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Movie stars won’t usually tell you what they really think about their careers, but if you catch them at the right moment they can be refreshingly blunt about the movies they made \u2014 and the ones they regret not doing! Here are 26 times movie stars were surprisingly candid about their careers:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 1.<\/span><\/p>\n During a recent interview on Hot Ones<\/i>, Macaulay Culkin<\/a> revealed<\/a> that he found an unread screenplay for Wes Anderson’s Rushmore<\/i> in his house, and still can\u2019t believe he missed it! The Home Alone<\/i><\/a> star was on a break from acting back then and figured he was keeping up with submissions, but this one slipped through. His reaction now is part amused, part horrified: “I mean, I can’t imagine anyone but Schwartzman doing that part, but at the same time \u2014 oh, man, that would have been a ball and a biscuit, that one.” It\u2019s an alternate timeline \u2014 with Culkin as Max Fischer \u2014 that underscores how easily a single unopened envelope can change a career.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 2.<\/span><\/p>\n In the early 2010s, Guillermo del Toro<\/a> was going to make a live-action version of Beauty and the Beast<\/i><\/a> with Emma Watson<\/a> as Belle, but it never ended up happening. One of the reasons? He couldn’t find the right actor to play the Beast. Channing Tatum recently admitted<\/a> that he was offered the role, but turned it down, saying, “I\u2019d just had a baby, I was on a movie that was absolutely killing me, and the script wasn\u2019t totally there yet. I was just in a place in my head that I was like, \u2018I don\u2019t think I can do this right now.'” Tatum is a major fan of del Toro, and now calls his choice \u201cone of the biggest mistakes of my career,” adding that it could have been the “sickest movie ever.” Oh well. At least he said “yes” to G.I. Joe: Retaliation<\/i>, lol.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 3.<\/span><\/p>\n Speaking of Watson, she told Jimmy Kimmel about how \u2014 as a 10-year-old \u2014 director Chris Columbus called her out in front of everyone on the set of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer\u2019s Stone<\/i> for mouthing her costars’ lines. She said<\/a>, “This is actually quite traumatic for me because I created issues because of this. I would ruin takes. Chris would be like, ‘Cut! Emma, you’re doing it again. You’re mouthing Dan’s lines.'” She added, “I was such a loser. I really loved those books, I really wanted to do my job well, and I kind of overdid it.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 4.<\/span><\/p>\n By the time she was 16, Drew Barrymore had already lived through more highs and lows than almost any kid her age, but then things got even weirder when she was cast in 1992’s erotic thriller Poison Ivy<\/i> (yes, an erotic thriller…at 16…where she seduces her best friend’s dad. Yikes!). Not long after the movie came out, Barrymore said<\/a> the movie transformed how the industry saw her. \u201cOnce people started seeing a little bit of footage, [my agent] J.J. got all these calls, like, \u2018We\u2019ve got this role for Drew as a Lolita-esque nymphet.\u2019 And people were coming up to me on the set, going, \u2018How does it feel to be a sex symbol?\u2019 I was like, \u2018Me?!\u2019\u201d Barrymore said she never viewed herself that way: \u201cI might be a sensual person, but I don\u2019t look at myself in the mirror and go, \u2018Yeah, baby, you\u2019ve got it goin\u2019 on.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 5.<\/span><\/p>\n On a 2023 episode of the Call Her Daddy<\/i> podcast, Gwyneth Paltrow reflected<\/a> on how winning the Best Actress Oscar for Shakespeare in Love<\/i> affected her. “[When] you win the biggest prize, like, what are you supposed to do? It was hard, the amount of attention that you receive on a night like that and the weeks following.” Paltrow \u2014 who was just 26 when she won \u2014 called the experience “disorienting” and “really unhealthy,” adding, “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.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 6.<\/span><\/p>\n Barry Keoghan revealed that the shocking scene in Saltburn<\/i> where his character, Oliver, basically makes love to the soil around his lover Felix’s grave, was improvised. Asked about the improvised elements of the film on the red carpet of the 2024 Golden Globes, Keoghan joked that they’d improvised “all the sick parts.” He then went on to discuss the shocking grave sex scene.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 7.<\/span><\/p>\n Earlier this year, with the sequel to 2006’s The Devil Wears Prada<\/i> set to film, Kate Hudson confessed<\/a> on Capital Breakfast that she turned down the role Anne Hathaway made famous. “That was a bad call,\u201d Hudson, 45, said. \u201cIt was a timing thing, it was one of those things where I couldn\u2019t do it, and I should\u2019ve made it happen, and I didn\u2019t. That was one where when I saw it I was like, \u2018Ugh.'” She went on to say, \u201cEverything happens for a reason.\u201d Dunno, Kate. I think that’s just what we tell ourselves when we make epic mistakes, lol.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 8.<\/span><\/p>\n Hudson may wake up in the night regretting her decision, but at least she doesn’t wake up regretting the awkward moment Anne Hathaway might…when she unnecessarily got naked on the set of Love & Other Drugs.