Most celebrities do not reveal what happened behind the scenes of a movie right after filming it. Sometimes, it takes a few years, or even decades, before they publicly express regret about taking a role, working with a particular director, or making an embarrassing mistake on set.
Other times, the regret isn’t about a role they accepted but about one they turned down—one that could have changed the course of their careers, like playing Neo in The Matrix.
Here’s a list of 25 celebrity confessions about their careers that might make you see certain films in a whole new light.
#1 Kate Winslet- ‘Titanic’
Titanic catapulted Kate Winslet to global fame. However, years later, the English actress revealed that she disliked her performance and was embarrassed by her acting and American accent.
Despite earning an Oscar nomination for her role as Rose, Kate cannot watch the film without criticizing herself.
"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,” the actress told CNN in 2012.
She also said she took smaller roles after the hit film because “being famous was horrible” and she didn’t want to be stalked by paparazzi and “followed literally feeding the ducks.”
Image credits: Aelias96/Wikimedia
#2 George Clooney- ‘Batman & Robin’
George was one of the first actors to portray Batman in 1997’s Batman & Robin. The movie was both a critical and box office disappointment, even named as one of the worst movies of all time.
Though he reprised the role during a brief cameo in 2023’s The Flash, the actor said he has grown a disdain for the superhero and won’t let his wife Amal or their twins watch Batman & Robin.
“I don't think there’s enough dr*gs in the world for me to go back there,” he joked about the possibility of playing Batman again in the future.
Image credits: Bryan Berlin/Wikimedia
#3 Anne Hathaway- ‘Love And Other Drugs’
Anne revealed that she unnecessarily stripped down to her birthday suit on set while working on Love and Other Drugs.
For one scene, she had to remove her trench coat and be in the buff underneath.
“I thought we were filming, but it turned out we were just rehearsing and I got unnecessarily n*ked in front of a lot of people. But hey, I just did my job,” the actress recalled.
Regarding the awkward scene, Anne said she did a good job hiding her nerves. "I didn't let anyone know that I was nervous. It was just an internal thing."
Image credits: Vogue
#4 Ben Affleck- ‘Daredevil’
Ben called his 2003 Daredevil film “disappointing.” Despite loving the comic book and praising his co-stars Michael Clarke Duncan, Colin Farrell, and Jennifer Garner, he said the superhero film didn’t turn out as he had hoped.
“ It wasn’t the adaptation ultimately that I thought was the best version of what it could have been, and that was disappointing.”
Ben further revealed that he has not seen Charlie Cox’s iteration of the film, which became more successful among Marvel fans than his own.
Image credits: Bellocqimages/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
#5 Ben Stiller- ‘Empire Of The Sun’
There are not many things that can make a director more angry than having an actor yell “Cut!” for them. And yet, that’s exactly what Ben Stiller did when shooting Empire of the Sun, directed by his hero, Steven Spielberg.
The actor told USA Today that he made the embarrassing faux pas after getting one of his lines wrong. This prompted the award-winning filmmaker to give him a lecture on set rules.
"I hear this huge silence. Steven Spielberg is in another building watching on the monitors, and he yells, 'What happened?' I'm like, 'I just yelled cut because I screwed up,' and he's yelling, 'No, no, you never cut!'”
Ben recalled that he turned white while Steven was yelling at him, but the two have since laughed about the incident.
Image credits: Gilbert Flores/Getty Images
#6 Carrie Fisher- ‘Star Wars’
In her book, Wishful Thinking, the late actress revealed that, if she had known that Star Wars was going to be so successful, she never would have signed on to play Princess Leia.
Carrie was offered the life-changing role at the age of 19.
“All I did when I was really famous was wait for it to end,” she confessed.
Additionally, she expressed regret about signing away her likeness for free, saying she often felt like Minnie Mouse because the Princess Leia brand had eclipsed other aspects of her identity.
Image credits: Riccardo Ghilardi/Wikimedia
#7 Gwyneth Paltrow- ‘Shakespeare in Love’
While most actors would dream of winning an Oscar at the age of 26, Gwyneth said she found it “disorienting” to reach the peak at such a young age.
The Goop founder won the Best Actress Oscar in 1999 for the film Shakespeare in Love.
“[When] you win the biggest prize, like, what are you supposed to do?” she said on the Call Her Daddy podcast. "I was like, 'This is crazy. I don't know what to do. I don't know which way is up.' It was a lot."
