Just because an actor is in a movie doesn't mean they have to promote it. For this list, we’ll be looking at actors who, for one reason or another, didn’t do any promotion for their movie.
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00:00Here's the thing about Jim Carrey, we love him in his movies, I think, because you never know
00:04what he's going to do or say, and I'm here to tell you that in real life, you never know what he's
00:08going to do or say. Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the top 10
00:14actors who refused to promote their movies. Who coined the phrase the sound of mucus? No,
00:21no, that's, I think we all did collectively. For this list, we'll be looking at actors who,
00:26for one reason or another, didn't do any promotion for their movie. Do you think any
00:31of these stars made the wrong choice? Let us know in the comments. Number 10, Vince Vaughn,
00:38Four Christmases. There are many reasons an actor might refuse to promote their own movie,
00:42and apparently one of those reasons could be their total distaste for the co-star they'd be
00:47promoting it with. What did you call me? I didn't stutter. This seems to have been the case for
00:52Vince Vaughn during 2008's critically panned Four Christmases. Supposedly Vaughn and co-star
00:57Reese Witherspoon didn't get along during the making of the movie due to their contrasting
01:02work ethics. I was passed out and they said everybody needs to put on their oxygen mask.
01:05I would like to know that you were going to put mine on before you put on your own,
01:09you know? It got so bad that Witherspoon even refused to film a love scene with him.
01:13Well, come time to promote the movie, and Witherspoon was out there by herself.
01:17The real problem, she says, was their height difference. Vince is 6'5", is he?
01:22He's 6'5", yeah, and I'm 5'2". It was funny. There are even reports suggesting
01:26Vaughn purposely scheduled other work during that time so as to not be available.
01:31Number 9, Jonah Hill, all of his movies going forward. While some celebrities love being in
01:36front of a crowd and are very comfortable talking to the media, that certainly isn't
01:40the case for all of them. And I'm still getting there, it's not like I figured it out.
01:43This latter group includes Jonah Hill, who has divulged a history of suffering from anxiety
01:48attacks, as he put it, quote, "...exacerbated by media appearances and public-facing events."
01:53In 2022, Hill also announced that, in order to prioritize his mental health,
01:57he would stop doing the typical media promotion of his movies.
02:01I think I'm gonna bounce because this has been a lot for one year and a quarter.
02:04This began with his Netflix documentary Stutz, which centers on a series of discussions between
02:09Hill and his therapist, and is set to continue with, quote, "...any of his upcoming films."
02:14So I thought we would just film one session in one day
02:17and cover some of your tools that have been most helpful for me in my life.
02:21I think that's good.
02:23Number 8, Burt Reynolds, Boogie Nights. You'd think that after Burt Reynolds' amazing
02:28performance in Boogie Nights that director Paul Thomas Anderson would have wanted to
02:32cast him again in his next film Magnolia. The thing here is to make this experience
02:38as painless and easy for him as possible.
02:41And you'd be right. So why wasn't Reynolds in the movie? Because he didn't want to be.
02:46In fact, although Boogie Nights revived his career and earned him critical praise,
02:50Reynolds was pretty vocal about having hated working on the film,
02:54and feeling much the same about Anderson.
02:55It's my dream to make a film that is true and right and dramatic.
03:07He felt so strongly about it that he barely did any promotion for the movie,
03:11he didn't campaign for his Oscar, and he even fired his agent who'd recommended he do the film.
03:16You are fired! You're fired!
03:19Number 7, Cameron Diaz, The Counselor. It isn't unusual for actors to have to return
03:25to the studio and re-record some of their lines during post-production,
03:28but having to record all of them over again? That's gotta suck.
03:32I don't think I miss things. I think to miss something is to hope that it will come back.
03:38But it's not coming back. I've always known that since I was a girl.
03:43And that's exactly what Cameron Diaz had to do on her 2013 film The Counselor.
03:48Originally, Diaz performed her role in the film with a strong Barbadian accent.
03:52I've never been to Barbados. Are all the ladies as sexy as you?
03:56It's a steaming pit of sexual abandon.
03:59I don't believe you.
04:00Well, it used to be. I left.
04:03Unfortunately, the studio executives didn't dig the delivery,
04:06and demanded that Diaz re-dub all of her lines. This didn't sit well with the actress,
04:11and is believed to be the reason she didn't get out there to promote the film.
04:15Listen. You don't have to do the whole forgiveness thing. All you have to do is listen
04:22to the sins.
04:246. Jim Carrey – Kick-Ass 2
04:27In 2013, Jim Carrey came to the decision that he would no longer appear in any
04:31movie that depicted acts of excessive violence.
04:34I know it's not much, but this is just the beginning.
04:37Together we can make a real difference.
04:39The decision came following the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School,
04:43but after he had already finished filming Kick-Ass 2.
04:46He showed us that every man can make a difference.
04:49Without Kick-Ass, none of us would be here.
04:52That's from the heart. Don't let it go to your head.
04:55As he wrote in his tweet,
04:56quote,
04:57I did Kick-Ass a month before Sandy Hook,
04:59and now in all good conscience, I cannot support that level of violence.
05:02I spoke to Jim Carrey back in March. He didn't mention anything about
05:06the violence at that time. He just seemed really excited to be
05:10playing this role in this crazy film.
