You can't always get what you want! Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the actors who loathed the personalities, behaviors, and/or story arcs of the characters they portrayed in film and television. Since some of these detail important plot points and character development, a spoiler warning is now in effect.
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00:00When you got to take off the wardrobe at the end of the day,
00:03did that help you separate yourself from your character?
00:06I couldn't wait to get it off.
00:07Welcome to Miz Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the actors who loathe the
00:13personalities, behaviors, and or story arcs of the characters they portrayed in film and television.
00:20I just remember what Huey Long said, that every man's a king, and I'm the king around here.
00:25And don't you forget it.
00:26Since some of these detail important plot points and character development,
00:31a spoiler warning is now in effect.
00:35Number 20.
00:36Jacob Elordi as Noah Flynn.
00:39The Kissing Booth Trilogy.
00:40Why are you pretending to be my dad?
00:42It was the only way I could think to get you on the phone.
00:44Oh, that is not true.
00:472023 was a big year for Jacob Elordi, the rising star who was part of two
00:53critically acclaimed films, Saltburn and Priscilla.
00:57Most became familiar with Elordi as Nate in Euphoria, but before that,
01:02he played Noah Flynn in Netflix's Kissing Booth franchise.
01:06While he's remained grateful for the early work,
01:08he hasn't been shy about calling the movies ridiculous and his character awful.
01:14First of all, don't be like Noah Flynn. I wouldn't want to be like that in real life.
01:18When preparing for the role,
01:19the actor was frustrated that his character wouldn't smoke like he does in the book,
01:24a habit Elordi felt was a part of Noah's bad boy persona.
01:28He also didn't love the daily workout regimen he had to do
01:32or the attention on his body, which made him extremely uncomfortable.
01:37Number 19.
01:39Ed Harris as The Man in Black, Westworld.
01:42As we'll discuss in many entries on this list,
01:45actors sometimes don't like the direction of their characters.
01:49They usually remain professional, but it's still frustrating.
01:53Winning doesn't mean anything unless someone else loses,
01:57which means you're here to be the loser.
02:01Ed Harris experienced this in the third season of Westworld,
02:05when his mysterious Man in Black character became The Man in White,
02:10going from a deadly gunslinger to a good guy.
02:13The actor stuck it out and played the part, or parts,
02:17but he admitted that filming scenes as a new virtuous character was aggravating.
02:22However, Harris' personal feelings about the unpleasant shift helped influence his performance.
02:28So, silver lining?
02:30Maybe you're not even you.
02:34Would you even know if you'd been changed?
02:37Number 18.
02:38George Reeves as Superman.
02:40Superman and the Mole Men and Adventures of Superman.
02:44In 1951, George Reeves, desperate for an actual gig,
02:48signed on to be Superman in Adventures of Superman.
02:52Beginning with the pilot-slash-movie Superman and the Mole Men,
02:56but after he became the Man of Steel, he struggled to find any other work.
03:02Up in the sky, it's a bird!
03:03It's a plane!
03:04It's Superman!
03:05Yes, it's Superman!
03:07Strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities
03:10far beyond those of mortal men.
03:13Being Superman brought him fame, but seemingly hurt his chances for other opportunities.
03:19Reeves told the Akron Beacon Journal,
03:21Most movie producers feel I'm too closely identified with Superman, so they won't use me.
03:27It's common for an actor to get bored with a role when they no longer feel challenged,
03:32which appears to be the case with Reeves.
03:34You said Superman?
03:36I seem to have heard of him before somewhere.
03:39Who is Superman?
03:41According to actor Ben Wheldon, the star once said,
03:44Here I am, wasting my life.
03:46Number 17, Matthew Modine as Dr. Martin Brenner, Stranger Things.
03:52Let us work together again.
03:55You and I.
03:57Daughter and Papa.
04:00There are multiple antagonists throughout Stranger Things, most of which are supernatural.
04:06But one very real human with nefarious intentions is Dr. Martin Brenner,
04:11a.k.a. Papa, played by Matthew Modine.