Gwyneth has been open about losing her love for acting in recent years. In 2020, she told Harper's Bazaar that she'll "literally never” want to act again. She will, however, return to acting with the sports drama Marty Supreme, starring Timothée Chalamet.
Image credits: SGranitz/WireImage
#8 Julianne Moore-‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’
Julianne got fired from Can You Ever Forgive Me? by Nicole Holofcener just six days before filming was scheduled to start.
The actress told Andy Cohen that she suspects the scriptwriter axed her from the project due to their contrasting ideas regarding the main character.
She further revealed that she never watched the 2018 film, saying the incident is “still kind of painful” to her, even though she loves lead actress Melissa McCarthy’s work.
“The only other time I was fired was when I was working at a yogurt stand when I was fifteen,” she said. “So yeah, it felt bad."
Image credits: Mike Coppola/Getty Images
#9 Leonardo DiCaprio- ‘Boogie Nights’
After the premiere of One Battle After Another, Leonardo DiCaprio was interviewed by director Paul Thomas Anderson for Esquire. During their conversation, the filmmaker asked the Hollywood star if he had any regrets.
Leo didn’t have to think long before answering: his missed opportunity to star in Boogie Nights.
“It was a profound movie of my generation. I can’t imagine anyone but Mark [Wahlberg] in it. When I finally got to see that movie, I just thought it was a masterpiece,” Leo said.
“It’s ironic that you’re the person asking that question, but it’s true.”
Directed by Anderson in 1997, the film focuses on a young nightclub dishwasher who becomes a popular star of adult films in the 1970s.
Image credits: Joe Maher/Getty Images
#10 Robin Williams-‘Mrs. Doubtfire’
In 1993, Robin Williams played a man posing as an elderly nanny in Mrs. Doubtfire, one of the most iconic roles of his career.
The film earned the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. Robbie was also awarded the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.
What many fans of the beloved film don’t know is that the actor did a lot of improvising on set, sometimes making R-rated jokes that were unsuitable for a family audience.
In 2021, director Chris Columbus revealed that they had agreed to do two or three scripted takes, and then he’d let Robbie “play,” filming 15 to 22 additional unscripted takes. "He would sometimes go into territory that wouldn't be appropriate for a PG-13 movie, but certainly appropriate and hilariously funny for an R-rated film.”
Image credits: Eva Rinaldi/Flickr
#11 Chris Hemsworth- ‘Thor’
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Chris took responsibility for the fourth installment of his Thor films, Love and Thunder, not receiving positive reviews like the previous Marvel movies.
Directed by Taika Waititi, the movie marked the comeback of Natalie Portman as Jane Foster, Thor’s ex-girlfriend. It also starred Christian Bale as the villainous Gorr the God Butcher.
“I got caught up in the improv and the wackiness, and I became a parody of myself,” Chris admitted. “I didn’t stick the landing.”
He also said he felt disconnected with the superhero character and that he would read his costars’ lines and think they were “cooler” than his.
In a previous interview with British GQ, the Australian star said he “cringed and laughed equally” at the film, saying his character's story had become “too silly.”
Image credits: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
#12 Drew Barrymore- ‘Poison Ivy’
When Drew was 16 years old, she was cast in the er*tic thriller Poison Ivy, a role that showed her seducing her best friend’s father.
The actress later revealed that the film transformed how people in the industry saw her, and she began receiving more offers to play similar seductive roles despite being underage.
“Once people started seeing a little bit of footage from [Poison Ivy], [my agent] J. J. got all these calls, like, ‘We’ve got this role for Drew as a Lolita-esque nymphet,’” Drew told Interview Magazine in 1992.
“And people were coming up to me on the set, going, ‘How does it feel to be a s*x symbol?’ I was like, ‘Me?!’ I might be a sensual person, but I don’t look at myself in the mirror and go, ‘Yeah, baby, you’ve got it goin’ on.'”
Image credits: Manoli Figetakis/Getty Images
#13 Halle Berry- ‘Catwoman’
Halle revealed that she adopted a cat before filming Catwoman to study how felines move so she could do a better job for the lead role.
"His name was Playdough. I watched, studied, and learned how cats think,” she told Entertainment Weekly.