<\/i> You can forgive the awkward mistake \u2014 the film, costarring Jake Gyllenhaal, was a steamy affair. But showing up naked at work when you’re not supposed to is definitely a facepalm-worthy moment. It happened when rehearsing the scene where Hathaway removes her trench coat and is nude underneath. She told the Standard<\/a>, “I thought we were filming, but it turned out we were just rehearsing, and I got unnecessarily naked in front of a lot of people. But hey, I just did my job.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 9.<\/span><\/p>\n Speaking of embarrassing on-set moments, The Hunger Games<\/i> and Five Nights at Freddy’s<\/i> star Josh Hutcherson told James Corden<\/a> about “the most embarrassing moment of my entire life,” which happened while filming The Polar Express<\/i>. “I was shooting this scene with Tom Hanks, who is like the father of America, and we\u2019re shooting this scene\u2026where I\u2019m, like, nestled in under him\u2026and I farted.” Yes, the then-9-year-old ripped one on Tom Hanks. But it gets worse. “Instead of playing it cool, Tom Hanks was like, ‘Whoa! What? Oh my god, this kid, what the heck!’ My first big movie. Tom Hanks! And I just farted in his face!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 10.<\/span><\/p>\n Matthew McConaughey shared an embarrassing on-set memory of his own while appearing on Variety\u2019s Actors on Actors<\/a>. He said he didn\u2019t read the script before heading to the set of 1995’s Scorpion Spring,<\/i> and upon arriving, learned that he was expected to immediately perform a four-page monologue…in Spanish. Why, you may ask, did McConaughey not read the script? \u201cI had this idea that I needed to go back like I did in my first film (Dazed and Confused<\/i>), where I just knew my man, and I would show up and just play the circumstances \u2014 improvise. So I said, ‘I\u2019m not going to read the script. Just tell me the character, tell me the situation, and I\u2019ll show up, and I\u2019ll just react and do what I would do.'”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 11.<\/span><\/p>\n Dave Franco probably regrets confessing his embarrassing on-set moment \u2014 when he discovered a giant pimple on his butt right before shooting his first-ever sex scene in the 2014 film Neighbors<\/i>. “I was pretty nervous for the scene,” he told<\/a> E!’s Chelsea Lately<\/i>. “And then, of course, for me, I woke up that morning and I had a giant pimple on my ass…It sucks, right?” Franco then made the awkward decision to ask the makeup artist (who he’d just met) to cover it up. He later admitted, \u201cThat was not my finest hour.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 12.<\/span><\/p>\n It’s pretty common knowledge now that Will Smith turned down the lead role in The Matrix<\/i>, but he recently told<\/a> radio station Kiss Xtra that he also turned down a big part in another massive film. “I don’t think I’ve ever said it publicly,” Smith began, “but I am going to say it because we are opening up to one another. Chris Nolan brought me Inception<\/i> first and I didn’t get it. I’ve never said that out loud. Now that I think about it, it’s those movies that go into those alternate realities… they don’t pitch well.” Damn. Passing on The Matrix<\/i> and Inception?<\/i> What a slap to the face.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 13.<\/span><\/p>\n In a recent interview<\/a> with the Hollywood Reporter, Mark Hamill admitted that he originally was leaning toward not returning as Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi:<\/i> “You can\u2019t catch lightning in a bottle twice \u2014 they should really focus on a new generation of characters.” However, when Harrison Ford signed on to reprise his iconic role, that changed things. “Once I saw in the press that he had accepted, I felt like I had been drafted \u2014 because if I\u2019m the only one [of the original Star Wars<\/i> heroes] who says no, I\u2019ll be the most hated man in nerd-dom.” Somehow, Palp\u2014 I mean, Luke Skywalker, returned.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 14.<\/span><\/p>\n In the same interview, Hamill also revealed that he asked Milos Forman, the director of 1984 Best Picture winner Amadeus,<\/i> to be considered for the role of Mozart in the film, but was rebuffed.<\/i> Hamill told the legendary director, “Milos, I played Amadeus<\/i> on Broadway and in the national tour, and I was wondering if there was a chance you\u2019d consider me for the part.” According to Hamill, Forman just laughed and replied, “‘No, no, no, because no one is to be believing that the Luke Spacewalker is the Mozart!’\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 15.<\/span><\/p>\n This is probably as good a place as any to share that Al Pacino said last year that he was George Lucas’s original choice to play Han Solo in Star Wars<\/i>, but turned it down despite being offered “so much money.” Speaking at the 92nd Street Y, Pacino dished<\/a>, \u201cI turned down Star Wars.<\/i> When I first came up, I was the new kid on the block, you know what happens when you first become famous. It\u2019s like, \u2018Give it to Al.\u2019 They\u2019d give me Queen Elizabeth to play.” Pacino continued, “They gave me a script called Star Wars<\/i>. \u2026 They offered me so much money. I don\u2019t understand it. I read it. \u2026 So I said I couldn\u2019t do it. I gave Harrison Ford a career.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 16.