04:14While he doesn't seem to hate playing the role, like the audience, he hates the character's
04:19actions.
04:20Speaking about filming season four's scene when he tortures 001 slash Henry Creel slash
04:26Weckner, Modine said,
04:28It made me sick to my stomach.
04:30Portraying the monstrous doctor was physically and mentally exhausting.
04:35But behind the scenes, Matthew Modine is nothing like Brenner and has such a great
04:40kinship with Millie Bobby Brown that she asked him to officiate her wedding.
04:45Millie thought it'd be great and then Jake said it'd be a great idea.
04:49So I wrote the wedding vows and they love what I wrote for them to join hands and become
04:55a husband and wife.
04:56Number 16.
04:58Harrison Ford as Han Solo, Star Wars franchise
05:02Did you shoot Greedo first or did Greedo shoot you first?
05:08I don't care.
05:11With an impressive, decades-long filmography, Harrison Ford has played many memorable
05:16characters.
05:17But one role he'll always be associated with is Han Solo from the original Star Wars
05:23trilogy from 1977 to 1983, plus the infamously awful Star Wars Holiday Special.
05:31Ford has expressed in interviews that he felt done after three films and that Han Solo was
05:37not so interesting to him.
05:38As a character, he was, you know, he was not so interesting to me.
05:46I thought he should have died in the last one.
05:48For years, he wanted the character killed off, which ultimately didn't happen until
05:532015's The Force Awakens.
05:55Others argue that believing Han should have a meaningful death doesn't mean he hates
06:00the character.
06:01But one thing's for sure, he despises hypotheticals.
06:06Like, who would win in a fight between Han Solo and his other iconic character, Indiana
06:11Jones?
06:12Number 15.
06:13Christopher Plummer as Captain Georg von Trapp, The Sound of Music
06:181965's The Sound of Music is considered one of the most beloved musicals of all time.
06:25But over the years, Christopher Plummer, who starred as family patriarch Captain Georg
06:29von Trapp, has had few nice things to say.
06:42In a 1982 interview, he called it a lousy part and that he had to
06:47use every trick you know to fill the empty carcass of the role.
06:51As for the film itself, Plummer found the classic too sentimental and gooey.
06:56But by the time the 50th anniversary came around in 2015, the actor had a change of
07:01tune and came to appreciate the film's legacy.
07:15Number 14.
07:16Evangeline Lilly as Kate Austen, Lost
07:20In the early seasons of ABC's hit drama Lost, Kate Austen, one of the island-bound
07:26plane crash survivors, was her own person.
07:29But as the show progressed, her personality and storylines weren't as compelling.
07:41Evangeline Lilly, who starred as Kate for all six seasons,
07:45felt her character became too focused on the love triangle between Jack and Sawyer
07:50and started to lack agency.
07:52In 2018, Lilly told the Lost Boys podcast that she'd get so irritated that her kind
07:59of cool character became obnoxious that she'd throw scripts across rooms.
08:16She wasn't alone in her frustration, though.
08:18Many fans and critics had similar complaints with the increasingly sidelined Kate.
08:24Number 13.
08:25David Harewood as Hank Henshaw, aka Cyborg Superman, Supergirl
08:32David Harewood was tasked with two dual roles on The CW's Supergirl.
08:37In the first season, he played Jean Jones, aka Martian Manhunter, impersonating Hank
08:43Henshaw, ex-CIA agent and the head of the Department of Extranormal Operation.
09:00But Harewood also played the real Henshaw, who later became Cyborg Superman.
09:06When the star was asked to choose which character was the most fun to play,
09:10he gave an honest answer.
09:12Although he was excited to play Cyborg Superman,
09:15Harewood's enthusiasm waned as he felt the character was boring and underdeveloped.
09:20He also criticized the villain's cheap-looking getup.
09:24However, Harewood stuck around for all six seasons.
09:37Number 12.