“I didn’t have the responsibility of children and family; I was just a woman alone with a lot of idle time to focus on this.”
Halle took her role very seriously and stayed in character at home. “I was full-on cat, all the time. I’d crawl around my house, trying to jump on my counters, thinking, If I were a cat, how would I get up there? I was in it 24/7."
Image credits: Lionel Hahn/Getty Images
#14 Keanu Reeves- ‘Speed’
Keanu and Sandra Bullock actually hit vehicles while filming a bus scene in Speed.
“I remember we were a little under-informed,” the actor admitted. “We were all on the bus and then we were driving down by San Diego or something. We were set by the ocean, and all of a sudden, we’re actually hitting cars.”
“Someone was driving, and I was being careened into whatever [director] Jan [de Bont] felt I needed to smash into,” Sandra recalled, adding that she got her bus driver’s license for the film, despite not driving on camera.
Image credits: Craig Barritt/Variety/Getty Images
#15 Kate Hudson- ‘Devil Wears Prada’
Kate is a strong believer that everything happens for a reason. Still, there’s a career-related “what if?” that hasn’t left her mind in over 20 years.
The actress turned down the lead role for The Devil Wears Prada, so it was Anne Hathaway who ended up starring opposite Meryl Street as an aspiring journalist working at the prestigious Runway magazine.
"That was a bad call,” the 45-year-old admitted last February while speaking to Capital FM’s Capital Breakfast. “It was a timing thing, it was one of those things where I couldn’t do it, and I should’ve made it happen, and I didn’t. That was one where when I saw it I was like, ‘Ugh.’”
The 2006 film went on to gross $326 million at the worldwide box office. It also earned Meryl her 14th Oscar nomination.
Image credits: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
#16 Channing Tatum- ‘Beauty And The Beast’
Guillermo del Toro wanted the Magic Mike star to play the Beast in a live-action remake of Beauty and The Beast, but he turned down the role.
The actor called the decision "one of the biggest mistakes” of his career, and explained that he said no to the filmmaker because he had just had a baby, was working on another film at the time, and “the script wasn't totally there yet.”
Channing said he’s a huge fan of Guillermo’s work, so the decision to turn down the role was far from easy.
“I'll probably never forgive myself on that one, but I hope we get to work together one day."
In the end, Guillermo never helmed the Disney remake, which was directed by Bill Condon and featured performances from Emma Watson and Dan Stevens.
Image credits: Todd Owyoung/NBC/Getty Images
#17 Emma Watson- ‘Harry Potter’
Emma has always been the biggest Harry Potter fan and true to her character, she was extremely responsible about her work. So much so that, during the first film of the franchise, she knew her costars’ lines by heart and mouthed them while filming.
The British star told Jimmy Kimmel that her dedication to the film “created issues” on set and that Chris Columbus, who directed the first two Harry Potter films, would often yell “Cut!” and call her out for mouthing Daniel Radcliffe’s lines.
Recalling the incident, Emma said, “I was such a loser. I really loved those books, I really wanted to do my job well, and I kind of overdid it.”
Image credits: Neil Mockford/GC Images
#18 Zoe Saldaña- ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean’
Zoe starred in the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the first installment in the Pirates of the Caribbean series.
Directed by Gore Verbinski, the film was a massive box-office success and received generally positive reviews from critics.
Still, the Emilia Pérez star described the Disney adventure as a “really bad experience.” She said the cast and crew were “marvelous,” but the studio and director failed to “lead with kindness and awareness and consideration.”
Zoe also said that years later, producer Jerry Bruckheimer personally apologized to her for his behavior on set.
The Oscar-nominated actress said that filming Steven Spielberg’s The Terminal in 2004 restored her faith “that big can also be great.”
Image credits: zoesaldana
#19 Robert Pattison- ‘Twilight’
Robert revealed that he wanted to make the first Twilight movie as emo and edgy as possible, but the studio didn’t go with his vision.
“I spent so much time [on set] infuriated… I can’t believe the way I was acting half the time,” he said of his role as vampire Edward Cullen, which he played at age 21.
His managers would visit him on set and ask him to smile more and not take things that seriously, warning him that he could get fired if he played his original, darker version of Edward.
Another interesting fact about the film is that director Catherine Hardwicke was initially unsure about casting Robert because he had “black bangs for hair” and was out of shape from going to the pub all the time.
