Actors can lose iconic roles for a myriad of reasons. Sometimes timing simply doesn’t line up and they can’t clear room in their busy schedules to make time for the production.
Other times they merely don’t fit the part or can’t get a handle on special skill, like singing or dancing, that might be required to bring the character to life. However, sometimes things just get a little bit too out of hand.
Could you imagine being a director and having an actor tell you that they would only come to work for you if you had a huge fan on set to blow their hair around in the wind? What about an aging icon insisting that they would only work for a million dollars a day? You might not believe that anyone would dare to ask for such things of their employers, but Hollywood celebrities have been known to ask for all of that and more.
From Edward Norton as the Incredible Hulk to Ryan Gosling in The Lovely Bones and Will Smith in Django Unchained, here are the 15 Actors Who Lost Roles Because Of Crazy Demands.
Emma Watson And Miles Teller In La La Land
La La Land was a gorgeous movie with talented actors. The film was a critical success, garnering all sorts of high praise and important entertainment industry awards. Also, as we all know, it almost looked totally different. Though contractual obligations got in the way of Emma Watson and Miles Teller potentially starring in the musical, so did their crazy on-set expectations.
The Hollywood Reporter said that Teller allegedly demanded more than the offered $4 million for the movie and refused to close the casting deal until that promise could be made.
Meanwhile, Page Sixalleged that Watson agreed to do the movie only on the condition that rehearsals took place in England. However, both actors have said that the reports were untrue.
Bruce Willis In Expendables 3
Bruce Willis is a huge action star– that’s just what he does. Naturally, he was a perfect for the ’80s action flick love-letter movie series The Expendables. Willis put in an appearance in both The Expendables 1 and 2. However, he was swiftly booted from The Expendables 3 after attempting to extort an exorbitant amount of money from the production.
Willis was offered $3 million to do the third movie, but he insisted that he should receive $4 million. Why is that one extra million so bad? Because Willis was only supposed to show up for a single four-day shoot.
He was demanding a million dollars per day. Sylvester Stallone said that the cast and crew balked at the request and immediately replaced Willis with Harrison Ford, much to Willis’ surprise.
Edward Norton In The Incredible Hulk
Marvel always knew that they would tap Bruce Banner to join the Avengers. They just weren’t exactly sure who was going to play him. No matter what happened, Edward Norton, who played Banner in the MCU’s first Hulk film, The Incredible Hulk, was certainly not going to be involved. This time, though, the fallout had nothing to do with money.
Norton is notorious for demanding creative control over the projects that he’s involved in, and The Incredible Hulk was no different. Norton is a huge fan of HBO’s The Wire, so he seized the opportunity to fanboy a bit and wrote Michael Kenneth Williams (Omar, himself) into the movie.
Norton wrote a fair bit of dialogue for the film but a large amount of it was cut in the editing room, something he was less than happy about. Marvel replaced Norton with Mark Ruffalo, saying that they were in need of a Hulk who would be more of a team-player.
Charlie Sheen In Two And A Half Men
There were so many reasons to can Charlie Sheen from CBS’s Two and a Half Men. Once again, money played a factor. He had begun to see himself as the main reason for the show’s success and believed that he deserved a 50 percent raise to show for it.
That was never going to happen, though, because Sheen was totally out of control. He was using drugs and alcohol on-set, he had a string of women coming and going, and he was asking co-star Jon Cryer to hide his adult content when his wife showed up. Everyone was done with Sheen and his outrageous behavior.
When Sheen was finally fired, Cryer said he and the crew received a lot of abuse for their decision. He was blamed personally, the execs were blamed for unjustly firing the star of the show, while others chastised them for taking too long to oust Sheen after years of misbehavior.
Katherine Heigl In Grey’s Anatomy
Katherine Heigl’s demands of Grey’s Anatomy’s showrunner Shonda Rhimes were not your average Hollywood demands. Heigl wanted better plotlines and more chances to show off her acting abilities.