05:12It was for that reason that Carrey did not do promotion for the film,
05:16and thus far has remained true to his word about not taking on roles in movies with lots of
05:20violence.
05:21Number 5.
05:22Monique.
05:23Precious.
05:23Monique's performance in Precious earned her a well-deserved Academy Award,
05:27for which she was very grateful.
05:29Precious!
05:32Precious!
05:34Precious!
05:35Get down here!
05:36Her lack of promotion for the film had nothing to do with her not liking the movie
05:40or wanting to distance herself from the work.
05:42Instead, it had to do with the fact that she felt she was paid to act in the movie and
05:46nothing else.
05:47But they've all been saying the same thing.
05:50They'll call me back. They'll get back to me. Uh-oh.
05:53The producers and the studio both asked Monique to go to Cannes to do some promotion,
05:57but she said her contract was with the movie's director, Lee Daniels,
06:00and that she'd lived up to her end of the deal.
06:03We got labeled as difficult because I said one word, and that was no.
06:07Now, I said no to some very powerful people. I said no to Oprah Winfrey.
06:12I said no to Tyler Perry. I said no to Lee Daniels. And I said no to Lionsgate.
06:17The fact that she was only paid $50,000 probably
06:20didn't entice her to go above and beyond for them either.
06:23Number four. Ed Harris, The Abyss.
06:25To say that making The Abyss was a difficult shoot would be a massive understatement.
06:30His mixture got screwed up. Jammer panicked.
06:33He pranked his regulator and his mixture got screwed up.
06:36But what did he see that made him panic?
06:40What do you think he saw?
06:42The isolation, the underwater filming, and the 70-hour weeks all were to create a
06:47movie-making experience that even James Cameron himself said he never wanted to go through again.
06:52Even actress Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio suffered a physical and emotional breakdown during filming.
06:58She just, like, freaked. She just said,
07:01hey man, we are not animals. I don't know what you're doing here, but we are not animals.
07:05She runs off the set. I was like, who could blame her?
07:09Ed Harris at one point also burst into tears driving home from the set.
07:13Given the awful experience, it was rumored that Harris planned on not
07:17doing any promotion for the movie before its release.
07:19But I remember driving home that night and I just broke down. I was just weeping.
07:25However, Harris denied those rumors at the time and did end up doing some promotional work for
07:29the film. After that, however, Harris was done, saying, quote, I'm never talking about it and
07:34never will. Number three. David Hyde Pierce, Hellboy.
07:38We know what you're thinking. In fact, you're probably heading to the comments right now to
07:42tell us David Hyde Pierce wasn't in 2004's Hellboy. You saw the fish guy, right?
07:46Oh yeah, that was weird. Yeah, right.
07:50But in actuality, he was, or at least his voice was. One of the characters,
07:55an amphibious humanoid named Abe Sapien, was played by actor Doug Jones.
07:59Story of my life.
08:01But because David Hyde Pierce was a more recognizable name, he was hired to voice
08:05Sapien. However, in a wonderfully egoless act, Pierce asked not to be credited in the film and
08:11refused to do any promotion or attend any events so as to not take away from or overshadow Jones'
08:17performance.
08:18But it all comes motivated from in here, you know, from in here, for Abe Sapien.
08:23What's his part in the story? What's his motivation? What's his background?
08:26What is his organism? What is his ecosystem?
08:29Number two. Rachel Weisz and Daniel Craig, Dreamhouse.
08:32Between performers Rachel Weisz and Daniel Craig, and director Jim Sheridan,
08:36people definitely expected more from 2011's Dreamhouse.
08:40You didn't. You didn't. I didn't. You didn't. All you did was, I'm so proud of you.
08:47Oh, we're gonna be so much happier.
08:49However, what they got was a universally panned film that only grossed $40 million
08:53on a $50 million budget. While there's no doubt plenty of blame to go around,
08:58director Jim Sheridan put much of it on the studio executives who were constantly
09:02hounding him about the film and the script.
09:04What are you doing?
09:08Um.
09:10What's going on?
09:12They even put their hands on the final cut of the movie,
09:14leading to Sheridan trying to get his name off of it. In a show of support for their director,
09:19and probably also because they knew how bad it was, Weisz and Craig didn't do any promotion
09:24for the movie.
09:24It's fine. Um.
09:26It's not fine. You want to know why it's not fine?
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09:441. Christopher Plummer – The Sound of Music
09:47The Sound of Music is quote, awful and sentimental and gooey. Wait,
09:51before you launch a smear campaign against us, we're not the ones who said that.
09:54My favorite remark about it was an actor friend of mine in Hollywood, just after it had opened,
10:00who turned to me and said, uh, yeah, I saw it. He said it was like, uh,
10:04being beaten to death by a Hallmark card. I thought that was the best one.
10:10The words came from Christopher Plummer. That's right, it's the movie that made Plummer a star
10:15and one of the most popular movies of all time. But in the years since its release,
10:19he'd made his disdain and boredom over his character and the subject matter of the film
10:23rather known. Have you ever wondered why he didn't show up at most events celebrating the film?
10:35Or appear in promotional videos with his castmates over the years?
10:47Well, that's why. Let's just say that The Sound of Music wasn't one of Plummer's favorite things.
10:53Do you agree with our picks? Check out this other recent clip from Ms. Mojo.
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