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00:00 So, everyone's got the image in their mind that making a movie is a fun and exciting
00:04 time for all involved.
00:06 But unfortunately, as we've found out from numerous examples, there are times where people
00:11 just show up to set and absolutely hate their time from start to finish.
00:14 And that's what we're here to talk about today.
00:16 As I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 Actors Who Hated Working On Their
00:20 Own Movies.
00:21 10.
00:22 Katherine Heigl - Knocked Up
00:24 Now to be a little bit reductive, women in Judd Apatow movies don't really get to have
00:28 a lot of fun.
00:29 While the men are off getting into scrapes and learning important life lessons, the women
00:33 - generally wives and girlfriends of said man-children - stand around with folded arms
00:37 and permanently rolling eyes.
00:39 They may get a quip or two to disdainfully spit, but that's about it.
00:43 That was certainly Katherine Heigl's experience working on Knocked Up.
00:46 Now, the film did a lot for her career, which she has always acknowledged, but she had issues
00:50 with the character, who she felt was humorless and uptight.
00:53 It's hard to argue with her here.
00:55 Knocked Up, like much of Apatow's work, is flabby and loose, but even with its extended
00:59 runtime, they couldn't even squeeze some funny material in for her character.
01:03 Heigl didn't waste much time in voicing these views, critiquing the role only a year after
01:07 release, but things didn't end too well for the actress.
01:10 After Apatow and co-star Seth Rogen reacted badly to her comments, a sizable backlash
01:14 hit Heigl, and arguably her career has never really recovered, which kinda makes you think
01:18 she's got a point about sexism in the industry.
01:20 9.
01:21 Dev Patel - The Last Airbender
01:24 The important thing in life isn't the mistakes that you make, it's the lessons that you learn
01:28 after it.
01:29 For Dev Patel, the experience of working on The Last Airbender was so disastrous that
01:33 he made some pretty important career-altering decisions, which seem to have been working
01:37 out pretty well for him ever since.
01:38 Patel, who came up through Channel 4's skins and the relatively small-scale, Oscar-winning
01:42 slumdog millionaire, felt completely overwhelmed by the sheer bigness of this production.
01:47 The film was beset by controversy from the off, and this did not make for a happy set.
01:52 Patel later told The Hollywood Reporter that he felt like he wasn't even listened to on
01:55 set and saw a "stranger on the screen" that he just couldn't relate to when it came time
01:59 to seeing the production in full.
02:00 Patel doesn't assign blame to anyone in particular, but rather chalks this up to experience.
02:05 When you get involved with a production as big as The Last Airbender, you're just another
02:08 moving part.
02:09 Patel has taken the experience to heart and has since devoted his time to smaller and
02:13 more interesting projects.
02:15 And if it keeps him away from disasters like The Last Airbender, then it was a lesson well
02:18 worth learning.
02:19 8.
02:20 Halle Berry - Catwoman
02:22 You have to hand it to Halle Berry.
02:24 She took this particular disaster like a champ.
02:27 Catwoman came before the modern superhero boom and accordingly was not a sure thing
02:31 in terms of box office.
02:32 But Catwoman didn't just bomb, it failed spectacularly, a colossal failure both critically and commercially.
02:38 No one came out unscathed, but first in the firing line was Halle Berry, only a few years
02:43 removed from her Oscar win for Monster's Ball.
02:46 Her performance was rightly reviled and she went on to win the Golden Raspberry Award
02:50 for the worst actress of the year.
02:52 To her credit, not only did she show up to the ceremony, but she made light of the whole
02:55 mess with a faux emotional speech in which she thanked Warner Bros. for casting her in
02:59 such a dreadful film.
03:01 As many actors in similar positions find, the money definitely helped.
03:04 Berry is still happy to talk about and make fun of Catwoman to this day, and with a career
03:08 like hers, there's no reason for her to feel ashamed of a disastrous project, even
03:11 one on this monumental scale.
03:14 7.
03:15 Tim Roth - United Passions
03:17 So all of us have had pretty crappy jobs in our times, but few of us have ended up shilling
03:21 for a corrupt sporting official.
03:23 A job's a job and all, but Tim Roth's role as a deposed FIFA president in United Passions
03:28 is a resume lowlight.