Heigl submitted her work for an Emmy in 2008 but then withdrew it, saying she felt she hadn’t been given enough decent material to work with to actually deserve the award. Rhimes felt that this was a total insult to the show and its writers but said she wasn’t surprised.
After taking multiple leaves of absences Heigl finally left the show two years later in 2010. Two years after that, she attempted to return to the show, but Rhimes had no interest in allowing her to come back after previous disrespect.
Not even the show’s eventful 300th episode was enough to change Rhimes’s mind on Heigl. She paid homage to Heigl’s character, Izzie, but still didn’t invent the actress to reprise the role.
Shannen Doherty In Beverly Hills 90210
Shannen Doherty is famous for being difficult on set. She’s known for being rude and bossy, but it wasn’t just arguments that got her kicked off Beverley Hills 90210, it was her insistence on being treated like the show’s top star that got on her castmates’ nerves.
According to co-star Jason Priestley, even before the show was officially picked up Doherty was demanding that limos should pick her up from the airport. Town cars need not apply. Doherty dismissed Priestly’s claims, saying that his racing accident in 2003 that tampered with his memory.
Tori Spelling confirmed Doherty’s awful behavior on-set, stating that she once started a fistfight with Jennie Garth. According to Spelling, Doherty made everyone’s lives so miserable she was prompted to convince her dad to fire her.
Mariah Carey In The House
The difficult actors up to this point all lost major roles from major productions. Leave it to none other than Mariah Carey to be sacked from a cameo in a film not very many people actually saw.
Carey has been working on her musical comeback, and doing a fine job of it after her New Year’s Rockin’ Eve performance became the first official meme of 2018. However, Carey actually attempted to reboot her acting career first.
Carey was supposed to appear in Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler’s The House in 2017, but her cameo was cut when she lashed out on set. Ever the gentleman, Ferrell kept quiet on the specific details of the incident, only revealing that he had waited all day to begin shooting only to be sent home.
Co-star Cedric Yarbough was more than happy to tell all, though, revealing Carey flat refused to match a stunt performed by her stunt double and demanded a fan to blow her hair around like a diva.
Ryan Gosling In The Lovely Bones
Ryan Gosling is hot. They don’t make memes about how easy it is for women to fall in love with you for nothing, right? He’s also an incredibly talented and accomplished actor.
However, that’s not why director Peter Jackson cast him in The Lovely Bones, apparently. When Gosling showed up to set carrying a whole lot more pounds than he usually does, Jackson removed him from the picture entirely.
Gosling believed a grieving father wouldn’t be in the best of shape. He felt the character of Jack Salmon would be overweight, sloppy, and depressed. So, every time he felt thirsty, he would melt ice cream and drink it. Gosling said he believed that Salmon would weigh 210 pounds, and his ice cream guzzling shenanigans helped him put on 60 before Jackson fired him.
David Caruso In NYPD Blue
The glasses, the unruly rock and roll scream, The Who’s high-powered guitar riffs– from the moment NYPD Blue first aired, David Caruso was an icon… and he knew it.
Before he even arrived on set he had a reputation for being difficult, but showrunner Steven Bochco loved Caruso’s audition so much he decided to give him a shot. This was a mistake.
Caruso began to get into daily arguments with producer David Milch, which was especially an issue because Milch was having a lot of issues with his heart health at the time. Caruso then claimed he was bullied during the show’s first season and accused Milch of making his role less prominent.
To make up for it, he demanded an extra $600,000 per episode. Bochco hired Jimmy Smits instead and the rest is TV history.
Tobey Maguire In Spider-Man
Why does it always come down to money? At least these greedy Hollywood stars constantly come up with creative ways to try to extort their producers. When Tobey Maguire decided his $4 million Spider-Man paycheck wasn’t enough, he attempted to manipulate more cash out of the sequel.
Maguire faked a back injury and sent a doctor to deem him unfit for work… unless he got paid, of course. Because money makes the pain go away, apparently. So, Sony fired him and hired Jake Gyllenhaal instead.
