64 Celebrities Who Admitted They Hate Their Iconic Roles

Emilia Clarke as Sarah in 'Terminator Genisys’

While Clarke was trying to make a name for herself as a movie star and not just the star of Game of Thrones, she took a role in Terminator Genisys…something she now regrets.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, she said that she watched director Alan Taylor, who frequently directed GoT, get “eaten and chewed up on Terminator. He was not the director I remembered. He didn’t have a good time. No one had a good time.”

She added that she was “relieved” that the film didn’t do well at the box office so that she wouldn’t have to do any sequels.

Dev Patel as Prince Zuko in ‘The Last Airbender’ The Last Airbender never received great reviews: The movie was surrounded by controversy about whitewashing, and fans weren’t thrilled with the film’s take on the franchise. Apparently, neither was Patel, who starred in the film. During The Hollywood Reporter Actor Roundtable, Patel said he "saw a stranger on the screen that I couldn't relate to" when watching the film. He added, “I don't know what I would like to play, but I know what I'm afraid of playing: those big studio movies. After Slumdog, I did a film that was not well received at all. The budget of Slumdog was like the budget of the craft services of this movie. And I completely felt overwhelmed by the experience. I felt like I wasn't being heard. That was really scary for me, and that's really when I learned the power of no, the idea of saying no. Listen to that instinct you get when you read those words for the first time."

The Last Airbender never received great reviews: The movie was surrounded by controversy about whitewashing, and fans weren’t thrilled with the film’s take on the franchise. Apparently, neither was Patel, who starred in the film. During The Hollywood Reporter Actor Roundtable, Patel said he "saw a stranger on the screen that I couldn't relate to" when watching the film.

He added, “I don't know what I would like to play, but I know what I'm afraid of playing: those big studio movies. After Slumdog, I did a film that was not well received at all. The budget of Slumdog was like the budget of the craft services of this movie. And I completely felt overwhelmed by the experience. I felt like I wasn't being heard. That was really scary for me, and that's really when I learned the power of no, the idea of saying no. Listen to that instinct you get when you read those words for the first time."

Gwyneth Paltrow as Rosemary in ‘Shallow Hal’

Shallow Hal isn’t a movie that aged very well, and Paltrow seems to know that, as she seriously regrets ever starring in it. In an interview with Netflix, Paltrow called the movie a “disaster.” She went on to say, “The first day I tried the fat suit on, I was in the Tribeca Grand and I walked through the lobby. It was so sad. It was so disturbing. No one would make eye contact with me because I was obese. For some reason the clothes they make for women that are overweight are horrible. I felt humiliated because people were really dismissive.”

Mark Wahlberg as Eddie Adams in ‘Boogie Nights’

Wahlberg dislikes his role in Boogie Nights so much that he has literally begged God for forgiveness just for doing it. In the film, Wahlberg plays Dirk Diggler, an A-list porn star. When speaking about it to Chicago Inc., he said, “I just always hope that God is a movie fan and also forgiving because I’ve made some poor choices in my past.” He added, “Boogie Nights is up there at the top of the list.”

Penn Badgley as Joe in ‘You’

Joe Goldberg, the main character of You, isn’t a good guy, and Badgley is fully aware of that. He’s also fully aware that many fans have developed a crush on Joe regardless, and he’s definitely not a fan of that. In an interview on The Today Show, Badgley explained, “He’s a pretty reprehensible guy. You start to discover his true motives pretty early on—eight minutes into the show. And he’s a guy who’s capable of stalking, he’s a guy who’s capable of murder, he’s a guy who’s capable of a lot of manipulation and abuse.”

In another interview with Vanity Fair, Badgley discussed the second season of the show and talked about his further dislike of Joe, saying, “He's always saying, ‘If only I could show you who I really am. Up until that point, he's never been able to do that…Then he gets it, and he's a total dick about it. That was when I was like, ‘Joe, I've never liked you less! I've never liked you less.’”

