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From George Clooney to Miley Cyrus, these stars have been surprisingly candid about the roles that made them household names.
It’s not often that a celebrity publicly admits to having regrets.
There are plenty of reasons why an actor might regret a role. Maybe they weren’t right for the part, or the finished product didn’t turn out as planned. Whatever the reason, it’s rare to hear an actor speak critically about their own projects, let alone knock their most famous roles. It takes a certain amount of self-awareness, humility, and a good sense of humor to admit when you made the wrong choice—in a very public forum, no less. That’s what makes the actors on this list so interesting: They’re saying what few others in their position would.
From George Clooney as Batman to Miley Cyrus as Hannah Montana, these actors have more than a few regrets about their most famous roles.
01 of 09
George Clooney, Batman & Robin (1997)
George Clooney is the perfect example of an actor whose best role— Ocean’s Eleven, probably — and most famous role — Batman — are completely different. The actor has a great sense of humor about his one-off performance as the Caped Crusader in Batman & Robin, a notorious flop that has since become something of a campy millennial touchstone.
“With hindsight it’s easy to look back at this and go ‘Woah [sic], that was really s--- and I was really bad in it,” Clooney told Total Film in 2011. “It was a difficult film to be good in. I don’t know what I could have done differently. But if I am going to be Batman in the film Batman & Robin, I can’t say it didn’t work and then not take some of the blame for that.”
The actor expressed a similar sentiment in a 2020 interview with The Guardian, when asked which parts of his younger life he might approach differently. “Now, the obvious answer to your question would be to joke, Batman & Robin. And I wouldn’t do it at all,” the actor said. “I learned that if you’re gonna be held responsible for a film, instead of just being an actor in that film, you’d better pick better films.”
02 of 09
Miley Cyrus, Hannah Montana
Miley Cyrus’ name will forever be synonymous with Hannah Montana, the character she played on the beloved Disney Channel sitcom for four seasons (and two movies). Since the series ended in 2011, Cyrus has shared her complicated feelings about playing a teenager who tries to keep her identity as a mega-famous pop star secret so she can live a normal life.
“From the time I was 11, it was, ‘You’re a pop star! That means you have to be blonde, and you have to have long hair, and you have to put on some glittery tight thing,’” Cyrus told Marie Claire in 2015. “Meanwhile, I’m this fragile little girl playing a 16-year-old in a wig and a ton of makeup. It was like Toddlers & Tiaras. I had f---ing flippers.”
Cyrus also opened up about her grueling 12-hour days, and how she developed anxiety and internalized unhealthy beauty standards while working on the series. “I was told for so long what a girl is supposed to be from being on that show,” she said. “I was made to look like someone that I wasn’t, which probably caused some body dysmorphia because I had been made pretty every day for so long, and then when I wasn’t on that show, it was like, Who the f--- am I?”
But Cyrus came back around to the character that made her star, producing and starring in the Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special. In a profile for Variety, Cyrus reflected on the post-Hannah years, when it seemed that she was ashamed or resentful of the series. “I wasn’t trying to kill Hannah off. I was just progressing,” she said, adding, “I boldly and unapologetically presented myself to the world at that time, where I could have gone the other way and played it safe.”
03 of 09
Viola Davis, The Help (2011)
The Help was among the buzziest films of the 2011 awards season, thanks in large part to an all-star cast that includes Jessica Chastain, Octavia Spencer, and Viola Davis. But the movie is part of an awkward legacy in Hollywood, which tends to celebrate stories about civil rights and inequality that center the white perspective (in The Help, Emma Stone’s aspiring journalist is the hero). It’s also why, despite her multiple awards nominations, Davis isn’t especially fond of her participation in The Help.
When asked if she ever regretted passing on a role, Davis told The New York Times, “Almost a better question is, have I ever done roles that I’ve regretted? I have, and The Help is on that list.” Davis explained that while she had a “great experience” shooting the film with her colleagues, she felt the movie didn’t adequately focus on the Black women whose struggles were central to the story.
“I just felt that at the end of the day that it wasn’t the voices of the maids that were heard,” Davis continued. “I know Aibileen. I know Minny. They’re my grandma. They’re my mom. And I know that if you do a movie where the whole premise is, I want to know what it feels like to work for white people and to bring up children in 1963, I want to hear how you really feel about it. I never heard that in the course of the movie.”
04 of 09
Alec Guinness, Star Wars
Alec Guinness probably wished he could’ve used the Jedi mind trick to erase the cultural memory of his iconic Star Wars role. The classically trained actor and three-time Oscar nominee, who played Luke Skywalker’s Jedi mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original trilogy, had serious reservations about the role from the start.
In letters and diary entries published by The Telegraph, Guinness variously described the first Star Wars film, later retitled A New Hope, as “fairy-tale rubbish,” “appalling,” and “bloody awful.” At one point, Guinness begged director George Lucas to kill off Obi-Wan. “I just couldn’t go on speaking those bloody awful lines,” the actor confessed. “I’d had enough of the mumbo jumbo.”
Following Guinness’ death in 2000, EW’s Ty Burr recounted a particularly amusing story about the actor’s relationship with the character:
“In one particularly fiendish — and, okay, extremely funny — incident (related in the last of his three autobiographies), Guinness was approached by a young boy who begged for his autograph, claiming to have seen Star Wars countless times. Sir Alec agreed, on one condition — that the boy never, ever watch the film again. The kid burst into tears, the kid’s mother called Guinness a nasty man, and one clearly envisions the actor leaving the encounter with a quietly satisfied smile playing about his lips.”
