Sir Ian McKellen cried and considered leaving 'The Hobbit' because working alone on a green screen made him feel "miserable".
Breaking into Hollywood may seem like a dream, but not all dreams are guaranteed to make us happy. Working on tv and movies can be exhausting, both physically, emotionally, and mentally. Some actors and actresses couldn't help but throw in the towel when things get out of hand.
The following list will introduce you to some actors who wanted to quit their shows or walked out of their sets at some point.
Dolph Lundgren is known for giving a "too realistic" take on his role Soviet boxer Ivan Drago in the sports film. He delivered a fatal blow to Sylvester Stallone while filming the 1985's 'Rocky IV'. Dolph punched Stallone so hard that the latter had to be admitted to the intensive care unit at a hospital for eight days.
Dolph showed the same unwelcomed ferocity when he fought against Carl Weathers's Apollo Creed in the same film.
Sylvester Stallone revealed in a 2006 interview:
"I saw Dolph Lundgren pick up Carl [Weathers] and heave him three feet into the corner when I was directing the scene between them; rather than retaliate, Carl got out of the ring and said something ferocious like, 'I'm calling my agent... I quit!'"
The endless nights of shooting in the dark eventually took a toll on Brad Pitt's mental health, making him want to quit working on the film.
"I am miserable," Pitt said in an interview. "Six months in the f---ing dark."
The actor said that the only great thing that came out of the film was the birth of his love for New Orleans. They shoot in the nights and he could ride around his bike in the evenings and made great friends. However, things started going downhill when they transferred shooting locations to London.
"But then we got to London, and London was f---ing dark. London was dead of winter. We're shooting in Pinewood (Studios), which is an old institution -- all the James Bond films. There are no windows in there. It hasn't been refabbed in decades. You leave for work in the dark -- you go into this cauldron, this mausoleum -- and then you come out and it's dark.
"I'm telling you, one day it broke me. It was like, 'Life's too short for this quality of life.' I called David Geffen, who was a good friend. He was a producer, and he'd just come to visit. I said, 'David, I can't do this anymore. I can't do it. What will it cost me to get out?' And he goes, very calmly, 'Forty million dollars.' And I go, 'OK, thank you.' It actually took the anxiety off of me. I was like, 'I've got to man up and ride this through, and that's what I'm going to do.'"
The veteran actress has an intimidating presence both on and off-screen. She expects everyone to be ready once she is ready to shoot her scenes. Her scene partner Jessica Henwick told IndieWire about a particular incident when the actress stormed off the set while filming a scene for the 6th season of the HBO series
"She walked onto the set, and she went, "I’m ready now!" A cameraman came over and went, "Well, okay, but we haven’t finished setting up." She interrupted him and said, "Roll the cameras!" And she just started doing her lines. She did two takes, and then the guy came over and was like, "Great, now we’re going to do a close-up." And she just stood up and she went, "I’m done!" Now, she can’t walk fast. She has to be helped. So basically, we just sat there and watched as Diana Rigg effectively did her own version of storming off the set, but it was at 0.1 miles per hour. She cracked me up. I loved her."
Michelle was still an up-and-coming actress when she landed her role Letty Ortiz in the action film 'The Fast and the Furious'. However, she was willing to risk losing a higher paycheck, and possibly her career because she doesn't want to take part in an unrealistic portrayal of Latin girls.
She said in an interview:
"It was more of a Point Break idea. They just followed the format without thinking about the reality of it. Is it realistic for a Latin girl who's with the alpha-est of the alpha males to cheat on him with the cute boy? I had to put my foot down. I basically cried and said I'm going to quit and, "Don't sue me, please - I'm sorry, but I can't do this in front of millions of people." My whole point in being an actress is that I thought I got to live a dream. And I don't dream about being a sl*t! Do you?!"
Faye Dunaway and director Roman Polanski made several headlines while filming the 1974 film 'China Town'. The two reportedly had several run-ins. In one incident, the director reportedly noticed a strand of Dunaway's hair that's hitting the light. Polanski went over to the actress and pulled her hair from her head without permission. Enraged, Dunaway walked out of the set.
"It was not the hair, it was the incessant cruelty that I felt, the constant sarcasm, the never-ending need to humiliate me," Dunaway later wrote in her 1997 biography Looking for Gatsby.
"I was miserable," McKellen, who played told Time Out.
"It may be my impression, but I don’t remember a green screen on The Lord of the Rings. If Gandalf was on top of a mountain, I’d be there on the mountain. The technology was being invented while we were making the film. [In The Lord of the Rings] I wasn’t involved in any of that, I was away acting on a mountain. I tend not to remember the bad times, but I don’t think there were any. I think I enjoyed every single moment of making those films."
The veteran actor was so frustrated that he broke down and cried while on the set.
"I cried, actually. I cried. Unfortunately, the microphone was on, and the whole studio heard." He said in a separate interview via Syfy.
"In order to shoot the dwarves and a large Gandalf, we couldn't be in the same set. All I had for company was 13 photographs of the dwarves on top of stands with little lights - whoever's talking flashes up. Pretending you're with 13 other people when you're on your own, it stretches your technical ability to the absolute limits.
"It was so distressing and off-putting and difficult that I thought 'I don't want to make this film if this is what I'm going to have to do.'"
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