Image credits: The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
#20 Megan Fox- ‘Transformers’
In the wake of the Me Too movement, the Jennifer’s Body actress said she exposed the predatory behind-the-scenes actions toward women years before the Harvey Weinstein scandal but wasn’t taken seriously.
“I was always speaking out against some of the ab*sive, misogynistic, patriarchal things that were going on in Hollywood back in 2008 and 2009, way before people were ready to embrace that or tolerate it. And I actually got ridiculed for doing it,” she told Glamour magazine in 2022.
Megan had accused Transformers director Michael Bay of being a “nightmare to work for” and that the movie set was an unsafe space.
The star added that there are many names that deserve to be getting “cancelled” but are instead “safely stored in the fragmented recesses of my heart.”
Image credits: jennakristina
#21 Dave Franco- ‘Neighbors’
The actor called filming an intimate scene in Neighbors, the first one of his career, “awkward” and “nerve-wracking.”
He said he had met his co-star the day before their scene. “You meet each other and then you're grinding—you don't even know her name, barely. You have 20 crewmembers who are also watching you do it.”
But Dave also had an awkward moment with his makeup artist, who was a stranger to him as well. The morning of the big scene, he woke up to find a “giant pimple” on his bottom.
“I had to go to the makeup artist who I had also met that week and be like, 'Can we go in the other room and you'll put makeup literally on my a**?'”
Image credits: Amy Sussman/WireImage
#22 Katherine Heigl- ‘Knocked Up’
Katherine shared that she was blacklisted in Hollywood due to her reputation for being “ungrateful” and “difficult” to work with.
Her negative reputation began after she criticized her character in Knocked Up, saying the film painted women in a negative light while men appeared lovable and goofy. It was also fueled by her decision to turn down an Emmy nomination for her work in Grey’s Anatomy, explaining that the material she was given did not warrant such recognition.
"What is your definition of difficult? Somebody with an opinion that you don't like? Now, I'm 42, and that sh*t pisses me off,” she said in 2021.
"At the time, I was just quickly told to shut the f**k up. The more terrified and scared I was of doing something wrong, the more I came across like I had really done something horribly wrong."
Image credits: Nathan Congleton/NBC/Getty Images
#23 Will Smith- ‘The Matrix’ & ‘Inception’
Will is known for many blockbuster films, including Men in Black, Independence Day, Ali, and The Pursuit of Happiness. But there are two films he could have added to his resumé that he’s still “hurt” to have turned down.
One of them was the role of Neo in The Matrix, famously played by Keanu Reeves. Will said “no” to the project to star in Wild Wild West, which was commercially unsuccessful and panned by critics.
“I probably would have messed The Matrix up. I would have ruined it," Will said in 2019. "So, I did y'all a favor!"
The other role he regretted turning down was the main character in Inception, which went to Leonardo DiCaprio.
Image credits: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
#24 Josh Hutcherson- ‘The Polar Express’
While filming The Polar Express, a young Josh Hutcherson got the chance to share a set with the one and only Tom Hanks.
Josh was 9 years old at the time, and seemingly couldn’t contain his excitement and nerves, so much so that he let one rip in front of the Oscar-winning actor.
"Instead of playing it cool, Tom Hanks was like, 'Whoa! What? Oh my god, this kid, what the heck!'” the 33-year-old Hunger Games actor told James Corden. “My first big movie. Tom Hanks! And I just farted in his face!
"Looking back on it, it's very funny, but at that moment, I felt like my face was going to start sweating blood."
Image credits: Olivia Wong/WireImage
#25 Macaulay Culkin- ‘Rushmore’
Between 1994 and 2003, the Home Alone actor took an acting hiatus, during which he attended high school and married his first wife, Rachel Miner.
Though he wasn’t acting, he still received many scripts for projects he was offered. But there were a couple that just “slipped through,” Macaulay said on the YouTube Channel Hot Ones. One of them was the script for Wes Anderson's 1998 sophomore film, Rushmore.
“I saw that the one that I didn't read was Rushmore. And I was like, 'Oh, dang. I probably could have done that one.'
"I mean, I can't imagine anyone but Jason Schwartzman doing that part," he added. "But at the same time — oh, man, that would have been a ball and a biscuit, that one."
Image credits: Emma McIntyre/Oscars/Getty Images
