It’s not a secret that many people don’t like their jobs, right? But when we talk about actors and actresses that’s not the case… or is it? Even though most artists like their roles, every rule has its exception, and the reasons for this are the most varied.
Recently some of Jenna Ortega’s comments regarding her part as the protagonist of the show Wednesday got the public’s attention and were on trending topics on the internet. Not only has the actress openly spoken about her dislikes with a project that is still ongoing, but also Jenna, before making these comments, was invited by Netflix, the company that produces the show, to be one of the producers of Wednesday’s season two. Other producers expressed dissatisfaction with the lines of the actress, and even so, Jenna is still confirmed as a producer of the second season of the show.
But it wasn’t just Jenna who complained about the role she played. From being ashamed of their role to not being proud of the part, many artists have openly spoken about their dislikes for some roles they played. Now meet 10 artists who do not like or regret the parts they did:
1. Jennette McCurdy
Jennette is best known for playing Sam Puckett, in the sitcoms iCarly and Sam & Cat, in which her character was one of the most beloved by the public. When the streaming company Paramount+ announced that it would reboot the series iCarly, McCurdy was asked by fans if she would be playing “Sam” again, and replied that she chose not to participate, as she felt ashamed of the role she played for most of her teenage years. The former actress details in her book I’m Glad My Mom Died about how her time acting in the Nickelodeon shows has negatively affected her.
2. Sandra Bullock
During an interview about the movie The Lost City one of the journalists admitted to the actress that as a child they loved Speed 2, a movie in which she starred alongside Keanu Reeves. Sandra humorously replied, saying that she is ashamed of the film to this day. According to Bullock, the movie makes no sense and she wishes she hadn’t done it. Her partner, Keanu Reeves, also confessed to having reservations about this work.
3. Eddie Redmayne
In 2021, during an interview, the actor revealed that if the role he was offered in 2015, of a trans girl, for the film The Danish Girl was currently offered, he would not accept it. Redmayne also said that he made the movie with the best intentions, but that he considers it a mistake. Despite the critical reception, the film, which earned Redmayne an Oscar nomination for best actor, was nominated for several awards and several Oscar categories, even winning one of them.
4. Robert Pattinson
The eternal Edward Cullen hated playing the iconic vampire in the Twilight saga – and he never hid that fact, almost getting fired because of tensions between him and the movie’s production. The actor wanted to play the vampire as “emo” and the production was not in line with his chosen style. Pattison has made several polemical comments not only about his role but also about the author who wrote the books that inspired the Twilight movies. In an interview, Robert even said that the author was “completely mad”, and that he was “convinced Stephenie [Meyer] was convinced she was Bella”. Robert Pattinson even called Twilight a “weird story” and when asked if he had taken any mementos from the set of Breaking Dawn – Part Two he replied only “My dignity.”
5. Blake Lively
The actress responsible for giving life to one of the most beloved and iconic characters in pop culture, Serena Van Der Woodsen, shared that although the series has brought incredible experiences into her life, such as having a pair of shoes by the famous designer Christian Louboutin named after her, playing Serena also brought experiences that make the actress uncomfortable. Blake Lively’s main reservation about the role is people confuse the essence of the actress with the character’s. “It’s a weird thing when people feel like they know you really well, and they don’t,” Blake said in an interview.
Although it is no secret that, like Serena, Lively knows how to steal the scene where she arrives, especially on the Red Carpets, the actress admitted that she always felt that the role somehow compromised her personal image: “People loved it, but it always felt a little personally compromising — you want to be putting a better message out there” and added that she would not like to be associated with some of her character’s attitudes: “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”.
6. Shailene Woodley
Shailene Woodley is best known for her roles in major movies and shows such as Divergent, The Fault in Our Stars, and Big Little Lies. But long before these projects, in 2008, Shailene starred in the show The Secret Life of The American Teenager, at the age of 17. In the show, Shailene played Amy: a 15-year-old teenager facing the challenges of teenage pregnancy.
