It's often hard to tell how an actor really feels about the movies they star in. Forced into an endless stream of press during release, we're given a rehearsed spiel about how great the script was and how different the character is and we often struggle to see between the lines.
But once the dust settles, the truth emerges.
After we featured directors explaining their unpopular movies, it's now the turn of actors. Check out some choice words about their films which failed to impress:
Halle Berry - Catwoman
“It was definitely different from any other (movie) I had seen. I thought that we needed a better villain, but I was outnumbered in that area. You just never know how people are going to respond. I thought that Monster’s Ball was going to end my career. And look what happened. You just never know.”
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Mark Wahlberg - The Happening
"Fuck it. It is what it is. Fucking trees, man. The plants. Fuck it. You can’t blame me for not wanting to try to play a science teacher. At least I wasn’t playing a cop or a crook!”
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Sylvester Stallone - Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot
"I made some truly awful movies. Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot was the worst. If you ever want someone to confess to murder, just make him or her sit through that film. They will confess to anything after 15 minutes."
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George Clooney - Batman & Robin
“With hindsight, it’s easy to look back at this and go, ‘Woah, that was really shit, and I was really bad in it. I just thought the last one had been successful, so I thought I was just going to be in a big, successful franchise movie. Batman is still the biggest break I ever had and it completely changed my career, even if it was weak and I was weak in it. It was a difficult film to be good in."
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Josh Brolin - Jonah Hex
"I think it deserved that bashing for reasons that those critics will never know. We were almost ready to drop [the film] when this kid [director Jimmy Hayward] came up. He was an interesting young guy full of energy and he was obsessed with Jonah Hex. I thought, 'This is either a really bad decision or a brilliant decision...really bad... If I'm ever really rich, I'll do that movie again. Seriously."
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Sam Worthington - Terminator: Salvation
“You know, there was a lot of kind of, you know, I can nitpick with the best of them, man, and kind of go down the list of things I saw on IMDb where they found holes in it and go, you are fucking right. If there was a big ten ton robot coming outside that gas station, surely we would fucking hear it! And I missed that. So I’m going to be a bit better when I’m looking through my fucking scripts. So it raises my game a bit, because now I feel like an idiot for not saying it to McG, you know?”
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Jamie Lee Curtis - Virus
"That's a piece of shit movie. It's an unbelievably bad movie; just bad from the bottom. It was maybe the only time I've known something was just bad and there was nothing I could do about it. I just do the best I can and there have been bad movies that have been wildly successful and great movies that have tanked, so you never know."
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Elizabeth Berkley - Showgirls
"I truly believe that everything we walk through and go through is a lesson. Was it difficult and did it hurt? Yes. I became more discerning about my choices and wanted to feel safe again. I had to open those doors back up myself. Obviously things are different with the film now, it’s been embraced in a whole new way. It’s kind of shocking–it’s one of MGM’s highest grossing DVDs of all time. It’s just a different time now. It’s very campy and over the top. I don’t think it was presented that way for people to know what to make of it. I think it was being marketed one way when the film itself was so big and we were directed in such an over the top way."
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Nicolas Cage - The Wicker Man
"The Wicker Man is probably the best example of a movie where people are mystified because they think for some reason that we did not know it was humorous. Even though I am dressed in a bear suit, doing these ridiculous things with the matriarchal society on the island. How can you not know that Neil [LaBute] and I knew that this was absurdist humour? But okay, have at it. That was a misconception."
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Benedict Cumberbatch - The Fifth Estate
"[It was] an amazing character, an extraordinary role, and a really fascinating story. No one has a crystal ball when they’re making a film. I don’t choose roles to get fame or recognition or riches, I choose them because I’m interested in getting as much variety, both with who I work with and what I work on, so I wouldn’t change the decision to do that. I’m really proud of it and really proud of my work in it and I think I would do it again, definitely.""
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Bruce Willis - Hudson Hawk
"You know, lookin’ at how it kind of became this cult film, and what people come up and say to me on the street about it is, they dig the fact that it was making fun of itself, that it was satire, and I don’t think anybody got that when it came out, they didn’t know what to make of it, me and Danny Aeillo singing in a movie was just unheard of, and people were mad about it or something, they were mad that we were trying to make them laugh."
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James Franco - Your Highness
“Your Highness? That movie sucks. You can’t get around that.”
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Hugh Jackman - Van Helsing
"I loved it. Well, obviously people didn't love it enough to warrant a second one and I think there was hopes to be a second one. We had a great time doing it. I think the movie was never made to be a critic's darling. To this day I get people stopping me on the street to say they love it"
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Jude Law - Alfie
"From my point of view, it didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it to. But part of the reason you embark on a creative journey is to sometimes fall flat. It can also sometimes lead to triumph."
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Jeff Bridges - RIPD
“I had such a great time working on that movie. I remember what we were doing. I thought, this could be fun to see. And when I saw it, I was a little underwhelmed. For my mind, the studio made some, uh, choices that I wouldn’t have made."
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Michael Caine - Jaws: The Revenge
"I have never seen the film, but by all accounts it was terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific."
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