Supporting Actor’. That he was now recognised by a generation of movie fans first and foremost as Obi-Wan Kenobi, and not the star of Bridge on the River Kwai or The Ladykillers, must have stung him a bit.
Mark Wahlberg – ‘Ted’ (2012)
Mark Wahlberg has taken an interesting new direction in his career, where he has embraced being Catholic and has begun to take on roles that relate directly to his faith. His new priority of being a family man has caused him to look back on some of his roles that could be deemed offensive. When he was able to meet with Pope Francis, he expressed his regret for starring in Ted, the R-rated comedy from Seth MacFarlane that had included all sorts of raunchy punches.
What’s strange is that, despite its profanity and drug references, Ted is a fairly heartfelt film about friendship and loyalty, which would seemingly have been themes that the late Pope would have approved of. If anything, Wahlberg should have apologised for Max Payne, Mile 22, The Family Plan, and all the other terrible action films that he has made.
Jessica Alba – ‘Fantastic Four’ (2005)
Jessica Alba had such a negative experience making Fantastic Four and its sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, that she ended up essentially quitting acting to start a lifestyle brand. While the opportunity to play a member of Marvel’s ‘First Family’ would have been exciting on paper, the film itself demeaned Sue Storm by sexualising her and using her body for the sake of raunchy humour.
Alba admitted to being so humiliated that she can’t stand to even rewatch the films, which do have nostalgic value for many young comic book fans who saw them as their introductions to the characters. Unfortunately, negative reviews from critics and comic book fans alike weren’t enough to prevent both Fantastic Four films from being reasonably sized hits at the box office that vastly outperformed anything else that Alba has ever been involved in.
Ryan Reynolds – ‘Green Lantern’ (2011)
Ryan Reynolds had the unfortunate luck of being in some real misfires in the first half of his career, but he has been particularly vocal about his hatred for Green Lantern, a film that he said he wanted to “delete” from existence. He actually isn’t as bad as Hal Jordan, but the film itself is a complete dud, and one of the worst comic book films ever made.
Reynolds had also hated his debut as Wade Wilson in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but managed to redeem his performance by turning in a more faithful depiction of the character in the three Deadpool films. Although he has yet to revisit his role as Jordan, there is a scene in Deadpool 2 when the ‘Merc with a Mouth’ uses time travel to kill the real Reynolds before he ends up signing the deal to star in the original Green Lantern, really hammering home his distaste for the project.
Shia LaBeouf – ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ (2008)
Shia LaBeouf has gone through many cycles of fame and controversy, but he was still considered to be a viable actor when he was cast as Mutt Williams in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which was considered a major disappointment, with LaBeouf attracting a significant amount of criticism based on the reveal that he was actually playing the son of Harrison Ford’s Dr Henry Jones Jr.
LaBeouf would later lambast the film and express his regret for being involved in it, and even went so far as to insult Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. The actor has always managed to pop back up in some sort of obscure project or art piece, despite the serious accusations that have been levelled against him, but he’ll still always be remembered as the actor who messed up the Indiana Jones franchise.
Channing Tatum – ‘GI Joe: Rise of Cobra’ (2009)
Channing Tatum is a great actor who has spent years having to rebuild his reputation after studios mistook him for an action star. Although he showed his merit with amazing performances in Foxcatcher and last year’s Roofman, he said that he was pressured into appearing in GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra as the character Duke, claiming, “I fucking hate that movie”, and that he had a terrible experience making it.
Despite being contracted to appear in the sequel, he had been so vocal about his displeasure with the first film that Duke is killed off within the opening moments of 2013’s GI Joe: Retaliation. Dwayne Johnson was inserted as a new character who essentially takes over as the team leader, but it didn’t perform well enough for Paramount Pictures to make a third instalment, as they later chose to reboot the series with the origin story Snake Eyes.
Jake Gyllenhaal – ‘Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time’ (2010)
Jake Gyllenhaal would likely not be the actor he is today if it weren’t for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, the infamously disastrous adaptation of the hit video game. It was after the film received negative reviews that he swore off trying to take on blockbuster roles, and instead refocused his career to working on more personal projects like Prisoners, Nightcrawler, Southpaw, Enemy, and The Sisters Brothers.
In addition to the fact that the film flopped and failed to start a franchise, Gyllenhaal has expressed regret for playing a whitewashed character. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer claimed that the film was set in the sixth century, where Persians were light-skinned and had blue eyes, and stated that the accusations of racism were unfounded; however, Gyllenhaal has done his best to avoid ever bringing up the Prince of Persia debacle.
Christopher Plummer, ‘The Sound of Music’ (1965)
The Sound of Music is one of the most successful films of all-time, as it briefly topped Gone with the Wind as the highest-grossing release ever and won the Academy Award for ‘Best Picture’. It’s the type of film that would seemingly have a unanimously positive approval rating, but its staunchest critic also happens to be one of its stars, who remained bitter for over 50 years.
Christopher Plummer said that The Sound of Music was “awful” and claimed that it had been “terribly hard to try and infuse some minuscule bit of humour into it”. Even though he was a veteran Shakespearean actor who ended up becoming the oldest ‘Best Supporting Actor’ winner in Oscar history for Beginners, The Sound of Music is such a phenomenon that it is the most famous film for everyone who was involved with it.