Mandy Patinkin as Jason Gideon in ‘Criminal Minds’

Mandy Patinkin starred in the CBS series, but abruptly left the show in 2007 after the second season, which was a shock to viewers. For Patinkin, it was the right decision. He told New York Magazine, “The biggest public mistake I ever made was that I chose to do Criminal Minds in the first place. I thought it was something very different. I never thought they were going to kill and rape all these women every night, every day, week after week, year after year. It was very destructive to my soul and my personality. After that, I didn’t think I would get to work in television again.”

Allison Williams as Marnie in 'Girls'

"Marnie would drive me crazy if we were friends in real life," Williams told BuzzFeed. "But I have to put that out of my head in order to play her. Like, sleeping with Elijah (Andrew Rannells) is crazy, sleeping with Ray (Alex Karpovsky) is crazy, furiously hitting on Desi (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) when he mentions his girlfriend in their first conversation is crazy; but I have to be on the couch with her and Elijah hoping they fuck, I have to be in that apartment with Ray kinda wanting it to happen, and I have to support her quest for Desi."

The thing that Marnie did that Williams' struggled with most was her decision to sleep with artist Booth Jonathan (Jorma Taccone) in season 2 of Girls. "I was fighting that the whole time as Allison," she says, with a sigh. "I did not want her to go down that road. I thought Marnie was better than that, but she wasn't, so I had to be okay with it too. I had to believe Booth was a genius when I walked out of that TV tower, whereas I, as Allison, couldn't stop thinking, It puts the lotion on its skin."

Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen in 'Twilight'

Robert Pattinson hates Twilight, hates Edward, and hates how everyone likes both. (P.S. There's even a Tumblr devoted to his interviews where he has to talk about Twilight, and ultimately makes fun of it.) Perhaps the best quote: "He's the most ridiculous person...the more I read the script, the more I hated this guy...Plus, he's a 108 year-old virgin so he's obviously got some issues there."

Kate Winslet as Rose in 'Titanic'

Even though Kate doesn't hate Titanic the film, she's not too thrilled with her performance as Rose when looking back. "Every single scene, I'm like 'Really, really? You did it like that?' Oh my God...Even my American accent, I can't listen to it. It's awful," she told the Telegraph. "Hopefully it's so much better now. It sounds terribly self indulgent, but actors do tend to be very self-critical. I have a hard time watching any of my performances, but watching Titanic I was just like, 'Oh God, I want to do that again.'"

Adam Brody as Seth Cohen on 'The O.C.'

It's not that Adam Brody hates the character he played on The O.C., it's that he hates talking about him now. (Understandable.) In an interview with the Huffington Post, the actor got candid about why he's kind of annoyed to keep talking about Seth. "It gets boring, that's all. The only way it bothers me—it's not that I'm not proud of it—it's that I've exhausted the conversations about it, in my mind," Brody said. "Forgive me for comparing myself in any way—and I'm not—but Harrison Ford, I understand why he would be crotchety talking about Star Wars."

Blake Lively as Serena Van Der Woodsen on 'Gossip Girl'

In an interview with Allure, Lively explained that playing such a privileged and troubled character on Gossip Girl was at times "personally compromising." "It's a weird thing when people feel like they know you really well, and they don't," Lively said. "I would not be proud to be the person who gave someone the cocaine that made them overdose and then shot someone and slept with someone else's boyfriend."

"People loved it, but it always felt a little personally compromising—you want to be putting a better message out there," she said. "The lines become blurred…It doesn't help when everybody is dating who they're dating on the show, and you're also saying to the costume designer, 'Hey, can I take that home?'"

Megan Fox as Mikaela Banes in 'Transformers'

As the star of the first two Transformers films, when asked whether she'd star in the third, Fox told Entertainment Weekly, "Sure. I mean, I can't sh-t on this movie because it did give me a career and open all these doors for me. But I don't want to blow smoke up people's ass. People are well aware that this is not a movie about acting. And once you realize that, it becomes almost fun because you can be in the moment and go, 'All right, I know that when he calls 'Action!' I'm either going to be running or screaming, or both.'"