03:29 Roth stated in a 2015 interview that he was in a "financial hole" when he took the
03:34 role, and has done everything he can to distance himself from the inevitable fallout.
03:38 He has yet to see the film, which is true for most people, to be fair, and offered an
03:42 apology for having anything to do with the whole mess.
03:44 He went so far as to say that his father would be "turning in his grave" for having
03:48 anything to do with glorifying a man like Blatter.
03:51 United Passions' box office receipts must have been music to Roth's ears.
03:55 It didn't even clear the $200,000 mark.
03:57 Hopefully the work managed to ease the monetary worries, because he won't be wanting to
04:00 do something as shameful as this ever again.
04:02 6.
04:03 Mark Wahlberg - The Happening
04:05 No stranger to making rash comments, Mark Wahlberg barely waited for the dust to settle
04:10 on The Happening before publicly bashing it.
04:12 The M. Night Shyamalan disaster about evil trees was destined for failure from the off,
04:17 but Wahlberg went in two feet first before the body was even cold.
04:20 At a press conference for The Fighter, Wahlberg confirmed that he only took on The Happening
04:24 to work with Amy Adams, who smartly managed to remove herself from the project before
04:27 filming began.
04:28 Adams "dodged the bullet," as he went on to say.
04:31 Given Marky Mark's often questionable quality control, it must have taken a lot for him
04:35 to truly regret a job.
04:36 He admits that he took the role in The Happening because he got the chance to play a science
04:39 teacher rather than the usual line of coppers, criminals, or a permanently scowling soldier.
04:44 It didn't work out, clearly.
04:46 There's no shame in taking risks that don't pay off, but an actor like Wahlberg may be
04:49 best advised to stick to what he does best.
04:52 5.
04:53 Emilia Clarke - Terminator Gynise Ice
04:56 Throughout its history, the Terminator franchise has made for an unforgiving workspace.
05:01 From the dictatorship that was the direction of James Cameron to the volatile temper of
05:05 Christian Bale, each installment of the sci-fi franchise has seemed like a pretty trying place
05:09 to ply your trade.
05:11 Things were no different on 2015's dreadfully titled Terminator Gynise Ice, whose star,
05:15 Emilia Clarke, openly stated that the film's relative financial failure was actually a
05:19 relief to her, as it guaranteed any sort of sequel would be scrapped.
05:23 She didn't go into much detail as to the specific discomforts, but reading between the lines,
05:27 it sounds as though studio interference was a major concern.
05:30 Director Alan Taylor, with whom Clarke had worked on Game of Thrones, was eaten and chewed
05:34 up during production, per Clarke's statements.
05:37 She went on to say that no one had a good time, and that a sense of joylessness pervades
05:41 the fifth installment of the franchise, which itself is an exercise in mediocrity.
05:45 A film set is a place of work and doesn't have to be fun, but when it's this aggressively
05:50 un-fun, it tends to seep into the finished product.
05:53 4.
05:54 Tim Rose - Star Wars The Last Jedi
05:56 Everyone has an opinion on the latest Star Wars, of course.
06:00 It's the exciting conclusion to cinema's biggest franchise, and with expectations so great,
06:05 there was no way of pleasing everyone with the ending.
06:07 But one surprisingly unhappy voice was Tim Rose, who is best known for puppeteering the
06:11 ever-memeable Admiral Ackbar.
06:13 Rose has portrayed the character for some 40 years, so it's understandable that he grew
06:17 pretty attached to the role, and his part in the historic series.
06:21 His criticisms, though, seem a little strong.
06:23 He feels that his character was disrespected, and that he was expecting Ackbar to play a
06:27 more pivotal role in the epic finale.
06:29 While his disappointment is understandable, it seems little odd that Rose would imagine
06:32 the character would suddenly become integral to the final throws of the series.
06:36 Ackbar was never a major player; he's an alien with a catchphrase.
06:39 He spoke in an interview of crying in the suit because he was so upset with the character's
06:43 treatment.
06:44 Clearly, he was very invested.
06:46 3.
06:47 Megan Fox - Transformers
06:49 When it comes to burning your professional bridges, Megan Fox took the nuclear option.
