11 ACTORS WHO WERE FORCED TO TAKE ROLES THEY HATED

Channing Tatum, of Magic Mike and 21 Jump Street fame, is probably one of the biggest stars today. So it may come as a surprise that he hated acting in one of the movies that helped make him so well known:G. I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. In an interview with Howard Stern, Tatum admitted, “I was pushed into doing that movie.” It seems he had to do it to fulfill a contract he had with Paramount Pictures. Tatum went on to say that, although he was a fan of the cartoon growing up, the script was not good, and he was unsure if he wanted to actually be Joe. Also, the picture did not open up the doors people think it did. After doing a movie like that, the only scripts that come to actors are for sequels or other action movies. But he does admit that he felt blessed for getting the work.

Back in 2003, Jennifer Garner, star of the TV series Alias, appeared in a rather poor adaptation of Marvel Comics’ Daredevil, with her then-future husband Ben Affleck. Garner appeared as the popular character Elektra. She then went on to star in the spinoff sequel Elektra, which fared even worse both financially and critically. How Garner, whose star was on the rise at the time, came to be involved with such a film is simple. There was a clause in her Daredevil contract chaining Garner to the movie. Garner never publicly stated that she disliked making the movie. However, her boyfriend at the time, Michael Vartan, who appeared on Alias with Garner, let it slip that she thought the movie was awful. Shortly after Vartan revealed this, Garner ended her relationship with him.

When Natalie Portman agreed to appear in Thor, it was already a well-known fact that Marvel Studios signed just about every actor who appeared in their movies to multiple-movie contracts. They even signed Samuel L. Jackson to a multi-picture deal, and his first appearance as Nick Fury was only a post-credit cameo in Iron Man. Portman must have missed this little factoid, as she later wanted nothing to do with theThor sequel when it came time time to film it. Of course, we can’t blame Portman for not wanting to appear in Thor: The Dark World. When development began in April 2011, Portman was still pregnant, and she had publicly stated several times that she wanted to take time off from film work to care for her child. In addition to that, Marvel fired Patty Jenkins, whom Portman had recommended to direct the movie, so that probably didn’t sit well with the actress either. But while there’s ample evidence to suggest that Portman may not have wanted to do the film, she has since denied that she was forced to appear in it.

Keanu Reeves’ involvement in The Watcher is proof that not all of our friends have our best interests at heart. In this case, the so-called friend is Joe Charbanic, who filmed a tour of Reeves’ band Dogstar, and happens to be the director of The Watcher. Shortly after Reeves’ huge success with The Matrix, Charbanic allegedly forged Reeves’ signature on a contract to appear in the serial-killer flick. Rather than deal with a long and costly legal dispute, and unable to prove that Charbanic forged his signature, Reeves appeared in the movie. Once the movie was released, Reeves did nothing to promote it, but for 12 months, he was contractually prevented from talking about how he got involved in it. However, once that contract was up, he didn’t hold any secrets back, among everything else saying, “I never found the script interesting.”

Whoopi Goldberg was riding high from her success with Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, when producers approached her to star in their movie Theodore Rex. At the time, Goldberg agreed to appear in the movie via an oral contract, but in the next two years, something happened to change Goldberg’s mind about appearing in the movie. Our guess? It was probably the animatronic, talking dinosaur. She attempted to back out of it, but a court case involving Kim Basinger getting out of Boxing Helena created a precedent that would have made it very expensive for Goldberg to duck out of Theodore Rex. The actress relented and appeared in the movie. The movie did so horribly on its test run that it was released direct-to-video and has the distinction of being the only movie of this kind to earn a Razzie nomination.

As one of the greatest and most famous actors who has ever lived, you’d think Marlon Brando always got a say in which movies he did and did not make—but that’s not true. Because of contractual obligations, Brando was forced to appear as Napoleon in Desiree, the script for which he reportedly hated. But Brando didn’t take his forced involvement lying down. He made a point of “forgetting his lines or reciting them with a nasal pseudo-British intonation and creating havoc between takes, passing around a football, [and] squirting extras with a fire hose,” among other things. According to Brando’s costar, the late Jean Simmons, upon the film’s release, Brando was amazed at the movie’s success, which included two Oscar nominations, one for art direction and the other for design. Had Brando put some effort into his role, he probably could have garnered a nomination for himself. He could’a been a contender!