09:38Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson, aka Weapon 11 slash Deadpool, X-Men Origins Wolverine
09:46We know what you're thinking. Obviously, Ryan Reynolds loves playing Deadpool.
09:51But before he got the 2016 solo film off the ground,
09:55he had to play a version of the character that fans, including himself, absolutely hated.
10:01In 2009's X-Men Origins Wolverine, Wade Wilson was introduced as a member of William Stryker's
10:20Team X. By the end, he's been transformed into Weapon 11, a mutant killer, complete with laser
10:27eyes, retractable katanas, and his mouth sewn shut. Reynolds stated that the studio insisted
10:34on this unfaithful take on the Merc With a Mouth, an experience he's described as frustrating.
10:40However, it turned into more meta jokes for the subsequent and future Deadpool films.
10:46So maybe it wasn't all bad.
10:57Number 11. Alison Williams as Marnie Michaels, Girls
11:02From the point of its initial release, Lena Dunham's show Girls received plenty of criticism
11:08for its portrayal of spoiled and entitled millennial women, even though that was
11:13obviously the point. One of the most reprehensible characters on the show is Marnie,
11:23Hannah's friend who makes many questionable decisions throughout her story arc.
11:28Actress Alison Williams, who portrays her, said to BuzzFeed,
11:32Marnie would drive me crazy if we were friends in real life.
11:35I'm gonna put on my party dress and my sorry face and I'm gonna get him back.
11:39She went on to detail all of the missteps that Marnie made during the show's run,
11:44stating that it was difficult to be there with her through it all.
11:48You are a moron, seriously? Why can't you understand this?
11:52Number 10. Blake Lively as Serena Van Der Woodsen, Gossip Girl
11:57Now, Blake Lively is undeniably a Hollywood A-lister.
12:02And while she had acted before Gossip Girl, most would agree that it was her big break.
12:07You're leaving?
12:08Yeah, I just, I don't feel well. I just wanted to come by and say hi.
12:12I'll see you at school tomorrow.
12:13She has since worried about viewers relating her to her character,
12:17mainly because of the dubious behavior that Serena often engaged in.
12:22In 2015, she told Allure,
12:24"...it always felt a little personally compromising.
12:27You want to be putting a better message out there."
12:30My world turned you from a person with integrity into a cruel satirist.
12:34I mean, you're worse than Gossip Girl. At least she has a conscience.
12:37Getting into the specifics, she added,
12:40"...I would not be proud to be the person who gave someone the cocaine that made them overdose
12:45and then shot someone and slept with someone else's boyfriend."
12:49You're supposed to take the other person's feelings into consideration.
12:51I'm sorry, but it just, it happened so quickly, and honestly, I didn't think you'd care.
12:559. Katherine Heigl as Alison Scott, Knocked Up
13:00Katherine Heigl was once a rom-com staple, but her popularity dwindled
13:04after she publicly criticized some of her work in a 2008 Vanity Fair interview.
13:10The actor was unhappy with Izzy Stevens' uncharacteristic decision
13:15in the fourth season of Grey's Anatomy, and therefore opted out of Emmy consideration.
13:20There was a part of me that thought, because I had won the year before,
13:24that I needed juicy, dramatic, emotional material, and I just didn't have that that season.
13:29In this case, Heigl was displeased with the writing.
13:32However, her issue with Knocked Up was a different story.
13:35She played Alison Scott, the woman who had a one-night stand with Seth Rogen's Ben Stone
13:40and became pregnant. She believed the portrayal of Alison was sexist,
13:45saying the character was always a killjoy and a shrew,
13:48while the male characters got to be lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys.
14:03The media attention around her opinions ultimately hurt her career.
14:088. Sir Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars Trilogy
14:14Sir Alec Guinness seemed to have a love-hate relationship with playing Obi-Wan Kenobi,
14:19first appearing in 1977's Star Wars.
14:22And then I started reading, and it seemed to me the dialogue was pretty ropey,
14:28but I had to go on turning the page.
