10 Actors Who Told You Not To Watch Their Own Movies

May 1, 2024, 11 p.m.

Movies

10 Actors Who Told You Not To Watch Their Own Movies

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Summary Sometimes actors regret their roles due to various reasons like script issues or personal beliefs.

Movies like "Gulliver's Travels" and "United Passions" faced actor criticism for poor quality and content.

Jennifer Lawrence and Alec Guinness were disappointed in "Passengers" and "A New Hope" respectively.

Even if an actor puts a lot of work into one of their movies, their opinions on the finished product can soon change, and there have been some cases of actors begging audiences to ignore their movies. This goes against the grain of the usual Hollywood model, in which actors promote their own movies relentlessly on talk shows and press junkets, but sometimes a movie is so bad that actors can't hide their regret.

In some extreme cases, regret tips over into embarrassment. Actors sometimes wish to erase certain movies from their records, so that they don't sully their names. There are many reasons for this, and it isn't always as simple as the movie being bad. Actors can sign up for movies under false pretenses, but they soon find that the reality is vastly different to what they imagined.

Related 10 Movies Actors Were Forced To Make Due to a myriad of reasons usually revolving around fulfilling contracts and avoiding lawsuits, actors have been forced to make some of their movies.

10 Emily Blunt

Gulliver's Travels (2010)

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buy Not available Not available Not available Director Rob Letterman Release Date December 25, 2010 Cast Emily Blunt , Jason Segel , Jack Black , Amanda Peet , Billy Connolly , T.J. Miller

Gulliver's Travels is an adaptation of a classic Jonathan Swift novel, but it fails to recapture the heart and humor of the book by bringing it into the 21st century.

Emily Blunt has become one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood, especially after the success of the Quiet Place franchise and her role in the Best Picture winner Oppenheimer. However, she still has movies that she regrets in her career. While promoting her new action-comedy The Fall Guy alongside co-star Ryan Gosling, Blunt revealed that her 2010 comedy Gulliver's Travels was a sore spot for her.

Emily Blunt seems ashamed of Gulliver's Travels, despite Ryan Gosling urging people to rewatch the critical and commercial flop. Gulliver's Travels is an adaptation of a classic Jonathan Swift novel, but it fails to recapture the heart and humor of the book by bringing it into the 21st century. Blunt has another good reason to despise the movie, because the shooting schedule meant that she was unavailable for the role of Black Widow in the MCU. Scarlett Johansson got the part instead, but Blunt's career managed to flourish anyway.

9 Tim Roth

United Passions (2014)

Despite a string of prestigious movies, Roth also has one or two duds to his name, and United Passions is chief among them.

Tim Roth is one of Quentin Tarantino's most frequent collaborators, having starred in The Hateful Eight, Reservoir Dogs and plenty more of his movies. Despite a string of prestigious movies, he also has one or two duds to his name, and United Passions is chief among them. The movie was funded by FIFA, the governing body of global soccer, and it is little more than a self-congratulatory piece of propaganda.

Tim Roth plays Sepp Blatter in United Passions, the disgraced former president of FIFA who has since been banned from all sporting operations for corruption. There could be an interesting movie about his ignominious reign and his fall from grace, but United Passions portrays him in a positive light. Roth stated in an AMA on Reddit that he was just as disappointed as anyone else was with the finished product. He claimed it was "awful" and that he "hated doing it".

8 Katherine Heigl

Knocked Up (2007)

Although Knocked Up helped launch Heigl's movie career after her award-winning run on Grey's Anatomy, she soon spoke out against the movie's content.

Knocked Up is enjoying a new wave of success 17 years after its first release thanks to its popularity on streaming platforms, but Katherine Heigl is one person who won't be enjoying the movie's resurgence. She stars as Alison, a TV host who gets pregnant after a one-night stand with lovable loser Ben, played by Seth Rogen. Although Knocked Up helped launch Heigl's movie career after her award-winning run on Grey's Anatomy, she soon spoke out against the movie's content.

In an interview with Vanity Fair the year after Knocked Up became a box office hit, Heigl said that the Judd Apatow comedy was "a little sexist". In particular, she took issue with the difference between how Knocked Up portrays its male and female characters. She tempered her comments with the acknowledgment that she enjoyed her time working on the movie, but she still condemned the finished product.

7 George Clooney

Batman & Robin (1997)

Director Joel Schumacher Release Date June 20, 1997 Cast George Clooney , Chris O'Donnell

There has been a rumor that Clooney will refund anyone on the spot if they tell him they bought a ticket for Batman & Robin in theaters, but this is unconfirmed.

Batman & Robin is one of the more lighthearted Batman movies, with plenty of quips and over-the-top comic book characters. Unfortunately, it's also regarded as one of the worst Batman movies of all time, and an all-star cast including Uma Thurman and Arnold Schwarzenegger couldn't save it from terrible reviews. George Clooney hates Batman and Robin more than most, and he has been vocal about his distaste for the movie on multiple occasions.

George Clooney only ever got one shot at playing Batman, but audiences had seen enough to figure out that once was enough. More recently, Christian Bale and Robert Pattinson have both played darker versions of the character, and their movies have been much more popular with critics. There has been a rumor that Clooney will refund anyone on the spot if they tell him they bought a ticket for Batman & Robin in theaters, but this is unconfirmed.

6 Jim Carrey

Kick-Ass 2 (2013)

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buy Not available Not available Not available Director Jeff Wadlow Release Date July 17, 2013 Cast Aaron Taylor-Johnson , Chloe Moretz , Morris Chestnut , Claudia Lee , Amy Anzel , Clark Duke

It usually takes a while for actors to regret their part in a movie, but Jim Carrey tweeted his disappointment over Kick-Ass 2 before the sequel was even released.

