Actors make a lot of unforgettable movies, however, there are some they’d rather audiences forget. Sometimes, everyday-career missteps can be forgotten. However, when movie stars make career missteps, they live forever. Despite how wonderful it is, and how fortunate actors are, to be able to make movies, there’s always gonna be one role in their filmography they wish they hadn’t taken.
Sometimes actors don’t like the parts they’ve played because the movie was bad, the experience making it was bad, they had a change of heart-based on real-world events, or maybe they even signed on because they mistook the screenwriter for someone else. These are some of the least favored movies that actors would rather audiences forgot.
George Clooney, Batman & Robin
George Clooney has been very honest about his distaste for the 1997 film Batman & Robin. At the time, Clooney was a rising star with a burgeoning movie career, so, what actor wouldn’t want to portray one of the most famous superheroes of all time, right? Unfortunately, the film was the awful Batman & Robin.
George Clooney is very open about his feelings on the film, remarking that he “was terrible in it,” and even blaming himself for the following years’ lack of Batman films.
Mark Wahlberg, Boogie Nights
Boogie Nights is often considered a masterpiece by critics and audiences, however, it does have one major detractor: the film’s star, Mark Wahlberg. In the film, Mark Wahlberg plays a famous porn star at the height of his career in the 1970’s adult film industry.
Mark Wahlberg is also a devout Catholic and now regrets the role, remarking “I just always hope that God is a movie fan and also forgiving, because I’ve made some poor choices in my past. ‘Boogie Nights’ is up there at the top of the list.”
Jim Carrey, Kick Ass
Jim Carrey has starred in some of the best comedies of our time, but there is one he regrets taking. Carrey plays Colonel Stars and Stripes in the ultra-violent superhero sequel Kick-Ass 2, but after the tragic Sandy Hook massacre, he had a change of heart when it comes to film violence and publically disowned the film, even refusing to promote it.
He tweeted “I did a ‘Kick-Ass’ a month before Sandy Hook and now in all conscience, I cannot support that level of violence. My apologies to others involved in the film. I am not ashamed of it but recent events have caused a change in my heart.”
Alec Guinness, Star Wars
Legendary actor Alec Guinness played the iconic role of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy. Fans the world over loved his performance, however, Kenobi never counted himself as one. Before Star Wars, Guinness was an established star, appearing in classics like The Bridge on The River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia, and his casting added legitimacy to George Lucas’s sci-fi film.
However, Guinness later remarked that he hated working on Star Wars for, among other things, having to recite “rubbish” dialogue. Ironically, the role did earn him an Oscar nomination and very hefty royalty checks.
Michael Caine, Jaws: The Revenge
Jaws: The Revenge is often cited as not only one of the worst sequels ever made but one of the worst movies ever made. Often actors will take a role, not because of any artistic merit, but because it pays very well and that’s what it took to get Michael Caine to sign on to the classic flop.
Michael Caine remarked in his autobiography “What’s It About?” that the house he was building was going over budget, and he wasn’t really working at that time, so he took the very well-paying role in Jaws 4 to pay for the house. Unfortunately, taking part in the movie shoot made him unavailable to attend the Oscar ceremony wherein he won his first oscar. He says he’s never seen the film but has seen the great house it built.
John Cusack, Con Air
Con Air is a classic Nicholas Cage-starring, Jerry Bruckheimer-produced, 1990s action movie. While it has many fans, star John Cusack isn’t one of them and supposedly refuses to discuss Con Air in interviews.
However, he has remarked that while he thinks it’s a bad movie, it paid very well and allowed him to do the smaller films he prefers to do, which is often another reason why an actor selects a role.
Jared Leto, Urban Legend
Some movies are so bad they make the actor who starred in them forget they even existed. That’s the case for Urban Legend star Jared Leto.
In a bizarre 2002 IGN interview, bewildered Jared Leto claimed that he didn’t know what the interviewer was talking about when he brought up his starring role in Urban Legend. Some roles an actor wishes to forget, and some, apparently, actually do.
Will Smith, After Earth
Will Smith has starred in a lot of hit movies from Independence Day to Men in Black, and audiences around the world would probably think the actor’s biggest regret would be the 1999 flop Wild Wild West. However, he claims a bigger regret was the box-office bomb After Earth, directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Smith claimed that After Earth was a more difficult failure to deal with than Wild Wild West because his son, Jaden, co-starred in After Earth. Not only did the film receive negative reviews, but they focused on Jaden’s performance, and Smith felt responsible for that because he brought him on board the film.
Keanu Reeves, The Watcher
Keanu Reeves has had many derided performances in many derided movies, but the one he regrets the most is the one he was tricked into doing. In 1999, Reeves starred in the critically panned serial killer film, The Watcher.
As big actors often do, Reeves took a small role in the film so it could secure financing, however, his small role quickly got bigger, and he couldn’t get out of it due to a supposed signature forgery on a contract. His frustrations grew when he discovered his co-stars were making more money than him. Reeves was ultimately allowed not to promote the film and was not featured heavily in the marketing. He couldn’t hide from the Razzies though, as his performance earned him a nomination for worst actor.
Bill Murray, Garfield
In the film Zombieland, Bill Murray lays dying and is asked if he has any regrets. He responds “Garfield, maybe.” In 2004, iconic comedic actor Bill Murray voiced the title role in the film Garfield, supposedly because he thought an Oscar winner wrote the script.
During a GQ Interview, Bill Murray claims he took the role because he thought the script was written by Joel Coen, one-half of the famous Coen brothers, Oscar-Winning writer-directors of The Big Lebowski and Blood Simple. However, the script was actually written by the non-Oscar winning, but similarly spelled, Joel Cohen, who wrote Evan Almighty and Daddy Day Camp. The script’s co-writer disputes this claim, and Murray would star in the Garfield sequel, presumably now knowing who the correct scriptwriter was.
