Actors who dislike their iconic movie roles

Actors who admitted to hating their iconic roles

Find out which actors detest the roles that helped them achieve fame, including “Friends” actress Jennifer Aniston, “Twilight” actor Robert Pattinson, and “Gossip Girl” actress Blake Lively.

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As an actor, you have to be adept at taking on various personalities, motivations, and even looks for different parts. But certain stars will forever be recognized for playing a particularly iconic role—and some of them don’t love that. Whether they hated their character or just hated the fame that came with it, take a look at the stars, ahead, who see their roles as a blessing, but sometimes also as a curse

Learn which actors detest their most significant role to date.

The great majority of actors work for their whole lives in the hopes of getting a breakthrough part, but these artists have come to hate their storied roles.

Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando played many an iconic role throughout his career, one being that of Stanley Kowalski in 1951’s A Streetcar Named Desire. Brando had actually already played the role on Broadway and earned an Oscar nomination for his performance, but later admitted that he hated both the character and the sex symbol status it gave him. In his 1994 autobiography, the actor called the character a “Neanderthal” and a “blue-jeaned slobbermouth”.

Katherine Heigl
Playing a woman who gets pregnant after a one night stand, Katherine Heigl starred ‘Knocked Up’ this 2007 Judd Apatow comedy opposite Seth Rogen, but admitted in a 2008 interview that she felt the role (and the film itself) was “a little sexist”. “It paints the women as shrews, as humourless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys,” she said. “I’m playing such a bitch; why is she being such a killjoy? Why is this how you’re portraying women?” However, she later said that she didn’t completely hate the film, adding: “I just didn’t like me.”

Robert Pattinson
The ‘Twilight’ heartthrob, who played the tortured and brooding Edward Cullen in the vampire flick, has consistenly slated the entire franchise that made him famous. He said: “When I read it, I was convinced Stephenie was convinced she was Bella and it was like it was a book that wasn’t supposed to be published. It was like reading her sexual fantasy, especially when she said it was based on a dream. “It’s a weird story, ‘Twilight’. It’s not just like – it’s strange how people responded a lot to it. I guess the books are very romantic, but at the same time, it’s not like The Notebook romantic.”

Gwyneth Paltrow
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 (opens in new tab), 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.”

Daniel Craig
He drew critical acclaim for his portrayal of James Bond in five films spanning over a 15 year period. But despite his worldwide success, Daniel admitted he suffered from anxiety playing the character and almost didn’t reprise the role of secret agent 007 in 2021’s ‘No Time To Die’ He said: “I felt like that was really important – that’s who I wanted my Bond to be. I wanted people to believe it was me doing those stunts. However, after ‘Spectre,’ I genuinely felt like I couldn’t do that anymore. “I was never going to do one again. “I was like, ‘Is this work really genuinely worth this, to go through this, this whole thing?’ And I didn’t feel… I felt physically really low. “So the prospect of doing another movie was just, like, off the cards. And that’s why it has been five years.”

Kate Winslet
Her ‘first class’ performance as troubled socialite Rose DeWitt Bukater in James Cameron’s ‘Titanic’ made her and Leonardo DiCaprio global stars but Kate admitted she would like a do over as she hated her American accent. “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. 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.'”

Daniel Radcliffe
Daniel Radcliffe was the lucky eleven-year-old plucked from thousands to play the coveted title role in the ‘Harry Potter’ film franchise back in 2001 and played the role of the boy wizard across all eight blockbuster film adaptations of J.K Rowling’s bestselling book series. A potential film adaptation of the spin-off play ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ but Daniel insisted he wanted to move away from the franchise completely. He said: “I’m getting to a point where I feel like I made it out of ‘Potter’ OK and I’m really happy with where I am now, “I’m never going to say never, but the ‘Star Wars’ guys had like 30, 40 years before they went back. For me, it’s only been 10. It’s not something I’m really interested in doing right now,”

Blake Lively
The ‘Gossip Girl’ star played the leading role of Serena van der Woodsen on hit TV show for five years from 2007 to 2012. But rather then crediting the role for catapulting her to fame, Blake revealed that she couldn’t stand her character and playing Serena was sometimes difficult and “personally compromising”. She said: “The lines become blurred. “People loved it, but it always felt a little personally compromising. “You want to be putting a better message out there. “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.”

Sir Alec Guinness
Sir Alec Guinness is known to fans as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the sci-fi movie ‘Star Wars’ but despite the franchise turning him into a movie legend Alec has been vocal about his dislike for the films. In a letter penned to long-time friend Anne Kaufman he called George Lucas’ scripts “bl***y awful” and referred to the film as “fairy-tale rubbish”. In a 2003 autobiography he revealed how the dream of first signing up spiralled into a nightmare. He wrote: “A refurbished ‘Star Wars’ is on somewhere or everywhere, I have no intention of revisiting any galaxy. I shrivel inside each time it is mentioned. Twenty years ago, when the film was first shown, it had a freshness, also a sense of moral good and fun. Then I began to be uneasy at the influence it might be having.”

Miley Cyrus
The pop megastar shot to fame as a teenager when she played the title role on the Disney sitcom ‘Hannah Montana.’ Over the course of four seasons, one movie and a slew of hit soundtrack records Miley played the role of a regular school girl who led a secret double life as a popstar as partof the billion-dollar franchise. But since taking off Hannah’s famous blonde wig for the last time in 2011, Miley has dramatically changed her image and revamped her sound with hits like ‘Wrecking Ball’ and ‘Midnight Sky’ in an attempt to “evolve” away from her character. She said: “Talk about an identity crisis. I was a character almost as often as I was myself. “I had to evolve because Hannah was larger than life, larger than me. I felt like I was never going to amount to the success of Hannah Montana. “When I looked like myself … when I didn’t have the wig on anymore, no one cared about me. I wasn’t a star anymore. “Like, without being Hannah Montana, no one cares about you.”

Dakota Johnson
Turns out Dakota didn’t do her homework when she signed up for the role of Anastasia Steele in raunchy franchise ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’. According to the actress – who rose to fame playing the love interest of BDSM enthusiast Christian Grey – she “signed up to do a very different version of the film” which ended up being a “psychotic” and “crazy” experience. In an interview with Vanity Fair she said she found her character “incredibly cheesy”. She said: “If I had known at the time that’s what it was going to be like, I don’t think anyone would’ve done it. It would’ve been like, ‘Oh, this is psychotic’.”

Sean Connery
Daniel Craig is not the only one who hated James Bond. The late Sean Connery – who played the role of secret agent 007 across six movies between 1962 and 1971 but famously despised his character. He once raged: “I have always hated that damned James Bond. “I’d like to kill him.”

Jennifer Aniston
The role of runaway bride-turned-waitress Rahcel Green on ‘Friends’ brought Jennifer Aniston to immense fame she later admitted she felt “married” to the role after failing to secure movie contracts when the show ended in 2004. She said: “I couldn’t stop carrying Rachel Green on my back. I could not escape Rachel from ‘Friends’, because she was also on all the channels, all the time and sometimes made me scream: ‘Stop playing that bad program!’ “When I was finally able to shake off what was left of Rachel, when I was able to hide in another character who had nothing to do with her, I was immensely relieved. But at the beginning, panic also came over me, because I no longer knew if I would be able to play someone other than her.”

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Dan Dunn

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Editor and Admin at MarkMeets since Nov 2012. Columnist, reviewer and entertainment writer and oversees all of the section's news, features and interviews. During his career, he has written for numerous magazines.

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