Fresh from the massive success of Transformers, Hasbro looked at their other properties to launch new movie franchises from beloved toys. In came 2009’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, with Channing Tatum taking on the lead role based on the military figurine. But the then-rising star didn’t enlist for the part so much as he was conscripted into it – he’d signed a three-movie deal with Paramount, and the studio basically forced him into it.
What he said: ‘Look, I’ll be honest, I fucking hate that movie. I hate that movie. I was pushed into doing that movie.’
Acting is a job. Even at the most elite level, Hollywood actors are still putting in work, even if, from the outside, it doesn’t look like the work the rest of us are accustomed to doing. And just like you, that means that, every once in a while, an actor is going to do something simply to collect a paycheck – and then regret it later.
Case in point: Dakota Johnson.
Recently, in an interview with Vanity Fair, the actress – currently set to star in the upcoming Netflix adaptation of the Jane Austen novel Persuasion – discussed the ‘battle’ of making the 50 Shades of Grey movie trilogy that launched her career.
The casting of Johnson and co-star Jamie Dornan in the leading roles, along with Sam Taylor-Wood on directing duties, lent a veneer of arthouse credibility to the fetish literature blockbusters. But the final product was plagued with hammy dialogue and cringe-inducing sex scenes. ‘I signed up to do a very different version of the film we ended up making,’ Johnson said, expanding on 50 Shades author EL James’s insistence on having ‘a lot of creative control, all day, every day, and she just demanded that certain things happen.
Johnson is hardly the first actor to express some embarrassment over their acting choices. Here are a few other notable occasions when Hollywood’s A-list spoke put the boot in on their own work.
