One of Amanda Seyfried’s most iconic roles is that is Karen Smith in the 2004 teen classic Mean Girls. In the movie, her character is convinced that her breasts can predict the weather when she holds them, and Seyfried spoke about how uncomfortable she felt about the subsequent influx of boys approaching her to ask her to predict the weather for them.

“I always felt really grossed out by that. I was like 18 years old. It was just gross,” she told Marie Claire.

Yes, you read that right — Amanda Seyfried makes the list twice! While she may resent the kind of attention her role in Mean Girls brought to her door, she loves the attention she gets for her star turn in the Emmy Award-winning series The Dropout.

Every time she enters the lobby of her apartment building in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the doormen shout, “Do the voice!” She smiles as she tells Marie Claire that she always gives in and does the deep, signature voice of Elizabeth Holmes that she replicates eerily well.

In the past, Seyfried has done a series of comedies and romance movies, usually starring alongside the kind of Hollywood heavyweights that absorb most of the media attention when the films drop. But with The Dropout, Seyfried is front and center, and her own talent has ensured that people are definitely paying attention to her now. 

Talking about how she could fly somewhat under the radar before the show’s success, she said: “Fame is weird. I’ve never been super famous. I’ve always been somewhat recognizable. It’s been the healthiest trajectory. [The level of fame from The Dropout] is not a scary spike. I have my priorities. I know who I am. I know where I’m going. I know what it means. It means that I’m getting to do what I love. I’m actually not afraid of it now.”

Jacob Elordi is rumored to dislike The Kissing Booth series of films he starred in. Despite getting attention for playing a guy many may consider boyfriend material, Jacob said: “Don’t be like Noah Flynn; I wouldn’t want to be like that in real life. Be yourself, man.”

Speaking about his role in the series, he said: “I used to worry a lot about what people thought about me, and about the kind of actor I was because of the movies I’d made. I just felt very corny, and I felt like I had to prove to everyone that I was a serious actor. I felt terribly misunderstood.”

He also talked about the struggle of balancing getting a break in the acting industry with his own personal acting goals, saying of starring in a straight-to-Netflix teen movie: “I’m a purist and love the movie theater, so I had this weird moral battle of ‘What am I aiding and abetting?’ Am I the face of this robotic, terrifying new age? Am I murdering this thing that I love?’ But there was this mentality of, ‘I’ll do whatever the f–k I’ve got to do to get to the United States and do what I love.”

1999 saw cult classic sex comedy American Pie step to the fore, and one of its most memorable characters is Jennifer Coolidge’s Jeanine, commonly known simply as “Stifler’s mom.”

While many of the cast have commented on certain aspects of the film that simply wouldn’t be allowed if the film were to be produced nowadays, Coolidge relishes the attention she gets from playing the movie’s notorious cougar.

Talking to Variety, she said playing America’s most famous MILF got her a “lot of sexual action” and that there would be “like 200 people that I would never have slept with” without it!

John’s unplanned speech at a BLM rally in Hyde Park went viral for the clear passion in his words, so it’s no surprise that he didn’t shy away from addressing Disney’s handling of people of color in the Star Wars franchise.

Talking to GQ about his involvement in the rebooted trilogy, he said: “It’s so difficult to manoeuvre. You get yourself involved in projects and you’re not necessarily going to like everything. [But] what I would say to Disney is do not bring out a Black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side. It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.”

Discussing the reordered character hierarchy of The Last Jedi, he said: “Like, you guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver. You knew what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know fuck all. 

So what do you want me to say? What they want you to say is, ‘I enjoyed being a part of it. It was a great experience…’ Nah, nah, nah. I’ll take that deal when it’s a great experience. They gave all the nuance to Adam Driver, all the nuance to Daisy Ridley. Let’s be honest. Daisy knows this. Adam knows this. Everybody knows. I’m not exposing anything.”

While Boyega describes his tenure with Disney as “an amazing opportunity” and “stepping stone” for his career, he’s made his feelings for the House of Mouse and his character’s trajectory very clear. 