06:54 There are some things you can walk back from, but comparing your director Michael Bay to
06:56 Hitler is probably not one of them.
06:58 Fox's star was on the rise by the time that she was cast in Transformers, but the blockbuster
07:02 feature-length toy advert catapulted her to the A-list.
07:05 By her own admission, the success was far too much, and far too soon for the then-21-year-old.
07:10 She described the experience as a "breakdown," and notably shied away from projects of that
07:14 scale in the aftermath.
07:16 While Fox has never gone into specifics of Bay's behavior, this was clearly a dark time
07:20 in her life, and one which she has only begun to speak about publicly as of late.
07:24 Bay's response was to bristle and offer a sarcastic apology.
07:27 Three crew members of the film wrote a creepily sexist letter in which Bay, in a misguided
07:31 moment, posted briefly on his website.
07:33 Luckily, these days seem to be behind Fox now, who has settled down and is approaching
07:37 the industry at her own pace.
07:39 And the most important thing is that at least she's been able to move on.
07:42 2.
07:43 Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart - Twilight
07:46 The careers of the stars of the Twilight saga seem a direct response to the dreadful time
07:50 that they had acting in the adaptation of Stephanie Meyer's young adult series.
07:54 Both are now bona fide arthouse stalwarts, and while they'll treat themselves to the
07:58 odd blockbuster, Cough Cough Batman, they've made an effort to distance themselves from
08:02 the series that made them household names.
08:04 Now, the pair have been taking shots at the franchise, its plot holes, its wild fans,
08:07 and the quality of their own acting pretty much since the first film came out.
08:11 In interviews and on TV, they could just not hide their negativity.
08:14 But their misanthropy reached its peak on the DVD commentary for the first film, in
08:18 which the actors, Pattinson particularly, takes potshots at the movie for the entire
08:21 runtime.
08:22 Now, it's good-spirited, he mainly cracks wise at his own expense, but clearly there's
08:26 an element of regret for both performers.
08:28 Both have freed themselves from Twilight's shadow, and their disgust seems to have been
08:32 tempered into amusement.
08:33 But had their careers not gone so well, odds are you'd have two bitter former teen heartthrobs
08:37 on your hands.
08:38 1.
08:39 David Cross - Alvin and the Chipmunks' Chipwrecked
08:43 Now sometimes when an actor hates a movie, an interviewer will strive to coax the negative
08:47 comments out of them.
08:48 But that wasn't necessary with David Cross.
08:50 The comedian wasted little time in firing shots at the franchise at a press conference
08:54 for an entirely different project.
08:56 Cross described the final film of the trilogy as, without question, "the most unpleasant
08:59 experience I've ever had in my professional life."
09:02 No doubt the project was lacking in artistic merit, but it seems that there was more to
09:05 it than simple creative differences, with Cross stopping just short of naming the individuals
09:10 who made the process so unpleasant.
09:12 It's worth remembering that this was Cross' third film in the Chipmunks saga, so it's
09:15 tough to be too sympathetic for somebody who clearly didn't learn his lesson the first
09:19 two times, but the final film was evidently a particularly distressing experience.
09:23 Money no doubt helped, but for a comic-like Cross to be taking a job like this must have
09:27 been unpleasant enough without a toxic working environment to contend with as well.
09:31 And there we go, my friends.
09:32 Those were 10 actors who hated working on their own movies.
09:35 I hope that you enjoyed that, and please let me know what you thought about it down in
09:38 the comments section below.
09:39 As always, I've been Jules.
09:40 You can go follow me over on Twitter @RetroJ, where the O is a zero, or you can swing by
09:45 Live and Let's Dice, where I do all of my streaming outside of work, and it'd be great
09:48 to see you over there.
09:49 But before I go, I just want to say one thing.
09:51 I hope you're treating yourself with love and respect, my friends, because you deserve
09:54 all of the best things in life, and don't let anyone or anything tell you otherwise,
09:58 all right?
09:59 You're a massive ledge, and I want you to go out there and absolutely smash it today.
10:02 I believe in you.
10:03 As always, I've been Jules.
10:04 You have been awesome.
10:05 Never forget that, and I'll speak to you soon.