40 Actors and Directors Who Made Major Career Gaffes They Wish They Could Edit-Undo

They’ll never live these down
40 Actors and Directors Who Made Major Career Gaffes They Wish They Could Edit-Undo

For many of us, decision-making can be terrifying. Some people get a feeling and just dive right in, while others (like us) take hours to pick a movie, only to regret the decision 10 minutes into it. What if there’s a better movie out there right now? It’s too much pressure! 

Whether these actors and directors confidently dove right into these projects or painstakingly weighed the pros and cons, they all came out of it with serious regrets. We’re now pretty grateful that our movie dilemma only wasted a couple hours of our time.

Eli Roth

Eli Roth apologized to the Cabinet of Iceland CRACKED.COM 2005's Hostel painted lots of nationalities in an array of unflattering tones. While he repeatedly made the (excellent) point that people still went to Texas after The Texas Chainsaw Massacre came out, he did end up apologizing to Iceland's Minister of Culture and getting a pardon from the President.

Ryan Reynolds

Ryan Reynolds ruined superheroes for everyone CRACKED.COM Before making a remarkable comeback as Deadpool, Reynolds says his 2011 flop Green Lantern made studios skeptical of superhero movies: I represented the death of the superhero for a while.

Paul Newman

Paul Newman funeralized his career in Variety TOP GRACKED.COM Newman called his acting debut, The Silver Chalice, the worst film to be made in the entirety of the 1950s. When an LA television station decided to air it a decade later, he took out full-page ads in Variety and the LA Times, styled like an obituary, that said Paul Newman apologizes every night this week- Channel 9.

Burt Reynolds

Burt Reynolds regrets making the movie that earned him an Academy Award nomination. Reynolds hated making Boogie Nights with the then 26-year-old Paul Thomas Anderson, who the actor described as young and full of himself. Не even turned down the director's next film, Magnolia. CRACKED.COM

Jason Alexander

Jason Alexander embarrassed his children CRACKED.COM Alexander confessed to taking on 2000's The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle for the money. No one was more disappointed than his kids: My children are so unimpressed with me that it's pathetic.

Matthew Broderick

CRACKED.COM Matthew Broderick hugely regretted being in The Stepford Wives. Не says that there was nothing fun about making it, his role wasn't interesting and he was disappointed with the poor quality of the finished product.

Ben Affleck

THE ACTOR: Ben Affleck THE ROLE: Title role in Daredevil WHY НЕ I hate Daredevil so much, he says. One of HATED IT: the reasons he took the role of Batman was to get a superhero role right, after that one. CRACKED.COM

Alec Guinness

THE ACTOR: Alec Guinness THE ROLE: Obi-Wan in Star Wars WHY НЕ Sir Alec famously said the film led to a HATED IT: worldwide taste for a fantasy world of secondhand, childish banalities. CRACKED.COM

Cher

THE ACTOR: Cher THE ROLE: Tess in Burlesque WHY SHE She called the movie horrible, and says the HATED IT: director told her, I don't care about what you say, I just want to shoot the dance numbers. CRACKED.COM

George Clooney

THE ACTOR: George Clooney THE ROLE: Batman in Batman & Robin WHY НЕ Clooney keeps a photo of himself as Batman in HATED IT: his office to remind himself not to make decisions based on commercial gain. CRACKED.COM

Ewan McGregor

THE ACTOR: Ewan McGregor THE ROLE: Frank Churchill in Emma WHY НЕ McGregor took the role to try something HATED IT: different, and regrets it. Не hates his acting in it, and says he had to wear the world's worst wig. CRACKED.COM

Jim Carrey

THE ACTOR: Jim Carrey THE ROLE: Col. Stars and Stripes in Kick Ass 2 After the 2012 Sandy WHY НЕ Hook school shooting, HATED IT: Carrey denounced the movie, saying he couldn't support all the gratuitous violence. CRACKED.COM

Josh Brolin

THE ACTOR: Josh Brolin THE ROLE: Title character in Jonah Hex Brolin hated the shoot, WHY НЕ and doesn't get how a HATED IT: movie with such an insane reshooting schedule still managed to be so terrible. CRACKED.COM