14:30He reluctantly reprised the role in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi,
14:36only after negotiating a higher salary and a percentage of the box office earnings.
14:41Publicly and privately, the late actor frequently referred to George Lucas' dialogue
14:47as bloody awful, banal, and excruciating.
14:51In a letter written to his friend Anne Kaufman, Guinness didn't have the most
14:56positive things to say about his experience filming all the lines for Obi-Wan Kenobi.
15:01New rubbish dialogue reaches me every other day on wadges of pink paper,
15:07and none of it makes my character clear or even bearable.
15:12As an award-winning actor on stage and screen,
15:14Guinness wasn't thrilled with the sudden recognition for this one role.
15:18However, this didn't stop him from collecting millions in royalties.
15:247. Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,
15:30and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
15:34You're lying.
15:36Ones only choose witches, and you are not a witch.
15:41From being tormented by Draco Malfoy to repeatedly almost getting killed by Voldemort,
15:47Harry Potter has dealt with his fair share of evil villains.
15:51But fans would argue that Dolores Umbridge, one of the many Defense Against the Dark Arts
15:56professors, ranks high on the lost list of Wizarding World antagonists.
16:01Imelda Staunton, who played the pink-clad authoritarian in two Harry Potter films,
16:06definitely agrees.
16:08In 2016, she told Entertainment Weekly's Binge Podcast that the deceivingly soft
16:14Umbridge was a bloody monster, whom she didn't sympathize with at all.
16:19Although Staunton enjoyed the experience as an actor,
16:22she cited the most challenging scene to film was torturing Harry in detention,
16:28a moment that's still painful to watch just as a viewer.
16:32Because you know, deep down, you deserve to be punished.
16:39Don't you, Mr. Potter?
16:41Number 6.
16:42Stanley Tucci as George Harvey, The Lovely Bones
16:46Playing a villain may have its fun moments,
16:49but embodying serial killers is often a taxing job for an actor.
16:54Stanley Tucci, well-known for being funny and likable,
16:57struggled with his character in Peter Jackson's film adaptation of The Lovely Bones.
17:02I would not play George Harvey again in The Lovely Bones. That was horrible.
17:07It's a wonderful movie, but it was a tough experience, simply because of the role.
17:11The supernatural thriller centered on Susie Salmon, a girl stuck in the in-between,
17:16watching over her grief-stricken family and the man who took her life.
17:21Tucci's George Harvey appears as a normal guy that commits horrible acts,
17:26requiring the actor to research similar real-life criminals like Dennis Rader,
17:31aka the BTK killer.
17:33As a parent, the dark subject matter took such a toll on the actor that he almost left the film.
17:40I tried to get out of playing the role, which was crazy, because I needed a job.
17:44I was like, why do you want me? I don't...
17:46And he said, because you're funny. And I thought, okay.
17:49But I understand what he was saying.
17:50Tucci's chilling performance earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
17:575. Sean Connery as James Bond – James Bond Franchise
18:02Scottish actor Sean Connery brought the titular British spy in Ian Fleming's James Bond series
18:08to the big screen in 1962's Doctor No. However, as with many actors who become
18:14forever linked to a certain character, he was over it by the fifth film, You Only Live Twice.
18:20You'll need the best man we've got.
18:22And who do you suggest?
18:25Well, me.
18:27Connery worried about being typecast and didn't enjoy the fame that came with playing the iconic
18:33007. He briefly left the role behind, but returned for 1971's Diamonds Are Forever,
18:40and a decade later agreed to a final appearance in 1983's Never Say Never Again.
18:47What brings you to Nassau, James?
18:49I'm fishing.
18:50For what?
18:51Anything I can get.
18:53Though much of his resentment stems from issues with the producers and salary disputes,
18:58he told The Observer in 2004 that he always hated James Bond and would like to kill him.
19:054. Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski – A Streetcar Named Desire
19:10The role of Stanley Kowalski in 1951's A Streetcar Named Desire
19:15is widely considered as one of Marlon Brando's best performances.
