Who doesn’t want to star in a hit show in the entertainment industry? But what if it comes at a cost. While many are willing to pay it in silence, there are some who publicly acknowledge how taxing their experience was. However, sometimes casting certain actors can also backfire for the showrunners and directors. So in the end, it is a risk, but one that many actors and directors are willing to take to achieve the perfect show that fans will remember many years down the line.
And like we said, there are actors who do not hold back from publicly admitting their regrets or discontentment. Here’s a list of actors who dissed the show that gave them their big break.
Katherine Heigl managed to enrage the Grey’s Anatomy showrunner
Katherine Heigl became a household name with her role as Dr. Izzie Stevens in the still-running show Grey’s Anatomy. To this date, most people only recognize her from the first few seasons of the show even after she ended up leaving and starring in some popular romcoms. So what happened that led to her being written off from the story?
Her role as Dr. Izzie Stevens won Katherine Heigl the Primetime Emmy Award for best-supporting actress in 2007 but in the following year, she pulled her name from the Emmy ballot citing the reason in a written statement. “I did not feel that I was given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination and in an effort to maintain the integrity of the academy organization, I withdrew my name from contention,” she mentioned. “In addition, I did not want to potentially take away an opportunity from an actress who was given such materials.”
This not-so surprisingly enraged Shonda Rhimes, the creator and showrunner, and Heigl was eventually removed from the show. Rhimes learned an important lesson from this whole Heigl debacle, as she mentioned in 2014, “There are no Heigls in this situation (TV series Scandal)… I don’t put up with bullsh*t or nasty people. I don’t have time for it.”
Blake Lively had some thoughts on her Gossip Girl character
Even today, famously known as the ‘It Girl’ Serena Van Der Woodsen from Gossip Girl, Blake Lively doesn’t have many positive feelings about it. She didn’t exactly diss the show but did point out why people should not aspire to be Serena and stop comparing her to the character.
“People loved it, but it always felt a little personally compromising – you want to be putting a better message out there. The lines become blurred. It doesn’t help when everybody is dating who they’re dating on the show, and you’re also saying to the costume designer, “Hey, can I take that home?” It’s a weird thing when people feel like they know you really well, and they don’t.
I would not be proud to be the person who gave someone the [coke] that made them overdose and then shot someone and slept with someone else’s boyfriend.”
Well, we surely can’t disagree with that.
Penn Badgley may have some regrets
Blake isn’t the only Gossip Girl star who has mixed feelings about the show. Penn Badgley plays Dan Humphrey, on and off love interest of Serena. While promoting the Jeff Buckley biopic, Greetings From Tim Buckley, he told Salon.com in 2013, “To be proud of something is a really nice feeling”. He explained further, “And it’s a new feeling, and it’s something that I wanna keep going with. I can walk a little taller feeling that I don’t have to be constantly apologizing for the work that I’ve done in the past.”
While he didn’t specifically mention the name of the show, at that time he was mainly famous for his role in Gossip Girl and fans concluded that he was referring to that.
Angus T. Jones on Two and a Half Men
Angus T. Jones is the ‘half’ part of the famous sitcom Two and a Half Men and apparently has many qualms about the show. He publicly dissed it while also asking people to stop watching it. What’s really surprising is that he did that while earning $350,000 per episode, and this series was his career breakthrough. This is what he had to say in a video for the Christian group the Forerunner Chronicles:
“Jake from Two and a Half Men means nothing. He is a nonexistent character. If you watch Two and a Half Men, please stop watching Two and a Half Men. I’m on Two and a Half Men and I don’t want to be on it. Please stop watching it and filling your head with filth. People say it’s just entertainment. Do some research on the effects of television and your brain, and I promise you you’ll have a decision to make when it comes to television, especially with what you watch.
If I am doing any harm, I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be contributing to the enemy’s plan… You cannot be a true God-fearing person and be on a television show like that. I know I can’t. I’m not okay with what I’m learning, what the Bible says, and being on that television show.”
However, he regretted this statement and tried to take it back just after 24 hrs of this debacle.
Johnny Depp and his cop role on 21 Jump Street
While Johnny Depp is now famously known as Jack Sparrow because of the hit ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean‘ franchise, he rose to fame on TV with his role as the undercover officer Tom Hanson on 21 Jump Street in the late 1980s and became a teen idol.
After leaving the small screen he was asked if he would ever return for a Television series, to which he replied with a straight no because ‘it doesn’t have enough money’ while also adding, “I don’t want to bite the hand that feeds me or anything like that. But I would much rather do movies with John Waters than be undercover in a high school carrying guns. Cops undercover in high school, in my opinion, is borderline fascist. (But) I don’t sign the checks. I’m a puppet.”