Malcolm McDowell

THE ACTOR: Malcolm McDowell THE ROLE: Alex in A Clockwork Orange WHY НЕ McDowell said he didn't get what people liked HATED IT: about the film, and resented being pigoneholed as that character. CRACKED.COM

Robert Pattinson

THE ACTOR: Robert Pattinson THE ROLE: Edward in Twilight WHY НЕ Pattinson hated Edward from the moment he HATED IT: read the script, so that's how he played him: as a manic-depressive who hates himself. CRACKED.COM

Arnold Schwarzenegger

THE ACTOR: Arnold Schwarzenegger THE ROLE: Kalidor in Red Sonja WHY НЕ Не says the movie is so bad he uses it to punish HATED IT: his kids. They get sent to their rooms to watch it, when they misbehave. CRACKED.COM

Shia LaBeouf

THE ACTOR: Shia LaBeouf THE ROLE: Mutt Williams in Indiana Jones IV WHY НЕ The movie was bad, yes, but he says his acting HATED IT: made it worse. I feel like I dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved and cherished. CRACKED.COM

The Dark Tower

The Dark Tower director Ron Howard wishes the movie was more grown-up. I think it should've been horror, he said, rather than PG-13 and sort of a boy's adventure. CRACKED.COM

I Am Legend

The I Am Legend director wishes he hadn't made such a Hollywood-y movie. In retrospect, he says, he wishes he'd just made a more straightforward adaption of the novella, with all its weirdness. CRACKED.COM

Patrick Stewart

Patrick Stewart would never have done TNG if he knew how long it would run. The contract was for six years, but his agent was sure it would actually fizzle out really fast, so Stewart signed on. It ran for seven years. CRACKED.COM

Drew Barrymore

Drew Barrymore wishes she had never filmed Everyone Says / Love You in 1996. She made it with Woody Allen, and now really regrets working with him - h her opinion changed once she had children, she says. CRACKED.COM

Daniel Craig

Daniel Craig has been trying to get out of playing Bond from the very start. But they won't let me go, he said, and he sounded like he might even want his films to be failures so he could get released from his contract. CRACKED.COM

After Earth

After Earth was the most painful failure in his entire career, Will Smith said. It was even worse than Wild Wild West, because his son was in it. But, he says, at least the failure of the movie reinvigorated him. CRACKED.COM

Dev Patel

Dev Patel says he can't relate to himself on-screen in The Last Airbender at all: It was a big-budget production, and he was totally overwhelmed -- watching it later, he says he saw a stranger on the screen that I couldn't relate to. CRACKED.COM

Che

Steven Soderbergh wishes he hadn't made Che, saying It took a long time to shake off. Everybody got scarred by a little bit, he said. For a year after filming ended, he'd wake up and he'd think, Thank God I'm not shooting that film. CRACKED.COM

Stanley Tucci

Stanley Tucci now wishes he'd never directed his second movie, The Impostors. TUCCI PLATT Campbell 100y Alfred The TAYLOR SHALHOUB SCOTT MOLINA IMPOSTORS Whenever someone tells him The Impostors is their favorite movie ever, Tucci says he accuses them of escaping from an asylum. CRACKED.COM

Gwyneth Paltrow

Gwyneth Paltrow says her 2001 Farrelly brothers movie Shallow Hal was a disaster. That's her least favorite role, she says, and she felt humiliated on the shoot. When she put the fat suit on, the world actively ignored, she says. CRACKED.COM

Mandy Patinkin

Mandy Patinkin hated acting in Criminal Minds SO much, he abruptly quit the show. Signing up for it was his biggest public mistake, he says -- the rape and murder on the show were very destructive to my soul and my personality. CRACKED.COM

Bob Hoskins

BOB HOSKINS WISHED HE'D NEVER DONE SUPER MARIO BROS. When asked during an interview about the biggest disappointment in his career, the late actor named the 1993 movie. Не said it was the worst movie he's ever done and if he could, he'd go back and just not do it. CRACKED.COM