<\/span><\/p>\n At a 2023 Fan Fest in Chicago, Anthony Michael Hall confessed<\/a> that \u2014 when he was 14 years old and playing Rusty in 1983’s Vacation<\/i> \u2014 he tried to sneak on set to watch his on-screen mom Beverly D’Angelo film her nude scene. The embarrassing anecdote was first brought up by Hall’s on-screen sister in Vacation,<\/i> Dana Barron, who played Audrey (leave it to a sister \u2014 real or on-screen \u2014 to bring up embarrassing stories from the past, LOL). Hall fessed up to it, saying, \u201cShould I pick up the story right here? So, I got busted because I tried to sneak on to the set when Beverly was doing the shower scene.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 17.<\/span><\/p>\n This post has had a lot of actors regretting turning down roles, so we might as well have one more, right? In a recent Esquire interview<\/a>, Leonardo DiCaprio sat down with director Paul Thomas Anderson, with whom he made the upcoming One Battle After Another.<\/i> When Anderson asked Leo if he had any career regrets, he said, “My biggest regret is not doing Boogie Nights<\/i>.” Boogie Nights<\/i>, of course, was Anderson’s 1997 film about the lives of people making porn in L.A. during the ’70s. “It was a profound movie of my generation,” DiCaprio continued. “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.” He then added, “It’s ironic that you’re the person asking that question, but it’s true.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 18.<\/span><\/p>\n Let’s go from Leo to Kate, shall we? Kate Winslet “burst a bubble” for people by speaking candidly about the making of the famous door scene in Titanic<\/i>, saying that \u2014 while it looked like they were out on the ocean \u2014 it was filmed in a “waist-high” tank. Dishing the deets on the<\/a> Happy Sad Confused<\/i><\/a> <\/a>podcast, Winslet said, “It was waist-height, that tank. So first of all, I was regularly like, \u2018Ugh, can I just go for a pee,\u2019 and then I\u2019d get up, get off the door, walk to the edge of the tank that was sort of 20 feet away, and I\u2019d literally have to fling my leg over and climb out the tank and go for a pee and then come back and crawl on the door again.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 19.<\/span><\/p>\n Speaking to Variety<\/a> for the film’s 30th anniversary of Pulp Fiction<\/i>, Tim Roth confessed that Quentin Tarantino told him what was in the suitcase \u2014 something which movie fans have wondered about and debated for years. Roth said that because his character would know what was in the suitcase, Tarantino revealed to him the suitcase’s secret contents. “But,” Roth added, “Quentin asked me not to mention it.” (Feel free to yell, “God damn it!” and kick a chair, reader.)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 20.<\/span><\/p>\n Meanwhile, at another 30th-anniversary screening of a 1994 classic, Speed<\/i>, Keanu Reeves said that during filming the bus actually crashed into several real cars, eliciting screams from his costars and surprising Reeves, who said he was “under informed” about the production’s plans. Reeves asked<\/a> Bullock (who was also at the screening), \u201cDon\u2019t you remember that day on the bus, though? When we were crashing through all the cars on the street? I remember we were a little under-informed. 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\u2019re actually hitting cars. Boom! Boom! Everyone on their bus lost their mind. People were screaming.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 21.<\/span><\/p>\n Speaking at a Screen Talk at the BFI London Film Festival, Zoe Salda\u00f1a said she absolutely hated filming Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl<\/i> and that the bad experience almost made her “tip overboard.” Salda\u00f1a said<\/a> the film’s cast and crew were “super marvelous” 99% of time. “But if the studio and the producers and the director, they’re not leading with kindness and awareness and consideration, then that big of a production can become a really bad experience and you may tip overboard. And I kind of did.” As a result, Salda\u00f1a decided not to return to the franchise for any further installments.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 22.<\/span><\/p>\n Film anniversaries seem to be when stars spill the beans, and it was no different when the 20th anniversary of 2004’s critically-drubbed Catwoman<\/i> came around. Halle Berry admitted to EW<\/a>, \u201cI always thought the idea of Catwoman saving women from a face cream felt a bit soft. All the other superheroes save the world; they don\u2019t just save women from cracked faces. I always knew that was a soft superhero plight, but at that time in my career, I didn\u2019t have the agency I have today or belief that I could challenge that, so I went along with it.\u201d If you don’t know, the movie really is about Catwoman trying to stop a company from launching an anti-aging cream with a catch: it works, but it\u2019s also addictive and, if you stop using it, your skin literally falls apart.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 23.<\/span><\/p>\n During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!<\/i><\/a>,<\/a> Tom Cruise reflected on getting to work with old friend Val Kilmer one more time in Top Gun: Maverick<\/i>. He said, “That was pretty emotional, I\u2019ve known Val for decades. For him to come back and play that character\u2026he\u2019s such a powerful actor that he instantly became that character again\u2026you\u2019re looking at Iceman.” Cruise continued, “I was crying, I got emotional.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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