Someone's always watching when you're in the public eye! Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for movie characters that have aged poorly due to the controversies surrounding the actor or production of the film.
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00I think maybe he should be taken to a doctor.
00:04Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for movie characters
00:08that have aged poorly due to the controversies surrounding the actor or production of the film.
00:12Well, you knew my history when you married me.
00:14Yeah, I know, my analyst warned me, but you were so beautiful that I got another analyst.
00:19Number 10, Blade, Blade Trinity.
00:22You know, at some point, you, uh, you might want to consider sitting down with somebody,
00:26you know, have a little share time.
00:28This series didn't end on the highest of notes, did it?
00:31Unfortunately, some of that is due to Blade himself, which makes rewatching this film
00:35kind of difficult.
00:36By all accounts, Wesley Snipes was an enormous pain in the you-know-what.
00:40We were in Vancouver, and Wesley Snipes was going crazy,
00:44and he wouldn't come out of his trailer.
00:47Director David S. Goyer has called shooting the film the most painful thing he's ever
00:51been through, which is largely due to Snipes' behavior.
00:54According to numerous stories, Snipes wouldn't talk to the cast or crew,
00:58spent much of his time getting high, became violent with Goyer,
01:01and hurled a racist slur at Ryan Reynolds.
01:03Following the movie's release, Snipes sued both New Line Cinema and Goyer,
01:07and he was sued by the United Talent Agency.
01:09So, yeah, not a great time.
01:13This is awkward.
01:14Number 9, Ed Rooney, Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
01:17If Ferris thinks that he can just coast through this month and still graduate,
01:22he is sorely mistaken.
01:24Ed Rooney is one of those great teen movie villains,
01:27the representative of authoritarianism and conformity that tries to stop the
01:31freewheeling protagonist.
01:32Unfortunately, his character was utterly ruined once we learned more about Jeffrey
01:36Jones, the man who portrayed him.
01:38And you insult me.
01:39What the hell is the matter with you, anyway?
01:41In 2002, the actor was charged with some crimes involving an underage individual,
01:45which puts his character as a school official into a new and entirely disturbing light.
01:50We can no longer watch his interactions with these young teens without thinking of Jones'
01:53real offenses, and it makes watching his scenes very difficult.
01:57As of 2021, Jones remains on the National List of Registered Offenders.
02:01Excuse me, if whoever's in the house is still in the house,
02:04I'd like you to know that I've just called the police.
02:07Number 8, Phil Connors, Groundhog Day.
02:10These people are great.
02:11Some of them have been partying all night long.
02:13They sing songs till they get too cold, and then they go sit by the fire,
02:16and they get warm, and then they come back and they sing some more.
02:20Yeah, they're hicks, Rita.
02:22We don't think Bill Murray had to do much acting in Groundhog Day.
02:25You know how Phil is a huge dink in the first half of the movie?
02:28By all accounts, that's how Murray actually was on set.
02:31He often clashed with director Harold Ramis over the direction of the film,
02:34had an enormous temper, physically assaulted Ramis, and was known to unleash curse-filled rants.
02:41Don't mess with me, porkchop.
02:42It was enough to ruin Murray's long relationship with Ramis,
02:45and the two would remain estranged for decades.
02:48Murray's behavior has been attributed to multiple causes,
02:51including the constant cold weather and his ongoing divorce from Margaret Kelly,
02:54both of which put a permanent damper on his mood.
02:58That's for making me care about you.
03:00Number 7, Music Gamble, Music.
03:02People with disabilities, for a very long time, have not been represented on film or on TV.
03:08For many, Music is one of the most miscalculated and offensive movies of the 2020s.
03:13To start with, Music Gamble is a non-verbal autistic girl played by Maddie Ziegler,
03:18a dancer who is both A. verbal and B. not autistic.
03:22Even if you think that's not a problem, her portrayal of Music certainly was.
03:26Arm, please.
03:28Arm.
03:30Thank you.
03:31The film has been widely criticized for its harmful depiction of autism
03:34and the specific scene in which Music is restrained.
03:37Some have hilariously compared it to the fictional Tug Speedman playing
03:40Simple Jack in Tropic Thunder.
03:42And even those who call the movie well-intentioned
03:44admit that Ziegler's performance was misjudged.
03:46I'd like to sing a song.
03:48Can you hear me?
03:48A magical song.
03:50Yeah, that's right.
03:51Music.
03:52Number 6, The Joker, Suicide Squad.
03:55What do you got?
03:56I got you a kitty.
03:59So thoughtful.
04:00The Joker is almost always a disturbing character,
04:03but this interpretation is made even more so thanks to the behavior of Jared Leto.
04:07Many people involved in the production report that Leto remained in character the whole time.
04:11We don't know about you, but spending your day with the Joker doesn't sound fun.
04:15Oh, I'm not going to kill you.
04:18I'm just going to hurt you really, really bad.
04:23But it gets worse.
04:25Leto reportedly sent a number of weird gifts to the cast and crew,
04:28including live rats and a dead pig,
04:30which one of his henchmen dropped on a table in the rehearsal room.
04:33Leto later defended his gifts and claimed that they were made in jest
04:37and exaggerated by the media.
04:38But tell that to Viola Davis, who called them horrific.
04:41It's funny to see people get so worked up.
04:44So worked up.
04:44That think that something actually happened that maybe didn't even happen.
04:48Number 5, Wendy Torrance, The Shining.
04:51Oh, come on, hon.