Woodley says she hated the role and its conservative nature that encouraged young people to abstain from premarital sex and passed judgment on those who had sex. The actress also says that she was not the only one of the cast who did not agree with the messages that were sent by the show: “There were a lot of things that were written into the scripts that not just me, but a lot of the cast, disagreed with”. Woodley also says that “to this day, it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”
7. Zac Efron
Responsible for immortalizing the character Troy Bolton in the High School Musical movies, Zac Efron does not hide how much, when he looks back, he hates having participated in the movies that brought his big break and marked a generation of children. According to a source from Nova F.M., he “wishes he could go back in time and tell his teenage self not to do it.” The actor also revealed that even at the time of the films he was not a big fan of his character and that starring in the franchise was not what he wanted to be doing at the time.
8. Miley Cyrus
Another actress who held a special place in the hearts of children in the late 90s and early 2000s was Miley Cyrus, with her unforgettable character Hannah Montana, whom she brought to life in the show that bears the same title. Miley reveals that playing Hannah Montana since she was 12 until she was 18 years old led her to an identity crisis: “Talk about an identity crisis. I was a character almost as often as I was myself,” she explained.
Miley even said that she was “drilled into her head” and explained that thanks to the show’s concept, she started to think that nobody cared about her when she wasn’t “Hannah Montana”: “The concept of the show is that when you’re this character when you have this alter ego, you’re valuable. You’ve got millions of fans, you’re the biggest star in the world. Then the concept was that when I looked like myself … when I didn’t have the wig on anymore, no one cared about me. I wasn’t a star anymore.”
Cyrus also said that as she grew up, she no longer saw the fun in playing the character, and she only realized this after having sex. According to the actress, she started to feel ridiculous when she was acting as “Hannah Montana” and says that she felt that she had already grown up to continue playing that role: “It just felt like … I was grown-up”.
9. Michelle Pfeiffer
The actress who owns numerous awards says that she regrets a movie that she starred in and that was responsible for launching her name to the world: Grease 2. It is known that the film did not have the expected impact: while the first one made $400 million, its sequel brought in a mere $15 million. In addition, critics spared no effort to make bad comments about the work. However, the criticism directed at Michelle was kinder, praising the actress’s performance.
Still, Pfeiffer doesn’t look back on the past with a soft spot: “I hated that film with a vengeance and couldn’t believe how bad it was.” The Hollywood star even said that she was “young and didn’t know better”. Michelle Pfeiffer was not the only one from the Grease 2 cast who regretted making the movie: her partner Maxwell Caulfield also does not see the job with kind eyes.
10. Sean Connery
Known for playing the first James Bond in the movie theaters, Sean Connery also joins the list of actors who hated their roles. Even though he is considered by many fans the best James Bond ever, Connery felt that always being associated with the agent inhibited people from seeing his true acting potential. In an interview he even gave the following statement: “[I am] fed up to here with the whole Bond bit”, adding: “I have always hated that damned James Bond. I’d like to kill him”.
Bonus: Jenna Ortega
Jenna Ortega set tongues wagging with the polemical statements she has made about one of her most recent works, “Wednesday”. The main character, who after the first season was invited by Netflix to become one of the producers of the show made comments like the love triangle her character was in between didn’t make sense and that she became “unprofessional” to ensure that Wednesday felt authentic: “I don’t think I’ve ever had to put my foot down on a set in the way that I had to on Wednesday… Everything that she does, everything that I had to play did not make sense for her character at all,”.
Furthermore, Jenna also said that she didn’t think anyone would watch “Wednesday ” and that she wants Wednesday Season 2 to have less romance, and more horror, revealing her plans as a producer of the show. Another thing that wasn’t overlooked by the fans and some of the producers of the show was the following comment the actress made: “[Wednesday] is not my proudest moment internally,” she said on a podcast.
Jenna’s comments received, in a way, a “reply” from the TV producer Steve DeKnight: “She’s young, so maybe she doesn’t know any better (but she should),” DeKnight wrote on Twitter. “She should also ask herself how she would feel if the showrunners gave an interview and talked about how difficult she was and refused to perform the material.”
DeKnight also added: “This kind of statement is beyond entitled and toxic. I love her work, but life’s too short to deal with people like this in the business”, clarifying that It was never about her creative concerns or about her performance and that her concerns were validated and he thinks her performance is fantastic: “My comments were about breaking the trust that we all have on set and during the production process that our creative differences will stay in the family”.
The producer also reiterated: “Again, I can’t stress this enough: She’s an amazing talent. It was just an unfortunate situation to expose creative differences publicly, and also I’ll admit that writers are on edge because of the impending strike, myself included. A perfect storm”.
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The article above was edited by Clarissa Palácio.
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