It usually takes a while for actors to regret their part in a movie, but Jim Carrey tweeted his disappointment over Kick-Ass 2 before the sequel was even released. (via The Guardian) He stated that he had filmed his scenes shortly before the Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut, but that the event had caused him to have a change of heart. He said that he could not condone the "level of violence" in Kick-Ass 2 in the wake of the tragedy.

Although the comic book sequel looked to have ended the franchise in 2013, Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass reboot trilogy was recently announced. Little is known about the plot and the cast, but it's a safe bet to assume that Jim Carrey will not be reprising his role as the brutal vigilante Colonel Stars and Stripes. The Canadian actor has announced his intent to retire in recent years, but he is set to appear in Sonic the Hedgehog 3.

5 Miriam Margolyes

The Harry Potter series

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buy Not available Not available Not available Director Chris Columbus Release Date November 16, 2001 Cast Daniel Radcliffe , Rupert Grint , Emma Watson , John Cleese , Robbie Coltrane , Warwick Davis , Richard Griffiths , Ian Hart , John Hurt , Alan Rickman , Fiona Shaw , Maggie Smith

Although Margolyes was quick to clarify that she loved the series, her main gripe was that fans of the children's stories cling on to the Wizarding World well into their adulthoods.

Miriam Margolyes angered a lot of Harry Potter fans in March 2024 when she stated in an interview that adult fans of the franchise should be "over it". The first Harry Potter movie was released in 2001, but the entire franchise is still just as popular as it was in its heyday. This enduring love for the books and movies puzzles Margolyes, who stated her belief that Harry Potter is "for children".

Miriam Margolyes played Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter series, a minor character who taught herbology to Harry and his classmates at Hogwarts. Although she was quick to clarify that she loved the series, her main gripe was that fans of the children's stories cling on to the Wizarding World well into their adulthoods. Margolyes has always been famous for her blunt, straight-talking style, so her comments should come as no surprise.

4 Alec Guinness

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)

Alec Guinness' comments about Star Wars are often hard to verify, but one thing that seems clear is that he didn't believe A New Hope deserved such an ardent fan base.

Alec Guinness' best movies include Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai and several classic Ealing comedies, but to some fans, he will always be Obi-Wan Kenobi. Guinness was one of a handful of well-known actors who starred in the first Star Wars movie, and he didn't think it would be particularly special. Nothing could have prepared him for the global phenomenon that it soon became.

Alec Guinness' comments about Star Wars are often hard to verify, but one thing that seems clear is that he didn't believe A New Hope deserved such an ardent fan base. Several sources claim that he criticized the dialogue in private correspondence, and Guinness even questions the intense popularity of the franchise in his own autobiography. He writes about the time that a 12-year-old boy came up to him and told him that he had seen Star Wars over 100 times. Guinness asked the boy never to watch the movie ever again. (via The Guardian)

3 Viola Davis

The Help (2011)

Even though she was nominated for an Oscar for her performance, Viola Davis regrets making The Help, a historical drama in which she plays a maid to an affluent white woman in 1960s America. Davis has criticized the movie's handling of its delicate subject. Although it is well-intentioned, some of the themes in The Help can come across as overly simplistic, and it has become even more controversial with age.

Due to the constantly shifting conversation around race in America, especially regarding how popular media tells different stories about race, The Help has been re-evaluated since its critical and commercial success in 2011. The movie has been criticized more recently for its use of the "white savior" trope, and Davis' main issue with The Help is that it doesn't show the authentic experiences that her character would have had.

2 Jennifer Lawrence

Passengers (2016)

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buy Not available Not available Not available Director Morten Tyldum Release Date December 21, 2016 Cast Laurence Fishburne , Aurora Perrineau , Chris Pratt2 , Jamie Soricelli , Jennifer Lawrence , Kimberly Battista , Andy Garcia , Michael Sheen

Lawrence knew during production that Passengers wasn't going to turn out the way she initially hoped it would, and audiences and critics soon proved her right.

A compelling premise and some ambitious sci-fi visuals couldn't save Passengers from mediocre reviews when it came out in 2016, and Jennifer Lawrence has since spoken out about her dislike for the movie. According to her, she knew during production that Passengers wasn't going to turn out the way she initially hoped it would, and audiences and critics soon proved her right.

Jennifer Lawrence recalls how English singer/songwriter Adele warned her not to star in Passengers. Clearly, Adele knew something that Lawrence did not, as Passengers failed to live up to its potential. Lawrence's character was hollow and uninspired, and there were some elements of the romance which didn't sit well with audiences. Lawrence's career took a few years to truly bounce back.

1 Paul Newman

The Silver Chalice (1954)

Paul Newman hated The Silver Chalice so much that he bought ads in newspapers begging people not to watch the movie when it started being shown on TV in 1963.

Paul Newman is a Hollywood legend, with an impressive list of credits including Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Hustler. He became a true star in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but he still had regrets over some of his early career movies. He was deeply ashamed of his part in The Silver Chalice, which was his first film role after working in TV.

Paul Newman hated The Silver Chalice so much that he bought ads in newspapers begging people not to watch the movie when it started being shown on TV in 1963. Newman was a huge star at this point, and his ads had the opposite effect. Audiences were curious to see why Newman loathed the movie so much, and it ended up having much higher ratings than it otherwise would have. In hindsight, Newman's ads look like a genius marketing ploy for a forgettable movie.

Sources: Twitter, Reddit, Vanity Fair, The Guardian, The Guardian