Five actors who hated working with David Fincher
One of the many directors who started their careers in 1990 and remain household names to this very day, David Fincher joins an elite club of filmmakers that also includes the likes of Quentin Tarantino, Sofia Coppola, Alexander Payne and Christopher Nolan. A fierce filmmaker with a direct, authoritative vision behind the camera, Fincher’s leadership has led to some of the greatest movies of modern cinema.
Having helmed countless music videos from some of the industry’s biggest names, Fincher finally made it to the world of filmmaking in 1992, when he was asked to follow in the footsteps of Ridley Scott and James Cameron with the near-impossible challenge of Alien 3. Although a colossal critical failure, the film surprisingly did not halt Fincher’s rise to fame, later going on to helm Seven, The Game and Fight Club in the very same decade.
Throughout such movies, he worked with a number of seriously critically acclaimed stars, including Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Gwyneth Paltrow and Helena Bonham Carter, with many reporting on the director’s demanding schedule. Requesting countless takes and ceaseless dramatic vigour, a handful of performers didn’t vibe with Fincher’s style, prompting fury, boycotts and more.
The star behind Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, R. Lee Ermey, was one such actor. Appearing in the 1995 film Seven, Ermey told UnderGround, “He’s afraid to take chances. He’s afraid to let anybody change one word in the script…He wants puppets. He doesn’t want actors that are creative. If you’re not worth a shit at acting and you’re not creative, then I would recommend that you go work with David Fincher, because he won’t let you act, even if you are a fucking good actor”.
Ermey is far from the only one who felt the torment of Fincher’s style, with Michael Douglas, the star of 1997’s The Game, also speaking of similar annoyances. Speaking in an interview with Collider about the number of takes he did in the movie, he stated: “It was difficult for me. I love David, the experience was great, but he pushes you to the limit because he sees stuff that you don’t see that makes him want to try it again…it is exhausting, I’ve never worked with anybody quite like that”.
Indeed, seemingly in every one of his movies, Fincher ran into issues with his actors, even Edward Norton, who appeared in the critically acclaimed 1999 film Fight Club. Clashing frequently on set, the pair fought over the tone of the movie, with Norton believing it should be more of a comedy. The feud led to big breaks on set whilst the pair sorted their differences before carrying on.
Elsewhere, in the 21st century, Fincher experienced conflict with both Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey Jr during the making of the 2007 crime film Zodiac. Recounting his experience working on the movie, Downey Jr once recalled, “I think I’m the perfect person to work for (Fincher) because I understand gulags,” vowing never to work with the filmmaker again.
As for Gyllenhaal, Fincher called the actor “scatterbrained” in his approach to acting, adding: “I believe you have to have everything out of your peripheral vision. I think Jake’s philosophy was informed by — look, he’d made a bunch of movies, even as a child, but I don’t think he’d ever been asked to concentrate on minutiae, and I think he was very distracted”. Clashing multiple times on set, it’s safe to say that Gyllenhaal will never work with Fincher again, with the same being said for the other aforementioned Hollywood icons.
Actors who hated working with David Fincher:
- Michael Douglas
- Robert Downey Jr.
- R. Lee Ermey
- Jake Gyllenhaal
- Edward Norton