Alison Brie

ALISON BRIE REGRETS VOICING VIETNAMESE AMERICAN CHARACTER ON BOJACK HORSEMAN. In hindsight, I wish that I didn't voice the character of Diane Nguyen. I now understand that people of color should always voice people of color. We missed a great opportunity to represent the Vietnamese American community accurately and respectfully, and for that I am truly sorry. CRACKED COM

Bee Vang

BEE VANG SAYS HE'S HAUNTED BY CLINT EASTWOOD'S GRAN TORINO. Vang recently criticized the film for mainstreaming anti-Asian racism in America. At the time, there was a lot of discussion about whether the movie's slurs were insensitive and gratuitous or simply 'harmless jokes.' I found it unnerving, the laughter that the slurs elicited in theaters with predominantly white audiences. And it was always white people who would say, 'Can't you take a joke?' Today, I shudder at the thought of what that meant. GRACKED COM

Michelle Pfeiffer

MICHELLE PFEIFFER HATES GREASE 2. Considered to be her breakout role, Pfeiffer has stated how much she loathed that movie. 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. CRACKED.COM

Gemma Arterton

GEMMA ARTERTON REGRETS TAKING ROLE IN QUANTUM OF SOLACE. The actress says she got a lot of flak for playing MI6 agent Strawberry Fields, the one who gets seduced by Bond in a hotel room. I was 21, I had a student loan, and you, know, it was a Bond film. But as I got older I realized there was so much wrong with Bond women. Strawberry should have just said no, really, and worn flat shoes. GRACKED COM

Hugh Grant

HUGH GRANT REGRETS TAKING so MANY ROMANTIC COMEDY PARTS. The actor-who has admittedly starred in a lot of rom-coms-said he regrets not thinking more carefully before taking on roles and getting typecast because of it. I took everything. The worse it was, the quicker I took it. I should have made interesting decisions and done different stuff. Instead, I repeated myself almost identically about 17 times in a row. CRACKED.COM

Marisa Tomei

MARISA TOMEI REGRETS PLAYING MOM CHARACTERS LIKE AUNT MAY IN THE SPIDER-MAN MOVIES. After playing the mom again in the 2020 movie The King of Staten Island, Tomei said that she regrets going for the mom roles in the first place. I really regret starting down this road and I really regret starting to do that. I was, you know, talked into it - not this, but I mean just that change-and I really always felt like, 'Oh, I could play a lot of things.' CRACKED.COM

Seth Rogen

SETH ROGEN WISHES НЕ COULD'VE DONE THE INTERVIEW DIFFERENTLY. Rogen says he regrets not fleshing out some parts of the movie, and that it felt inconsistent at times. Не also said that he doesn't believe the whole North Korea attacking Sony fallout that followed. Honestly, the further I get from it, the less I think North Korea actually did it and the less about me I actually think it all was...I think it was being carried out by disgruntled Sony employees more than anything. GRACKED.COM

Rooney Mara

ROONEY MARA REGRETS PLAYING TIGER LILY IN PAN. The movie not only (sorry) panned, but it was also a major talking point in the conversation about Hollywood's trend to whitewash movies. Mara said she felt embarrassed to be part of it. 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. CRACKED.COM

Viola Davis

VIOLA DAVIS REGRETS HER ROLE IN THE HELP. The actress said that her part in the 2011 film feels like she betrayed herself and her people because the film was created in the filter and the cesspool of systemic racism. She said that the movie was catering to a white audience only, and didn't show them who Black people really were. CRACKED COM

Evan Peters

EVAN PETERS REGRETS SOME OF HIS AMERICAN HORROR STORY SCENES. The actor has played some disturbing characters in the series, and says some of it has affected him psychologically. A strange one was when I was Mr. March (in American Horror Story: Hotel). I was doing this butterfly razor cutting of this poor girl while I was having sex with her. It was just horrific and weird and sad. CRACKED.COM

Brad Pitt

BRAD PITT SAYS HIS ROLE IN 12 MONKEYS HAUNTS HIM. Even though he received an Oscar nomination for the movie, Pitt says he can't even watch the second half because he wishes he had done it differently. CRACKED.COM

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