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23 Actors Who Starred In Films Then Later Fessed Up And Said “Actually, That Movie Was Bad”
Christopher Plummer has got to be the only person who hated <i>The Sound of Music</i> — and he starred in it!

23 Actors Who Starred In Films Then Later Fessed Up And Said “Actually, That Movie Was Bad”

It’s part of an actor’s job to promote their films, meaning it’s pretty rare that an actor will openly criticize a movie they appeared in.

PBS

Especially because it may damage their relationship with the studio, director, writers, or other actors. But…some actors do it anyways.

NBC

Here are 23 films that their star actors openly criticized and essentially called bad.

1. Many fans were disappointed with The Amazing Spider-Man series, in particular The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Star Andrew Garfield, who played Peter/Spider-Man, seems to have his own issues with the films.

Jamie Trueblood / Columbia Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection

Speaking about the pressure to cater to the bottom line and please everyone, Garfield suggested the films were trying too hard to please too many different audiences. He said, “You end up pleasing no one, or everyone just a little bit. Like, ‘Eh, that was good.’ [The films are] mass-marketed, like ‘We want 50-year-old white men to love it, gay teenagers to love it, bigot homophobes in Middle America to love it, 11-year-old girls to love it.’”

Kristin Callahan/Everett Collection

However, it’s clear the experience wasn’t all bad, and Garfield, of course, would reprise the role in Spider-Man: No Way Home, which was very well-received.

2. Sally Field, who played Aunt May in the films, was a lot more scathing in her critique. “It’s not my kind of movie,” she told Howard Stern. “It’s really hard to find a three-dimensional character in it. You work it as much as you can, but you can’t put 10 pounds of shit in a five-pound bag.”

Jamie Trueblood/Columbia Pictures / courtesy Everett Collection

However, she did praise Andrew Garfield in the same interview, calling him a “lovely, lovely actor.”

3. Turns out there are lots of superhero actors who have criticized their films. Like Ben Affleck, who starred as Marvel superhero Matt Murdock in Daredevil, and later said the movie “didn’t work at all.”

Zade Rosenthal / 20th Century Fox / Courtesy Everett Collection

“If I wanted to go viral, I would be less polite,” he continued. “That was before people realized you could make these movies and make them well. There was a cynical sense of ‘Put a red leather outfit on a guy, have him run around, hunt some bad guys, and cash the check.’” He later called the film the only one he regrets, saying it “killed” him that “it got f–ked up the way it did.”

Christopher Polk / FilmMagic via Getty Images

4. Jennifer Garner, who co-starred as Elektra in Daredevil, went on to star in the spinoff Elektra. While she’s never publicly criticized the film — which was panned — her ex and Alias co-star Michael Vartan said, “I heard it was awful. [Jennifer] called me and told me it was awful. She had to do it because of Daredevil. It was in her contract.”

20th Century Fox / Courtesy Everett Collection

5. Ryan Reynolds famously hated the direction Fox went in with the character Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but was reportedly told, “If you want to play Deadpool, this is your chance to introduce him. And if you don’t want to introduce him in this fashion, we’ll have someone else play him.”

20th Century Fox / Courtesy Everett Collection

He said he had told the studio that fans wouldn’t be happy with that version of Deadpool (which mostly had to do with the character’s mouth being sewn shut, making him the antithesis of the wise-cracking, fast-talking antihero he’s supposed to be), which they later realized. Fortunately, he was able to play the character again in Deadpool and Deadpool 2, this time the way he wanted.

Joe Lederer / 20th Century Fox / Courtesy Everett Collection

6. George Clooney panned Batman & Robin, though he did take a lot of the blame, saying it “physically hurts” to watch his performance. He also called the screenplay “terrible.”

Warner Bros. / courtesy Everett Collection

He even revealed he won’t let his wife or kids watch the film because “There are certain films I just go, ‘I want my wife to have some respect for me,’” and “It’s bad when your 4-year-old kid goes, ‘This sucks.’ That could be painful.”

Gareth Cattermole / Getty Images

7. Sometimes, actors even criticize films that everyone else seems to enjoy. Like Christopher Plummer, who never liked The Sound of Music. “It was so awful and sentimental and gooey,” he told the Hollywood Reporter.

20th Century Fox / Courtesy Everett Collection

Plummer also called it his most challenging role, as “You had to work terribly hard to try and infuse some miniscule bit of humor into it.” He also said he was bored with the character: “Although we worked hard enough to make him interesting, it was a bit like flogging a dead horse. And the subject matter is not mine. I mean it can’t appeal to every person in the world. It’s not my cup of tea.”

David Buchan / Getty Images

However, he ultimately came around to the film later in life, calling it “terrific” and “timeless.”

8. Jupiter Ascending is pretty universally considered an incomprehensible, cheesy mess. And…it turns out star Mila Kunis agrees.

Warner Bros. Pictues / courtesy Everett Collection

On an appearance of The Late Late Show with James Corden, Kunis was tasked with eating a cow tongue or explaining the plot of the film, as well as why she took the role. Laughing, she attempted to describe the movie for a moment, then gave in and ate the cow tongue. While not an outright criticism, it’s pretty clear Kunis feels the same way as fans.

CBS

9. Alec Guinness hated the dialogue in Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope so much that he reportedly begged George Lucas to kill him off. ”I just couldn’t go on speaking those bloody awful lines. I’d had enough of the mumbo jumbo,” he said.