She also later called director Michael Bay both misogynistic and a "nightmare," saying that he once had her clean his Ferrari and had her on a skin-tanning regimen.

Colin Farrell as Crockett in 'Miami Vice'

Farrell starred in the 2006 film alongside Jamie Foxx and clearly wasn't a fan. "Miami Vice? I didn't like it so much," Farrell said in 2010. “I thought it was style over substance and I accept a good bit of the responsibility."

Justin Guarini as Justin in 'From Justin to Kelly'

On a 2013 episode of Oprah: Where Are They Now? Guarini called the 2003 film "abysmal," although he did call the production an "unbelievable experience." Guarini starred alongside Kelly Clarkson in the 2003 musical/comedy after Clarkson won the first season of American Idol and Guarini was the runner-up.

Kelly Clarkson as Kelly in 'From Justin to Kelly'

Clarkson wasn't a fan of the flick either. In a 2015 interview with Rolling Stone, she was asked whether she burned all of the copies of the film yet to which she replied, "No, I think I would have to own it first. But that is something I will look into. I have a little joke with our nanny, because she told me she loves that movie. She was like, 'My roommate and I used to watch it all the time! I'm totally going to show your daughter From Justin to Kelly.' I'm like, 'I will fire you.'"

Brad Pitt as Rory in 'The Devil’s Own'

In a 1997 issue of Newsweek, Pitt admits the thriller/drama released the same year was "the most irresponsible bit of filmmaking, if you can even call it that, that I’ve ever seen.”

Penn Badgley as Dan in 'Gossip Girl'

Though Badgley didn't directly state he hated his character on Gossip Girl, he did reference the show and its flaws on multiple occasions. He tweeted in 2015, "Lol shit we are *reclining* on New York City. I'm posted up like its a futon. Talk about an image of white privilege." He also told Salon back in 2013, "To be proud of something is a really nice feeling...and it’s a new feeling. It’s something that I wanna keep going with." (Gossip Girl aired from 2007–2012.)

Cher in 'Burlesque'

"It could have been a much better film. It was always sad that it was not a good film," she told The Guardian in 2013, calling director Steve Antin a "really terrible director." "I remember [Antin] saying to me, 'I don't care about what you say, I just want to shoot the dance numbers.'"

Jim Carrey as Colonel Stars & Stripes in 'Kick-Ass 2'

Carrey starred in the 2013 thriller Kick-Ass 2, released less than a year following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. He tweeted, "I did Kick-Ass a month before Sandy Hook and now in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence."

Katherine Heigl as Alison in 'Knocked Up'

When asked about the 2007 film, Heigl told Vanity Fair, “It was a little sexist. It paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight. I had a hard time with it, on some days. I’m playing such a b*tch; 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.”

Jennifer Garner as the Title Character in 'Elektra'

Garner called her 2005 movie Elektra "awful," according to her ex-boyfriend Michael Vartan. In an interview with Us Weekly, Vartan is quoted as saying, "I heard [Elektra] was awful. [Jennifer] called me and told me it was awful. She had to do it because of Daredevil. It was in her contract."

Shia LaBeouf as Mutt in 'Indiana Jones'

LaBeouf played Mutt in the 2008 film, Indiana Jones, and he's open about not feeling he did his best work. "I feel like I dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved and cherished," he told the LA Times. "You get to monkey-swinging and things like that and you can blame it on the writer and you can blame it on Steven [Spielberg]. But the actor's job is to make it come alive and make it work, and I couldn't do it. So that's my fault. Simple." LaBeouf's character won't be returning for a sequel.

Jamie Foxx as Lt. Purcell in 'Stealth'

During his promotion for The Kingdom, Foxx reportedly said he was glad he didn't have to lie and say it was good like he'd had to with Stealth. He also said, "Sometimes you do a movie and you have to go promote it, so on Stealth I was like, ‘Yeah, this is the greatest.’ And people would see me after seeing the movie and say, ‘I can’t believe you lied to me like that.'”

Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie in 'Sex and the City 2'

Sex and the City 2 didn't go over as well with fans as the series did. Speaking at Vulture festival earlier in 2017, Parker admitted she "can see where we fell short. I understand, I actually get it. I will say, I also understand how much frickin’ money it made,” she added. “I feel like that is forgotten in the discussion.”

Jason Bateman as Nick in 'Horrible Bosses 2'

Indifference says a lot. "The second one was garbage, as far as box office goes," said Bateman of the 2014 film. "Who knows whether it was on the merits or when they released it, but it did not do any money."

Channing Tatum as G.I. Joe in 'G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra'

On Howard Stern's radio show, Tatum told the host, "I'll be honest. I f*cking 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...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 1) bad, and 2) I just didn’t know if I wanted to be G.I. Joe."

Shailene Woodley as Amy in 'The Secret Life of the American Teenager'

Woodley played Amy on The Secret Life of the American Teenager for five years. "Towards the end, morally, the things that we were preaching on that show weren’t aligned with my own integrity," she said. "So that was a bit hard to show up to work every day knowing that we were going to project all of these themes to thousands, millions, of young adults across the country, when in fact they weren’t what I would like to be sending out."

Charlize Theron as Ashley in 'Reindeer Games'

When asked about the 2000 movie, Theron simply stated, "That was a bad, bad, bad movie."

Sally Field as Aunt May in 'The Amazing Spider-Man'

Field was not a fan of the Spiderman sequel. Field told Howard Stern, “It’s really hard to find a three-dimensional character in it, and you work it as much as you can, but you can’t put ten pounds of sh*t in a five-pound bag.”

James Franco as Fabious in 'Your Highness'

"Your Highness? That movie sucks," Franco told GQ of the medieval parody. "You can't get around that."

Zac Efron as Troy in 'High School Musical'

We may love Troy Bolton, but Efron certainly doesn't. “I step back and look at myself and I still want to kick that guy’s ass sometimes," Efron told Men's Fitness. "He’s done some kind of cool things with some cool people—he did that one thing that was funny—but, I mean, he’s still just that f*cking kid from High School Musical."

Shia LaBeouf as Sam in 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen'

LaBeouf admits, "I wasn't impressed with what we did...there were some really wild stunts in it, but the heart was gone. It's just a bunch of fighting robots." He also took a nap during the screening.

Mariah Carey as Herself in 'Glitter'

Carey plays herself in the 2001 film Glitter and was definitely not a fan. She told Andy Cohen it was her biggest regret. “It was a horrible couple of years and then I had to get my momentum back for people to let it go.”

Cara Delevingne as Margo in 'Paper Towns'

Okay, she isn't actually ba Delevingneing serious about this one, but during a morning TV interview Delevingne was asked if she had anything in common with her character, Margo. She jokingly replied,“No, I actually hate her" and let's just say things got a tad awkward from there.

George Clooney as Batman in 'Batman & Robin'

Even George Clooney doesn't love every role he stars in, and he continuously apologizes for his role in Batman years later. “Let me just say that I’d actually thought I’d destroyed the franchise until somebody else brought it back years later and changed it. I thought at the time that this was going to be a very good career move. It wasn’t.”

Mark Wahlberg as Elliot in 'The Happening'

Wahlberg starred in the 2008 film and during a press tour for his movie The Fighter he admitted, “I was such a huge fan of Amy Adams. We’d actually talked about another movie, and it was a bad movie that I did. She dodged the bullet. I don’t want to tell you what movie. All right, The Happening. F*ck it. F*cking trees, man."

Daniel Craig as 007 in 'James Bond'

Craig is no doubt tired of the Bond series. When asked if he could imagine doing another Bond movie in 2015, Craig told Time Out, "Now? I'd rather break this glass and slash my wrists. No, not at the moment. Not at all. That's fine. I'm over it at the moment. We're done. All I want to do is move on."