19:20And that's saying something.
19:31He first played the brutish character in Tennessee Williams' play,
19:35then joined Elia Kazan's film adaptation.
19:38While the performance earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor,
19:42Brando didn't like that critics and audiences believed he must be a lot like Stanley.
19:47Considering the character was a cruel, egotistical, abusive man,
19:52it's understandable why he wanted people to know that he was the antithesis of Stanley Kowalski.
19:58Well, how right you was, I was common as dirt.
20:01You showed me a snapshot of a place with them columns,
20:03and I pulled you down off them columns, and you loved it.
20:06In David Richard Jones' 1986 book, Great Directors at Work, Brando said,
20:12I detest the character.
20:30Throughout his legendary filmography,
20:32Quentin Tarantino has created plenty of villainous characters that are easy to hate.
20:38But many can agree that Monsieur Calvin J. Candy in Django Unchained,
20:43the plantation owner who enslaved Django's wife, Broomhilda, was among the worst.
20:48Tarantino himself hated the character he created, as did Leonardo DiCaprio,
20:54who was tasked with inhibiting someone he described as deplorable, indulgent, horrendous, and racist.
21:01This was one of the most narcissistic, self-indulgent,
21:06racist, most despicable characters I've ever read in my entire life.
21:10The actor understandably found the cruel and twisted Calvin Candy a difficult person to portray,
21:17and even struggled to say racial slurs, of which there were many.
21:21DiCaprio always delivers stellar performances,
21:24and with a character so abhorrent as Candy, it was all the more effective.
21:292. Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen, The Twilight Saga
21:33I also think that if I tried to play it lighthearted, the way I would do it would end up
21:38looking so wrong, that I'd probably end up looking even more like a psychopath.
21:44Robert Pattinson is known for his work in eclectic films like Good Time, The Lighthouse,
21:49and The Batman. But nearly everyone remembers him as immortal heartthrob Edward Cullen in Twilight,
21:56and remembers just how much he hated the sparkly vampire.
22:00You'll find many interviews of the actor calling out the nonsensical
22:04aspects of the character and his stalker behavior, but also the story itself.
22:09Pattinson once told Empire,
22:11"...the more I read the script, the more I hated this guy. So that's how I played him,
22:16as a manic depressive who hates himself."
22:19These days, he still likes to poke fun at the phenomenon,
22:22but has been more positive about the role. While doing the press for The Batman,
22:26Pattinson even defended the franchise.
22:29Well, sort of.
22:30I didn't watch Twilight.
22:33Yeah, right.
22:34Sorry. Not my thing.
22:37It's not even cool to be a hater anymore.
22:39I don't hate it. I just didn't see it. I just didn't participate in it.
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22:571. Penn Badgley as Joe Goldberg – You
23:03From the beginning, Penn Badgley was very vocal about his disdain for Joe Goldberg,
23:09the serial stalker and murderer at the center of You.
23:13When people online began romanticizing and even defending Joe's disturbing behavior,
23:18the actor was quick to remind everyone that his character was a manipulative sociopath.
23:25Obviously, Joe is one of the worst people ever. Don't aspire to be like him.
23:30Don't defend him ever. Don't ever defend him. He doesn't need it.
23:34It didn't take long before fans made comparisons to Badgley's Dan Humphrey on Gossip Girl,
23:40another character he found problematic. To be fair, it would be concerning if Badgley
23:46didn't hate Joe, or Dan for that matter. He even believes the characters would equally dislike each
23:52other.
23:52Yeah, they would really despise each other. They would have
23:56narrations inside of their minds about it, and I guess Joe would probably kill Dan.
24:00By now, he's made it clear that no one hates Joe Goldberg more than him.
24:06Did you hate any of these characters as much as the actors did?
24:10Share your thoughts in the comments below.
24:13Star Wars was a big success. So I was happy to come back and play Han Solo again
24:19and again, but that was enough.
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