Fame is a funny thing. An actor spends years grinding through auditions and small parts, desperate for the one role that breaks them through. Then it arrives, turns them into a household name, and the feeling that follows isn’t always gratitude. Sometimes it’s dread, resentment, or just a deep desire to never hear that character’s name again.
These ten performers are proof that the most famous role in a career doesn’t have to be the most beloved one – at least not by the person who played it. Their reasons range from creative frustration to genuine moral discomfort, and in a few cases, they made their feelings known while still very much on the job.
Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen – Twilight (2008–2012)
Pattinson never really skipped a chance to criticize the Twilight saga while he was still playing the main role. Though millions of teenagers fell in love with Edward Cullen, Pattinson mocked the character in virtually every interview. His contempt was so consistent and so detailed that it became its own kind of performance.
He simply couldn’t play the character straight. The more he read the script, the more he hated the guy, so he played him as a manic-depressive who hates himself. He also pointed out that Edward being a 108-year-old virgin meant he obviously had some unresolved issues. Fans adored Edward. Pattinson saw something closer to a gothic caricature.
Sean Connery as James Bond – The Bond Franchise (1962–1983)
For a man who played James Bond seven times, Sean Connery had a uniquely strong distaste for 007. He felt underpaid and underappreciated in the role, going as far as stating that he would like to “kill” James Bond. It was an extraordinary thing to say about the character that made him one of the most recognized actors on earth.
By the time of Diamonds Are Forever, he was so fed up that he gave his entire fee to charity. He went on record saying “I have always hated that damned James Bond,” as reported by The Guardian in 2004. While the role catapulted him to the top of the Hollywood A-list, he was always reluctant to return when producers came calling. Yet despite his reservations, he wound up playing the womanizing British secret agent seven times.
Harrison Ford as Han Solo – Star Wars (1977–2019)
Harrison Ford doesn’t want to be defined by Star Wars, and he has openly felt limited by his iconic Han Solo role. He criticized the one-dimensional nature of the character, saying he wanted more development. For an actor who had built a career on complex, layered performances, being permanently associated with a charismatic but thinly written smuggler was genuinely frustrating.
Ford noted that he found the character relatively thin from the very beginning. He would have liked to see more complication for Han Solo, and the one complication he never got was dying at the end of the third film. He felt that would have given the whole story more weight, but he couldn’t convince George Lucas. He famously begged Lucas to kill his character as soon as possible. Solo being frozen in carbonite at the end of The Empire Strikes Back was reportedly a backup plan in case Ford quit Star Wars entirely.
Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater – Titanic (1997)
Despite Rose being her breakout role, Winslet has tried to push the character out of her head. The reasons aren’t tied to the character’s values or the film’s story so much as her own critical eye turned back on a younger version of herself on screen.
Winslet now regards her performance as Rose as one of her worst. While she never outright admits to hating the role, she has remarked that her accent in the film is “awful” and that she has trouble listening to it. She has also stated that there are multiple scenes she wishes she could redo. Adding to the difficult memories, director James Cameron was famously harsh toward her on set. It’s a complicated legacy for what remains one of cinema’s most iconic characters.
Daniel Craig as James Bond – Casino Royale to No Time to Die (2006–2021)
Craig had the opposite of a dream experience playing the iconic spy for 15 years starting with 2006’s Casino Royale, a film widely considered the best Bond movie by many fans of the franchise. The physical toll alone was considerable, but the real problem seemed deeper than bruised ribs.
Craig’s apparent dislike appears to be less about the role itself and more about the man he was playing. He seems to believe that 007 is fundamentally sexist and misogynistic, and has spoken about a “great sadness” in the way Bond treats women. When asked in a well-publicized interview whether he would ever play Bond again, Craig replied that he would rather break the glass in front of him and slash his wrists. He eventually returned for No Time to Die, closing the chapter permanently.
Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi – Star Wars (1977–1983)
Sir Alec Guinness had a love-hate relationship with playing Obi-Wan Kenobi, first appearing in 1977’s Star Wars. He reluctantly reprised the role in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, but only after negotiating a higher salary and a percentage of the box office earnings. That negotiation turned out to be extraordinarily lucrative.
Publicly and privately, Guinness frequently referred to George Lucas’ dialogue as “bloody awful, banal” and “excruciating.” As an award-winning actor on stage and screen, he wasn’t thrilled with the sudden recognition for this one particular role. That didn’t stop him from collecting millions in royalties. He publicly expressed regret for taking the role partly because he had wanted to remain a relatively unknown character actor, and one of the most famous movies of all time made sure that hope was thoroughly crushed.
Christopher Plummer as Captain von Trapp – The Sound of Music (1965)
The Sound of Music is considered one of the most beloved musicals of all time, but Christopher Plummer, who starred as family patriarch Captain Georg von Trapp, had few nice things to say about it for years. In a 1982 interview, he called it a “lousy part” and said he had to “use every trick you know to fill the empty carcass of the role.” He found the classic far too “sentimental and gooey.”
Plummer famously called the film “The Sound of Mucus,” saying it was overly sentimental and saccharine. As a classically trained actor, he felt the role was beneath his skills. Over the decades, he did begin warming to the film, even if he was its most ardent detractor for many years. It took roughly half a century before he softened his stance, which says something about how deep the original contempt ran.
Megan Fox as Mikaela Banes – Transformers (2007–2009)
Megan Fox absolutely despised the way her character was depicted in the Transformers films. Her frustration was not with acting in a blockbuster franchise but with the specific way her character was written and filmed, which she found reductive and degrading rather than empowering.
Fox hated that her character was objectified and sexualized throughout the films, which ultimately led to a public falling out with director Michael Bay. She was removed from the franchise after comparing him to Hitler and calling him a “nightmare” to work with. The pair later reconciled, and Fox went on to appear in the Ninja Turtles films that Bay produced. Her honesty cost her the role but earned her a lasting reputation for saying what many on those sets likely felt.
Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski – A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
Marlon Brando’s portrayal of Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire helped reframe the way actors approached their craft, and is often considered his breakout role. Although his performance earned an Oscar nomination that year, Brando later made clear just how deeply he hated the part. The character that helped define modern screen acting was one he actively found repellent.
Brando had a genuinely hard time with Stanley Kowalski. He claimed the character was “everything I’m against – totally insensitive, crude, cruel,” according to David Richard Jones’ book, Great Directors at Work. There’s something quietly remarkable about an actor delivering one of cinema’s most celebrated performances while being personally disgusted by the person he was playing. Brando channeled that revulsion into something unforgettable.
Penn Badgley as Joe Goldberg – You (2018–2024)
When the show You took off in popularity, it seemed like a genuine career win for former Gossip Girl star Penn Badgley. There was just one problem: his character Joe isn’t exactly a hero. Fans were drawn to Joe’s obsessive charm, which made Badgley increasingly uncomfortable as the show gained a massive following.
After fans started obsessing over Joe and wishing they knew him in real life, Badgley took to social media to remind his followers that Joe is a horrible person and that he himself would not be friends with him. The actor openly despises the character he plays. Joe is, by his own framing, a reprehensible individual whose true motives surface very early – a man capable of stalking, murder, and extensive manipulation. Badgley spent years actively trying to undo the romanticization his own performance inspired.