That’s right, for a very brief moment Gyllenhaal was Spider-Man. However, Maguire’s wife convinced him that he kind of really needed this job and that it was important to his career. So he gave in, of course, and Gyllenhaal was replaced with the guy he just replaced.
Crispin Glover In Back To The Future 2
Did you know Crispin Glover did not play George McFly in Back to the Future 2? Nope, that was Jeffrey Weisman wearing face molds of Glover. Glover was understandably angry about it and even managed to get a rule put in place preventing this from happening to other actors. He also denied the rumors of his being fired from the franchise over his outrageous demands.
Glover did admit that money played in a part in him walking away from the role, but not for the reasons most people think. He said he was offered less than co-star Lea Thompson to reprise his role and he felt it wasn’t fair.
Meanwhile, producer and writer Bob Gale said Glover had demanded a paycheck equal to Michael J. Fox’s. Glover also admitted that the crew was uncomfortable with him questioning the decision to have the characters achieve life happiness only through receiving a reward at the end of the film and he lobbied until they changed the script.
What was the controversial reward? Money, of course.
Guy Cihi In Silent Hill 2
Guy Cihi was the voice of Silent Hill’s infamous James Sunderland until he started demanding payments that literally do not exist in the video game industry. According to his replacement, Troy Baker, Cihi insisted that Konami pay him residuals for his work, something that simply doesn’t happen in the gaming industry.
Cihi fired back, stating that Konami had never made any sort of agreement with him that would cover re-releases containing work he had already performed. His attempt at residuals was only to try to recoup some of the money he felt was owed him by Konami’s intended reuse of his work.
This seems reasonable, but Baker indicated that Konami was more than willing to pay Cihi for the reissues, they just couldn’t provide him with residual payments. This one’s a whole bunch of finger pointing for sure.
Kim Cattrall In Sex And The City 3
Kim Cattrall has been famously scrapping with the cast and crew of Sex and the City for years. At first, Cattrall’s incessant drama brought in attention and interest from the fans.
Everyone loves some good Hollywood gossip and catfighting between an iconic cast is the best gossip of all. However, eventually, Cattrall’s aggressive behavior became so out of control it cost not only her, but everyone involved with the franchise, their jobs.
Cattrall agreed to return to Sex and the City 3 only on the condition that the studio also buy the films she was developing. Oh, and she wanted a second TV deal, too. Warner Bros. found Cattrall’s demands to be ridiculous.
Rather than firing or replacing her, though, they canceled the whole project. Sarah Jessica Parker said the script was wonderful, but an anonymous source said Cattrall wanted her character to be treated with “dignity” and the studio refused to negotiate.
Tom Cruise In Edward Scissorhands
It’s hard to picture anyone besides Johnny Depp as Edward Scissorhands, but he wasn’t actually Tim Burton’s first choice for the role. We know that’s surprising to hear, but remember, this was the film that launched Burton and Depp’s lifelong working friendship.
Burton hadn’t watched Depp work yet. Before Depp, there was Tom Cruise, who was very interested in the part– maybe a bit too interested.
Cruise had questions about how Edward Scissorhands functioned in his day-to-day life. How did Edward survive with no food after his creator died? (Didn’t he just eat all those cookies?) How did he go to the bathroom?
It all became too much for the crew to deal with and Cruise was dropped from consideration. Depp and then-girlfriend Winona Ryder were brought in and a cult hit was born.
Will Smith In Django Unchained
Jamie Foxx was perfect in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, but he only got the role because Will Smith parted ways with the production due to “creative differences”– and by creative differences Smith actually meant the entire tone of the movie.
Smith thought the overall premise of the film was perfect, he loved it and wanted to be in the film “so bad,” but he and Tarantino could not come to an agreement on how to execute the script.
Smith said he wanted to tone down the revenge aspects of the film and make the movie more of a love story. He said violence only leads to more of the same and insisted that love was “the answer.” Tarantino decided Foxx was the answer and Smith lost out on the “perfect” role.
Can you think of any other actors who lost out on roles due to insane demands? Let us know in the comments!