04:54Don't be so grouchy.
04:55Stanley Kubrick was a notoriously difficult director,
04:58and his demands eventually got to Shelley Duvall on the set of The Shining.
05:01There have been many stories regarding Kubrick's treatment towards Duvall,
05:04some of which have been called exaggerated.
05:06But stories and video evidence corroborate that she had a tough time on set.
05:10You're distracting me, and it will then take me time to get back to where I was.
05:16Understand?
05:17Vivian Kubrick's documentary shows Duvall often arguing with Kubrick,
05:20laying on the floor in total exhaustion,
05:22and even losing her hair from the constant stress.
05:25Jack Nicholson has also verified the stories,
05:27claiming that Kubrick was a different director with Duvall.
05:30She later told esteemed critic Roger Ebert
05:32that making the movie and working with Kubrick was almost unbearable.
05:36From May until October, I was really in and out of ill health,
05:42because the stress of the role was so great.
05:46Number four, Ted Kramer.
05:48Kramer versus Kramer.
05:49He looked at me, and he slapped me as hard as he could.
05:52Who? Dustin?
05:53Dustin.
05:54Dustin Hoffman may have won an Oscar for playing Ted Kramer,
05:57but watching his performance now is more difficult
05:59thanks to some worrying behind-the-scenes stories.
06:02According to Meryl Streep,
06:03working with Hoffman was an absolutely miserable experience,
06:06an experience filled with physical violence, verbal abuse, and even sexual assault.
06:11I'm sorry.
06:12No, don't. Don't make me go in there. Please, please don't make me go in there.
06:16Don't make me go in there.
06:17According to Streep,
06:18Hoffman groped her breast during their very first meeting,
06:21but this story was later rescinded by one of her representatives.
06:23He also slapped her during a scene and taunted her
06:26with the recent death of her fiancé, John Cazale,
06:29who died of cancer just one year before the movie's release.
06:32He did it offscreen, and then, and then...
06:34Nowadays, if he was doing that,
06:35someone would be filming on a mobile phone nearby, you know?
06:37He'd be sued, baby. He'd be in the court.
06:40Number three, Oliver, Call Me By Your Name.
06:43It means we can't talk about those kinds of things, okay?
06:47It's hard to separate art from the artist,
06:49and sometimes that makes watching beloved movies really hard,
06:52such as the case with Call Me By Your Name,
06:54an acclaimed film starring Armie Hammer.
06:56Hammer was on the rise in 2017,
06:58and this movie raised his stock even higher,
07:01earning him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
07:04Call me by your name, and I'll call you by mine.
07:06But that stock plummeted in 2021,
07:09when multiple women accused Hammer of abuse.
07:11One of the women entered a program for treating PTSD,
07:14and multiple have accused Hammer of violent assaults
07:17and harboring disturbing fantasies.
07:19Hammer has since quit acting,
07:20and while he has denied the criminal elements of the story,
07:23he has admitted that he was emotionally abusive towards his partners.
07:26So, it was weird.
07:29I remember being like, are we flirting, or is this scary?
07:35Number two, Isaac Davis, Manhattan.
07:37In the series, Dylan, now 35 years old,
07:40said she believes Alan was grooming her from early childhood.
07:44Really, we could have put any Woody Allen character on this list,
07:47but we're going with Isaac Davis
07:49due to some unfortunate comparisons to Alan's real life.
07:52Isaac is a 42-year-old comedy writer dating a 17-year-old named Tracy.
07:56It's a disturbing character beat,
07:58even though their problematic age difference is directly addressed in the story.
08:02She's got homework. I'm dating a girl who does homework.
08:04While this wasn't much of a problem at the time,
08:06Isaac's character has since come into question
08:08thanks to the horrific allegations
08:10that have been made against Alan regarding Dylan Farrow,
08:13his and Mia Farrow's adopted daughter.
08:14There's also the fact that he married Soon-Yi Previn,
08:17another adopted daughter of Mia Farrow.
08:19Their relationship began in 1991,
08:21when Alan was 56 and Previn just 21.
08:24And now Alan confirms he is having an affair
08:27with Farrow's adopted daughter who's 21 years old.
08:30Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel
08:33and ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos.
08:36You have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them.
08:40If you're on your phone, make sure you go into your settings
08:43and switch on notifications.
08:46Number 1. Lester Burnham, American Beauty
08:50I'm still a little weirded out, but I feel better.
08:53Just like Woody Allen,
08:54we could have put any Kevin Spacey role on this list.
08:57But again, we're going with Lester Burnham
08:59because of some tragic real-world analogs.
09:02Spacey won an Oscar for playing Lester,
09:04an unhappy middle-aged man who begins lusting
09:06after a friend of his teenage daughter.
09:08I was hoping you'd give me a bath.
09:10I'm very, very dirty.
09:12At the time, many people related to Lester and his midlife crisis.
09:16But now, many viewers find him creepy
09:19as the parallels with Spacey's infamous assault allegations
09:21are just way too similar to be comfortable.
09:24This includes his lusting after an underage girl,
09:26which bears some similarities to the story Anthony Rapp has alleged.
09:29The actor says he felt compelled to share his story now
09:32after so many women came forward with accusations
09:35against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
09:37Do these stories ruin the character for you?
09:39Let us know in the comments below.
09:40We've met before, but something tells me
09:43you're going to remember me this time.
09:45Did you enjoy this video?
09:47Check out these other clips from WatchMojo
09:49and be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos.