15 Actors Who Hated Working With Their Directors

Like any workplace, tensions can get pretty high on Hollywood sets. Actors and crew members are often working long hours day after day to create something that is the singular vision of one person: the director. When that vision isn’t clear enough for everyone to see, or that director is maybe not a healthy collaborator, things can come to a head very quickly. That’s why there’s a stereotype of directors being very controlling, argumentative, and narcissistic, given that, in the case of most studio films, there’s a lot of responsibility on their shoulders to make a good film. 

Advertisement

We’ve all heard stories about famous actors who refuse to work with each other, despite the on-screen chemistry their characters displayed. However, fewer people know the dirty details about actors who hated working with certain directors, whether it be a matter of personalities clashing, actors not being invested in the project, or other on-set difficulties that can turn what should be a dream come true like filming a movie into a nightmare. 

Here are 15 instances where actors hated working with their directors.

There are lots of horror stories among actors who have worked with director David O’Russell. While his filmography includes Oscar-winning flicks like “Silver Linings Playbook” and “The Fighter,” O’Russell’s abuse and assault allegations have mired his approach to directing with controversy. Nevertheless, several actors have chosen to work with O’Russell more than once, but one of those people, Amy Adams, had regrets about it the second time around.

Advertisement

After netting an Oscar nom for “The Fighter,” Adams reunited with O’Russell for 2013’s “American Hustle,” though compared to her first time on his set, O’Russell was more aggressive. Adams claims O’Russell made her cry every day she was on set and even balked at the film’s financial and critical success as a result of her unpleasant time making it. Even co-star Christian Bale claims to have defended Adams against O’Russell, yet nevertheless chose to work with the director again for 2022’s “Amsterdam.” Odds are, Adams won’t be going out of her way to make another film with O’Russell, even if it could promise an Oscar for one of the best actors who has never won one. 

When you’re a movie star as big as Robert Downey Jr., it could be easy to let your pride and ego get carried away. In the case of David Fincher’s 2007 modern masterpiece “Zodiac,” however, Downey may have had good reason to be upset with the director, even before his newfound success as “Iron Man” arrived. Fincher is a notorious perfectionist, often requiring nearly a hundred takes to get a scene right, which according to Downey’s co-stars in “Zodiac,” pushed both cast and crew to the brink of insanity at times. Fincher claims that Downey would even leave mason jars of urine around the set in protest of the director’s way of doing this. 

Advertisement

In fact, it wasn’t until Downey took on a future Oscar-winning role in Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” that he retrospectively gained more appreciation for Fincher as a director, telling “Zodiac” co-star Mark Ruffalo in Variety’s “Actors on Actors” series, “That might have been the first time we really had our feet put to the fire with an exacting director. A real director, who does things a certain way.” Nevertheless, considering “Zodiac” predated Downey’s debut as Iron Man, it’s likely any set he steps on now has much better bathroom facilities for the actor to use. 

Even before “Don’t Worry Darling” released in theaters, the rumor mill churned over on-set tension between director Olivia Wilde and lead actress Florence Pugh. Prior to the casting of pop star Harry Styles, the role was given to Shia LaBeouf, who was fired by Wilde shortly after production began, with the director citing Pugh’s discomfort with LaBeouf’s behavior. LaBeouf challenged this claim, providing video evidence that he had actually quit the film, and Wilde had in fact pleaded with the actor to keep him on board. 

Advertisement

As it turns out, the real problem on set was between Pugh and Wilde, who allegedly had a “screaming match” on set over Wilde’s on-set absences (coinciding with the director’s affair with Styles). Whether the rumors are true or not, Pugh was uninvolved in the press surrounding “Don’t Worry Darling,” and has since declined to comment on the matter publicly. Ultimately, it’s for the best, considering most critics agree that Pugh saves the stylish thriller, which falls short of its high-minded ideas. 

20th Century Fox’s “X-Men” movies screwed over many Marvel characters, but no one superhero was more hurt by the films than actor Elliot Page. Page joined the franchise in 2006’s “X-Men: The Last Stand,” playing the role of mutant Kitty Pryde, though the film’s production predated Page’s own coming out as queer by nine years (and also predated Page’s second coming out as transgender by 15 years). Nevertheless, Page claims to have been outed on the set of “The Last Stand” by none other than the film’s director, Brett Ratner.

Advertisement

It’s not like Ratner had an incredible reputation prior to Page’s accusation, considering several other actresses accused Ratner of sexual harassment and assault, including fellow “X-Men” co-star Olivia Munn. Ratner’s one of the few targets of the “#MeToo” movement whose career successfully took a hit, as he hasn’t directed a movie since 2014. Fortunately, “The Last Stand” wouldn’t be Page’s final performance as Kitty Pryde in the “X-Men” universe, though the second time around it’d be with another director who’s also detested by his own actors…

Bryan Singer was yet another director whose behavior shadowed the “X-Men” franchise for Marvel’s future. The director has faced numerous accusations for sexual assault against minors, but according to actors like Jennifer Lawrence, who worked with Singer on three different “X-Men” films, his on-set behavior didn’t exactly endear him to anyone. During a roundtable of actresses for The Hollywood Reporter, Lawrence criticized the prejudice against female directors by saying, “I’ve worked with Bryan Singer. I’ve seen emotional men. I’ve seen the biggest hissy fits thrown on set.”