Now well known for his portrayal of comedic stoners, Seth Rogen’s role in Pineapple Express is certainly one that paved the way for more. Rogen wrote the idea for the film with childhood friend Evan Goldberg, and has said he “just loves these characters so much.”

As well as loving his unique niche as an actor, Rogen says he is “honored to be associated with weed” and that he’s “as proud of it as anything,” even starting a cannabis company with Goldberg in 2019.

Jennette is most well known for her role as Sam Puckett in iCarly and Sam and Cat, but has since revealed details about her personal life, Nickelodeon staff, and the overall industry experience that made her quit acting altogether.

She said: “I’m so ashamed of the parts I’ve done in the past. I resent my career in a lot of ways. I feel so unfulfilled by the roles that I played and felt like it was the most cheesy, embarrassing. I did the shows that I was on from like 13 to 21, and by 15, I was already embarrassed.”

McCurdy said she felt “very different” to her character, Sam, and talked about how her mom pushed her into acting, as well as the struggle of being forced into the shoes of someone else for such a long time during her formative years. 

“To be known globally for this thing that’s not really me, it was just like, ‘what the fuck am I doing?’ How do I even find myself when I’m 19 and I’ve been famous for all the years that I would normally be stumbling through finding myself, yet I’m known as a thing that I’m not? It just was…hellish.”

Since quitting acting, Jennette has started to explore writing, directing, and podcasting, recently releasing her hugely successful debut book, I’m Glad My Mom Died.

She said: “I’m living a life that’s in accordance with who I am, and that feels a million times better.”

Being the right-hand woman for one of the main characters in one of the most-watched shows of all time definitely means people remember you for that role. As an actor, it can be tricky to avoid getting pigeonholed if you’re so recognizable as a particular character, but Nathalie Emmanuel praised her time as Missandei on Game of Thrones for making auditions easier to get as well as easier to get through.

She said: “To be a part of that show has been such a blessing, and it definitely opened up doors for me, because people wanted to talk about it when I went into auditions and it broke the ice straight away. That was the one thing that I really used to struggle with going into auditions.”

Many celebs had a cameo in the astoundingly popular sitcom Friends, but one who isn’t so pleased with the show’s popularity is Elle Macpherson.

She told TV Week: “If I’d known how important it was in the U.S, or how long it would be on TV, I may not have chosen to do it. It was a lot of pressure if you look at it in the way that it will be around for 20 or 30 years.

[My son and his friends] know me as Janine LaCroix and they are always like, ‘Oh you know, Cy’s [mom] she is on Friends. They haven’t figured out it was nearly 20 years ago.”

As the films that kickstarted her career, Emma Watson is synonymous with her Harry Potter character Hermione Granger.

She said: “I could be one hundred years old and in my rocker, but I’ll still be very proud that I was part of the Harry Potter films.”

Despite her love of the films, Watson has recently made it clear she does not share the same beliefs as the writer behind the tales, J.K. Rowling, who hit headlines for her anti-trans Twitter rants.

It’s hard to miss Ryan’s constant jibes about the Green Lantern movie. He even had his newest superhero character, Deadpool, go back in time to kill Ryan Reynolds with the movie’s script in his hands!

Similarly, he’s often talked about his open dislike of the butchered version of his favorite character, Deadpool, who was originally seen in the Fox-owned X-Men: Origins. Ryan ensured that variant of the character got the same treatment as the Ryan who accepted the Green Lantern in his new definitely-not-Fox-owned Deadpool movies!

The late, great Chadwick Boseman was known for playing real-life Black heroes, as well as the fictional superhero Black Panther. 

He often talked about the cultural weight of Black Panther and the importance of representation, telling Good Morning America: “It’s important because I didn’t have this growing up. I’m still a kid, you know, there’s a kid in each one of us and so I just know what it’s going to mean to you when you see it, that it can give you a certain type of confidence when you walk through the world. It also makes people that look like you see you in a different light and not judge you in a particular way.”

In a live Q&A before the release of Captain America; Civil War, he said: “I’m proud that kids of African descent have another superhero to look up to, but I hope that kids of many different races look up to the character.”

While Knocked Up might be one of Heigl’s most memorable movie roles, she didn’t have much positive to say about it.