20th Century Fox / Courtesy Everett Collection

He also has recounted a story where a young boy who had seen Star Wars dozens of times asked for his autograph. Guinness said he’d give it on the condition that the boy never watched Star Wars again.

10. Another Star Wars one — while Mark Hamill certainly didn’t hate starring in the original trilogy, he was unhappy with the version of Luke that The Last Jedi introduced, even telling director Rian Johnson, “I hate what you’ve done with my character.”

Lucasfilm

He said after the film was released that this version of Luke was so different from the original trilogy that he had to think of Luke as another character: “Maybe he’s Jake Skywalker. He’s not my Luke Skywalker.” He later apologized for these comments.

Elizabeth Goodenough/Everett Collection

11. John Boyega, who played Finn, was also critical of the third trilogy, in particular The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. After having a large role in the first film, The Force Awakens, he (along with many fans) felt he was sidelined in the latter two films — along with other actors of color Oscar Isaac, Kelly Marie Tran, and Naomi Ackie.

David James / Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures / Lucasfilm Ltd. /Courtesy Everett Collection

“You get yourself involved in projects and you’re not necessarily going to like everything,” he told GQ. “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.”

Elizabeth Goodenough/Everett Collection

12. Another actor that called out their film as problematic was Viola Davis in The Help. Criticizing the movie for its white savior narrative and not putting the maids at the forefront of the film, Davis said, “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].”

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

She also said the movie was made “in the filter and the cesspool of systemic racism” and that she regrets taking the role.

Jason Merritt / Getty Images

13. Jean Yoon similarly called out the racism on Kim’s Convenience. In a series of tweets, Yoon called her experience on the show “painful,” saying that co-creator Kevin White had much more control than Asian co-creator Ins Choi for much of the series and that some storylines and jokes were so overtly racist, she asked that they be cut.

CBC / Courtesy Everett Collection

14. Halle Berry called out sexism in Catwoman, which she starred in. Specifically, Berry criticized the story of the film, asking why Catwoman couldn’t save the world like other superheroes, as she instead fought a villain who ran a cosmetics line. “But I was just the actor for hire,” she said. “I wasn’t the director. I had very little say over that.”

Warner Brothers / courtesy Everett Collection

15. She was also critical of another film she starred in, The Rich Man’s Wife. “I’m sorry everybody who worked on this movie, but I kind of knew it wasn’t going to be the greatest cinematic experience for the people,” Berry said on The Late Late Show with James Corden.

Buena Vista Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

Suggesting she felt fine about the film at first, Berry joked about being on set and wondering if she was high when she agreed to take the role.

CBS

16. Another actor that regrets appearing in a film is Sandra Bullock. While the first Speed film was beloved, the second did not fare as well (earning a 4% on Rotten Tomatoes). Bullock, who starred in both films, recently admitted she regrets starring in the sequel, saying it made “no sense” and that she’s embarrassed of appearing in it.

20th Century Fox / Courtesy Everett Collection

17. Similarly, Grease 2 was panned in comparison to the first film. Star Michelle Pfeiffer reportedly hated the film “with a vengeance” and “could not believe how bad it was,” saying she was “young and didn’t know any better” when she took the role.

Paramount / courtesy Everett Collection

18. David Cross has been super vocal about hating the Alvin and the Chipmunks films, of which there were three. “All I wanted was to get the f**k out of there as soon as possible…and buy a summer home with the check,” he said.

20th Century Fox / courtesy Everett Collection

In particular, he said the third film was “literally, without question, the most unpleasant experience I’ve ever had in my professional life,” saying that for the film, he was “forced at legal gunpoint” to spend an entire week on a Carnival Cruise.

Slaven Vlasic / Getty Images

These words ended up costing Cross a $150,000 bonus.

19. But Cross isn’t the only one forced to do films they don’t want to do by the studio. Brad Pitt was forced to do Troy due to pulling out of another movie with the studio, and later said the plot drove him crazy and that he didn’t love the direction of the film.

Warner Brothers / courtesy Everett Collection

“I realized that the way the movie was being told was not how I wanted it to be,” he continued. However, he also admitted making his own mistakes in the film. After starring in Troy, Pitt resolved to be more selective about his projects.

David Blackman/Everett Collection

20. Robert Pattinson has pretty famously ragged on the Twilight series on multiple occasions. He said that if he hadn’t been in the series, he’d probably “mindlessly hate it without having seen anything.” He also spoke about how strange the hype, fans, and series were, and when reflecting on photoshoots, he said it was weird “kind of representing something you don’t particularly like.” He also joked that the only thing he’d stolen from the set was his dignity.

Summit Entertainment

21. Bob Hoskins REALLY hated Super Mario Bros. In an interview, he called it his worst job, biggest disappointment, and the one thing in his life he would go back and change. He’d previously called it “a fu–in’ nightmare.”

Buena Vista Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection

22. And finally, one last problematic film — Gwyneth Paltrow really regretted starring in Shallow Hal, calling the fatphobic movie a “disaster” and her least favorite role.

20th Century Fox / Courtesy Everett Collection

23. And Jack Black also reportedly said he felt like he sold out with the film: “I had an opportunity to work with some dudes I thought were really funny, but it didn’t turn out as I’d hoped. I wasn’t proud of it, and I got paid a lot of money, so in retrospect, it feels like a sell-out.”

20th Century Fox/Courtesy Everett Collection

Did any of these surprise you? What other films have actors openly criticized? Let us know in the comments below!