Advertisement

It’s unsurprising that other actors have come away with the same dislike of Singer after working with him. After a messy production for Singer’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” on which directorial duties were taken over by Dexter Fletcher, lead actor Rami Malek stayed brief with his comments about Singer’s unpleasant work environment. Nevertheless, we can thank Lawrence for being willing to speak up about how awful it was to work with Singer, as it’s likely a sentiment shared by many of her “X-Men” co-stars and others who have worked with the director. 

If you’ve watched the best Mike Myers movies, then you know how much of a comedic force of nature the former “Saturday Night Live” star was in his prime. The comedian also has somewhat of a reputation for being difficult to work with, whether it was his contractually-obligated stint as the Cat in the Hat, which led to a ban on live-action Dr. Seuss movies, or his feud with Dana Carvey over Myers’ use of Carvey’s Lorne Michaels impression for Dr. Evil in the “Austin Powers” films. However, no one has been more vocal about Myers’ behavior on sets than the director of “Wayne’s World,” Penelope Spheeris.

Advertisement

While Spheeris has assuaged rumors that there was any tension on set, she claimed that Myers was prone to complaining and giving extensive notes on cuts of the film, which later resulted in Michaels telling Spheeris that if she didn’t comply with Myers’ demands, she wouldn’t be invited back to direct the sequel. “Wanye’s World 2” did end up being directed by Stephen Surjik, but it also underperformed at the box office compared to its iconic predecessor, so it seems that Spheeris had the last laugh, after all. But Myers and Spheeris have also buried the hatchet since then, and the filmmaker looked back fondly on her time directing the film for the 30th anniversary.

Michael Bay’s “Transformers” movie turned Megan Fox into a sex symbol over night, with her role as Mikaela Barnes launching the actress into A-list status. However, her career was nearly derailed in the late 2000s after the release of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” when she made several comments criticizing Bay’s directorial style and drawing comparisons to Adolf Hitler. Under order of producer Steven Spielberg, Fox was fired from the franchise, leaving “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” to deal with Fox’s last-minute departure during pre-production. 

Advertisement

Although the next few months saw a lot of crew members and cast come to either Fox or Bay’s defense, her outspokenness against Bay was cited by some as a reasoning for her career’s stagnation in the 2010s. Ironically, Bay and Fox patched things up enough to reunite for “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” which Bay produced, and Fox has even gone on record as debunking rumors that she was ever sexually exploited during the making of the “Transformers” films. But her appearance in “Bad Boys” is still a controversial subject.

For a big movie buff like Kevin Smith, working with an actor like Bruce Willis is nothing short of a dream-come-true. However, it turned out to be a nightmare for the director during production of the 2010 buddy cop film “Cop Out,” in which Willis’ clash with Smith resulted in a big box office flop. As Smith later recounted on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast in 2011, Willis was not only difficult to work with, but he refused to even show up for a photoshoot for the film’s poster. He also claimed that, were it not for the film’s other lead actor, Tracy Morgan, he likely wouldn’t have made it through production.

Advertisement

As to why Willis didn’t particularly enjoy working with Smith, that might be attributed to the director’s frequent habit of smoking weed on sets, which Smith claimed wasn’t an issue due to his clear productiveness. It may have been disappointing for a lifelong fan of Willis to end up on the wrong side of the actor’s ire, but at the very least Smith has apologized for airing out their dirty laundry after Willis’ aphasia diagnosis. 

“Terminator: Genisys” should’ve been a big deal for fans of the franchise, given Arnold Schwarzenegger’s highly-anticipated return to the franchise. Adding to the hype, Emilia Clarke was cast as a young Sarah Connor, releasing in the midst of the actress’ reign as Daenerys Targaryen in “Game of Thrones.” It should’ve been a great experience, all things considered, given that “Genisys” was also reuniting Clarke with a former “Thrones” director, Alan Taylor, who directed several key episodes of the show, including the first two season finales. 

Advertisement

However, Clarke had the opposite to say about the experience, telling Vanity Fair in 2018, “He was not the director I remember … No one had a good time.” Allegedly, things had gotten so bad on set that, on the nearby set for Josh Trank’s disastrous “Fantastic Four” reboot, crew members wore jackets that read, “At least we’re not on ‘Terminator.'” Given Clarke’s future with “Solo: A Star Wars Story” and “Secret Invasion,” we wouldn’t blame her if she decided to stay away from franchises for a while. 