She described the film as “a little sexist,” saying that it “paints the women as shrews, as humourless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys.” 

She also said: “It exaggerated the characters, and I had a hard time with it, on some days.”

Breakout Squid Game star Ho-yeon Jung speaks of her character Sae-byeok  Kang with fondness.

When asked about the show being viewed as an anti-capitalist allegory, she told i-D Magazine: “It means something very different to me as I played Sae-byeok. I realize the show is about the power of love.”

The experience of playing Sae-byeok, who risked her life fleeing North Korea with her little brother in an attempt to improve his life, made her conscious of wanting to give back, and she began to look into supporting children’s charities.  

Jung said that while researching the lives of North Korean defectors to understand and flesh out her character better, she began to feel like “a kind of spoiled child,” as she took for granted her access to the internet, ability to get whatever food she wants quickly and easily, or the fact she could hop on a plane and visit wherever she wants whenever she wants.

She said: “It’s very cheesy to say it, but you know, as Hoyeon, I never led my life for other people. I only cared about my career and my wellness, and maybe some of my closest friends. I never had that kind of experience to live for somebody else as my whole life’s purpose, like my brother or my family. I never thought to live for other people.”

The Help was widely acclaimed when it first released, but has since been criticized for the way it focuses on white saviorism as opposed to what the story was supposedly about — the lives of the Black servants in 1960s America.

Viola Davis was nominated for an Oscar for her role as Aibileen Clark, but she echoes the criticism given to the film, saying that The Help is on her list of films she regrets doing.

Talking to Vanity Fair, she said: “There’s no one who’s not entertained by The Help, but there’s a part of me that feels like I betrayed myself, and my people, because I was in a movie that wasn’t ready to [tell the whole truth].”  

She also said that the film was “created in the filter and the cesspool of systemic racism,” stating that Hollywood is geared toward tailoring the Black experience onscreen to a white audience as opposed to showing narratives that are invested in the humanity of Black people.

Joining Jennifer Coolidge as a notorious American Pie sex symbol is Shannon Elizabeth, who played exchange student Nadia. The film is a cult classic, but most definitely has elements that would not make the cut if the movie were to be released now, namely a scene where Elizabeth’s character is secretly filmed as she gets changed.

She told Page Six that she’s grateful to be remembered for the role, and was honored to be considered a sex symbol at the time. But she adds, “If this had come out after the #MeToo movement, there would definitely be a problem. I think that it would have gone down differently.”

Channing has talked about the grueling fitness routines he had to keep to in order to maintain his Magic Mike bod, but that film series wasn’t the one he detests.

Talking about G.I. Joe, Tatum said: “I’ll be honest, I fucking hate that movie. I was pushed into doing it. The script wasn’t any good. And I didn’t want to do something that I was a fan of since I was a kid and watched every morning growing up, and didn’t want to do something that was, one, bad, and two, I just didn’t know if I wanted to be GI Joe.”

Halle Berry resented many things about her superhero stint in the Catwoman movie.

Referencing Sharon Stone’s villain and her evil plot to sell women a face cream that locked them into a lifetime of reliance unless they very literally wanted their skin to fall off, Berry said she always knew that the “story didn’t feel quite right.”

“I remember having that argument: ‘Why can’t Catwoman save the world like Batman and Superman do? Why is she just saving women from a face cream that cracks their face off?’ But I was just the actor for hire. I wasn’t the director. I had very little say over that.”

She took on the role because she was eager at the prospect of a woman of color being a superhero, and hoped that it would persify the superhero genre. 

Talking about the negative reviews of the film, she said: “It was ahead of its time. Nobody was ready to sink that kind of money into a Black female action star. They just weren’t sure of its value. That’s where we were then.”  

She hated the role so much that she is one of the few actors to accept her Golden Raspberry Award (a parody awards show for cinematic under-achievements) in person.

Mocking her own Oscar acceptance speech before moving on to “thank” her manager, she said, “He loves me so much that he convinces me to do projects even when he knows that it is shit!” She also “thanked” Warner Bros for casting her in a “piece-of-shit, god-awful movie.”