Jennifer Lawrence as Mother in 'Mother!'

Lawrence's first reaction to seeing the 2017 horror film wasn't the best. Lawrence told Variety, “I was really shaken. My first reaction [to seeing the film] was that we took it too far,” said Lawrence. “But then after the images died down a little bit, [the movie’s] exactly what we’re supposed to be doing and what we need to be doing. We have a message and if we watered it down to make people comfortable then what’s the point? Why even make it?”

Jessica Alba as Sue Storm in 'Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer'

In a 2010 interview, Alba told Elle she almost quit acting after working on the superhero sequel because director Tim Story told her she wasn't "crying pretty enough."

Lindsay Lohan as Aubrey Fleming in 'I Know Who Killed Me'

While celebrating her 27th birthday in rehab, Lohan replied to a fan who wished her a happy birthday who said, "I seriously watched I Know Who Killed Me twice last night." The actress then responded, "Two times too many."

Sylvester Stallone as Joe in 'Stop, or Mom Will Shoot'

The iconic actor known for his roles in Rocky talked to GQ about the 1992 comedy which was,“maybe one of the worst films in the entire solar system, including alien productions we’ve never seen.”

Christian Bale as Jack Kelly in 'Newsies'

”Time healed those wounds. But it took a while,” Bale told Entertainment Weekly about the 1992 film.

Ben Affleck as Daredevil in 'Daredevil'

Affleck revealed during a TimesTalk he regretted doing the 2003 superhero film, which bombed at the box office. “Part of it was I wanted for once to get one of these movies and do it right–to do a good version. I hate Daredevil so much.”

Halle Berry as Catwoman in 'Catwoman'

Berry hated the 2004 film she starred in. In 2005, the actress accepted an award on stage stating,"I want to thank Warner Bros. for casting me in this piece-of-sh*t, god-awful movie."

Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter in 'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince'

Radcliffe admitted in an interview with Playboy he doesn't like watching the 2009 film because, "I'm just not very good in it. I hate it...my acting is very one-note and I can see I got complacent and what I was trying to do just didn't come across. My best film is the fifth one [Order of the Phoenix] because I can see a progression."

Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia in 'Star Wars'

Despite the film's huge success, this was actually a big reason why Fisher regretted the role. Fisher admitted to Today, "I wish I’d turned down Star Wars."

Arnold Schwarzenegger as Kalidor in 'Red Sonja'

Schwarzenegger starred in the 1985 film revealing,"It's the worst film I have ever made. When my kids get out of line, they're sent to their rooms and forced to watch Red Sonja 10 times. I never had too much trouble with them."

Ben Affleck as Larry in 'Gigli'

In a TimesTalk interview Affleck revealed, “It could have been a bad movie no one cared about. Angelina Jolie had a bad movie that year and no one cared. But it was because I was dating Jennifer Lopez that made it a big f*cking deal. So not only was it just a bad movie, but ‘they dated each other.'"

Alec Baldwin as Dennis Dupree in 'Rock of Ages'

Baldwin told TheWrap the 2012 film was a "complete disaster" and that "a week in you go, 'Oh God, what have I done?'"

Matt Damon as Jason Bourne in 'The Bourne Ultimatum'

Damon hated the third film in the Bourne series. "I don't blame Tony for taking a boatload of money and handing in what he handed in. It’s just that it was unreadable. This is a career ender...it's terrible. It's really embarrassing. He took his money and left."

Bruce Willis in...Multiple Films

Though he hasn't admitted which film he hates exactly, when asked if he regrets making any of his 60-plus films Willis revealed, "about a dozen. I'd love to strike them off the list." He also admitted he's "bored of making action movies."

Michelle Pfeiffer as Stephanie in 'Grease 2'

Pfeiffer revealed in 2007, "I hated that film with a vengeance and could not believe how bad it was. At the time I was young and didn't know any better."