05 of 09
Katherine Heigl, Knocked Up (2007)
2007 was a huge year for Katherine Heigl: she won an Emmy for her role in the hit ABC medical drama Grey’s Anatomy, and she played the lead opposite Seth Rogen in Judd Apatow’s blockbuster comedy Knocked Up. Both roles seemed to become points of contention for Heigl the following year. In addition to the infamous Grey’s Emmy drama, the actress told Vanity Fair in 2008 that she had some problems with the Apatow comedy.
“It was a little sexist,” Heigl said. “It paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys. It exaggerated the characters, and I had a hard time with it, on some days. I’m playing such a bitch; why is she being such a killjoy? Why is this how you’re portraying women? Ninety-eight percent of the time it was an amazing experience, but it was hard for me to love the movie.”
Heigl clarified her comments during a 2016 appearance on Howard Stern’s radio show, where she explained that it was her performance — and not Apatow’s writing or direction — that resulted in her negative feelings about Knocked Up. “I liked the movie a lot. I just didn’t like me. She was so judgmental and kind of uptight and controlling,” Heigl said, adding, “Judd allows everyone to be very free and improvise, and afterwards, I was like, why is that where I went with this? What an a--hole she is!”
06 of 09
Angus T. Jones, Two and a Half Men
By the time Two and a Half Men ended its 12-season run in 2015, two of the leads had already exited the sitcom. CBS terminated Charlie Sheen’s contract in 2011 after the actor entered rehab, and in 2012, Angus T. Jones followed. The young actor said he’d had a religious awakening, and in a 2012 video for a Christian group, he pleaded with viewers to stop watching Two and a Half Men.
“If you watch Two and a Half Men, please stop watching Two and a Half Men,” Jones said. “I’m on Two and a Half Men and I don’t want to be on it. Please stop watching it and filling your head with filth. People say it’s just entertainment. Do some research on the effects of television and your brain, and I promise you you’ll have a decision to make when it comes to television, especially with what you watch.”
Jones subsequently apologized and in 2015, he returned for the series finale. The following year, Jones seemed to have a change of heart about his previous comments. “If you’d asked me a few years ago if I wanted to get back involved in the industry, I would have said, ‘No. Not at all,’” the actor told PEOPLE in 2016. “I got pretty doomsday with my thinking for a long time, but now I’m having fun and enjoying where I’m at. I no longer feel like every step I take is on a landmine.”
07 of 09
Christopher Plummer, The Sound of Music (1965)
For a certain audience (theatre kids, looking at you), it’s hard to imagine anyone knocking The Sound of Music, the beloved 1965 musical starring Julie Andrews as a scrappy governess who teaches a military captain’s children about the joy of song. But Christopher Plummer wasn’t exactly enamored with the film, which made him a star for his performance as Captain von Trapp.
During a roundtable interview for The Hollywood Reporter in 2011, Plummer said the role was the most challenging in his storied career. “I think the part in The Sound of Music was the toughest,” he said, “because it was so awful and sentimental and gooey. You had to work terribly hard to try and infuse some minuscule bit of humor into it.”
Plummer came to despise The Sound of Music so much that a journalist recalled him borrowing a quote from Doug McClure whenever it was mentioned: “Watching The Sound of Music is like being beaten to death by a Hallmark card.”
The actor, who passed away in 2021, eventually softened on the film. In his memoir, In Spite of Myself, Plummer recalled friends of his putting The Sound of Music on during a children’s Easter party. “I suddenly could see why it brought so much pleasure to so many people,” he wrote. “Here was I, cynical old sod that I am, being totally seduced by the damn thing.”
08 of 09
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl (2015)
Eddie Redmayne received an Oscar nomination for The Danish Girl, in which he portrayed artist Lili Elbe, a transgender woman and one of the first known recipients of gender-affirming surgeries. But the actor also drew criticism for the part, with many feeling as though the role should’ve been played by a trans woman and not a straight, cisgender man. Reflecting on the role in 2021, Redmayne called it a “mistake.”
“I wouldn’t take it on now,” Redmayne told The Sunday Times. “I made that film with the best intentions, but I think it was a mistake.”
The actor said that his involvement likely helped get The Danish Girl greenlit, but he also acknowledged the disparities behind the scenes that drive this sort of decision-making in Hollywood. “The bigger discussion about the frustrations around casting is because many people don’t have a chair at the table,” Redmayne explained. “There must be a leveling. Otherwise, we are going to carry on having these debates.”
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09 of 09
Burt Reynolds, Boogie Nights (1997)
Whether Boogie Nights is Burt Reynolds’ most famous role depends on when you were born, but Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1997 drama revitalized his career and remains his most acclaimed performance. Although it earned the actor his only Oscar nomination, Reynolds famously hated the film.
During a 2018 appearance on Conan O’Brien’s late-night show, Reynolds revealed that he turned down the role of adult film director Jack Horner seven times because the story made him “very uncomfortable.” The actor also said that he had never seen Boogie Nights and didn’t plan on it, explaining that it “wasn’t my kind of film.”
Reynolds disliked Boogie Nights so much that he fired the agent who convinced him to take the role.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