Miley Cyrus as Hannah Montana in 'Hannah Montana'

While Cyrus doesn't directly reference she hated her character or the show, she does talk about the negative affect it had on her. “I was told for so long what a girl is supposed to be from being on that show," Cyrus told Marie Claire in 2015. "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 fuck am I?”

Matthew Goode as Declan in 'Leap Year'

Goode didn't even particularly want his role in the 2010 film in the first place. "The main reason I took it is so that I could come home at the weekends," he said. "It wasn’t because of the script, trust me. Do I feel I let myself down? No. Was it a bad job? Yes, it was. But, you know, I had a nice time and I got paid."

Rooney Mara as Tiger Lily in 'Pan'

Mara hated the lack of diversity in the 2015 film, Pan. She told The Telegraph in 2016, "I really hate, hate, hate that I am on that side of the whitewashing conversation. I really do. I don't ever want to be on that side of it again. I can understand why people were upset and frustrated."

Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi in 'Star Wars'

One would think that any actor would be thrilled to have a part in the massive franchise that is Star Wars. But the classically trained actor who played Obi-Wan Kenobi wrote in his autobiography, A Positively Final Appearance, about his regret over taking the role and his disdain for the film's dialogue and writing.

Crispin Glover as George McFly in 'Back to the Future'

It turns out not everyone was a fan of Back to the Future. Crispin Glover, who played Marty McFly's father, didn't approve of the trilogy's ending. He even went as far as discussing it with the film's director, Robert Zemeckis: "I said, 'I think if the characters have money, if our characters are rich, it's a bad message. That reward should not be in there,'" he told AV Club.

Macaulay Culkin as Kevin in 'Home Alone'

Although Macaulay Culkin looks back on his time as Kevin McCallister fondly, the actor told Ellen Degeneres that he simply doesn't enjoy the films like everyone else—and, no, he doesn't watch them at Christmas. "I'm remembering that day on set, like, how I was hiding my Pepsi behind the couch. I can't watch it the same way other people can," he said.

Sean Connery as James Bond in 'James Bond'

When the role of James Bond is being cast, Hollywood's youngest and finest line up for the job. But it was a job Sean Connery is known to have grown tired of and, by the end, despised. In a 1965  Playboy interviewthe actor shared that he was "fed up to here with the whole Bond bit."

Evangeline Lilly as Kate in 'Lost'

Evangeline Lilly aired her grievances with her Lost character, Kate, during an episode of The LOST Boys podcast, after being asked what she thought of her character's development over the course of the show's six seasons.

"I always thought she was obnoxious. I mean, not at the beginning. At the beginning, she was kind of cool, and then as the show went on, I felt like she became more and more predictable and obnoxious. I felt that my character went from being autonomous—really having her own story, and her own journey, and her own agendas—to chasing two men around the island, and that irritated the sh*t out of me."

Jamie Dornan as Christian Grey in 'Fifty Shades of Grey'

The controversial trilogy is what made Jamie Dornan a household name, but the actor has spoken about how he found the method of getting inside his character's head difficult. "I don't think I'll ever play a ­character who's less like me," he said on Jay Rayner's podcast Out to Lunch. If you wanted his wife's opinion, she wouldn't have one. She still hasn't seen the films.

Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski in 'A Streetcar Named Desire'

Marlon Brando played one of the most famous characters in both literature and film in A Streetcar Named Desire. But the actor had a hard time with Stanley Kowalski. Brando claimed his character was "everything I'm against—totally insensitive, crude, cruel," according to David Richard Jones' book, Great Directors at Work.

Andrew Lincoln as Mark in 'Love Actually'

The Walking Dead star first entered our lives as Mark in Love Actually and we've never gotten over it—but Lincoln has different feelings about the part. "In one of the most romantic movies of all time, I got to play the only guy who doesn't get the girl. The story is set up like a prism looking at all the different qualities of love. Mine was unrequited. So I got to be this weird stalker guy," he told Entertainment Weekly.

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