Bob Hoskins had a long and successful career as an actor, but it must’ve felt like quite a low when he was playing the titular plumber in 1993’s disastrous “Super Mario Bros.” movie. The making of the “Super Mario Bros.” movie was notoriously troubled, with Hoskins and co-star John Leguizamo being so unhappy that they habitually drank on-set, resulting in an accident that put Hoskins in an arm cast (which wasn’t even the only injury the actor sustained on set). There’s even a great viral clip of Hoskins talking about his reaction to learning the film was based on a video game: “I used to play King Lear,” (via Twitter). 

Advertisement

While the actual film itself was likely not an ideal role for the accomplished actor, he had a lot of frustration directed towards the husband-and-wife directorial team, Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel. Between numerous script-rewrites and stunts-gone-wrong, Hoskins blamed Morton and Jankel’s amateur directing for the film’s difficult production, later calling the film the worst movie he’s ever been a part of. At least Chris Pratt seemed to have much more fun in the role. 

Anyone who’s watched “Grey’s Anatomy” knows that Meredith Grey isn’t someone you want to mess with. The same goes for her actress, Ellen Pompeo, who played the role for 21 seasons of the ABC drama, quickly becoming one of the highest-paid actresses in TV. However, that kind of longevity understandably gave Pompeo an ego when it came to newer directors on “Grey’s Anatomy,” even if that new director was none other than Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington, who directed the season 12 episode “The Sound of Silence.” 

Advertisement

In 2021, Pompeo recalled an incident on her podcast in which she and Washington clashed on the set of “Grey’s Anatomy” over Pompeo improvising dialogue and directing actors herself, which caused Pompeo to tell Washington that it was “her show.” Unsurprisingly, the anecdote garnered some bad press for Pompeo for being disrespectful to her director, though being the class act that he is, Washington not only doesn’t remember the incident but told Variety that everything was good between him and the “Grey’s Anatomy” star. 

As one the best actors ever, Tom Hanks has seen it all in Hollywood, but even he can have sour experiences on films. Such was the case with “Sully,” a 2016 biopic starring Hanks as the infamous pilot who successfully landed an engineless airplane on the Hudson River, saving the lives of all 155 people on board in what was called the “Miracle on the Hudson.” The film was directed by Clint Eastwood, though despite both he and Hanks’ long careers of experience, they didn’t mesh well together as director and actor.

Advertisement

Hanks said as much on “The Graham Norton Show,” recalling how intimidating it was to work with an iconic actor like Eastwood, saying, “He treats his actors like horses … when you’re in a Clint Eastwood movie, you don’t even know the camera’s rolling, and you just hear over your shoulder, ‘All right, go ahead.'” The end result is what many critics called one of Hanks’ best performances, so it’s possible that the tension between the two on set ended up being a net positive for the film. 

“Blue is the Warmest Color,” titled “La Vie d’Adèle – Chapitres 1 & 2” in France, was subject to critical acclaim, winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes 2013 and garnering acclaim for its leads, Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos, but it’s also quite divisive among some audiences. Among the many reasons is the film’s long and graphic love scenes, which some criticized as being dominated by the “male gaze.” It makes sense, considering the director of this LGBTQ+ narrative is a man.

Advertisement

Although critics adored the film, there were accusations of a toxic work environment caused by director Abdellatif Kechiche. The director allegedly shot 800 hours of footage, which resulted in both cast and crew feeling like Kechiche’s captives. Both Seydoux and Exarchopoulos claimed they would never work with Kechiche again, with Seydoux telling The Hollywood Reporter in 2022 that, despite being proud of the final product, “It was beyond. It was the whole film, not only the sex scenes. The way we shot this film was just insane. The guy is just nuts.”

There’s no shortage of stories about Bill Murray getting into fights with co-stars and having poor working relationships with directors (aside from Wes Anderson). However, Murray’s reputation as a difficult person to work with even caused a feud between him and a fellow Ghostbuster, Harold Ramis, when the two reunited for “Groundhog Day” in 1993. Ramis, who was directing, had lots of creative differences with Murray over the course of filming, which resulted in Murray throwing tantrums on set and undermining Ramis’ directorial decisions. 

Advertisement

Producer Trevor Albert recalled that making “Groundhog Day” was an uncomfortable experience, and by the end of it, Murray and Ramis were not on speaking terms after an incident where Ramis threw Murray against a wall. It wasn’t until Ramis was on his deathbed that Murray made up with his former collaborator, and in 2020, Murray praised Ramis’ attitude on the set of “Ghostbusters,” showing he doesn’t linger on any hard feelings he had towards the director now. 

It seems like everybody has an opinion these days on what went down on the set of “It Ends With Us,” the Colleen Hoover adaptation starring Blake Lively. The film’s release was shrouded in drama as the Internet speculated over director/actor Justin Baldoni’s isolation from the rest of the cast, prompting revelations that Baldoni had acted inappropriately, later being accused of sexual harassment in a lawsuit by Lively. 

Advertisement

The legal battles that ensued had everyone on the Internet picking sides in the Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively drama, though by all accounts, it appears that Baldoni had made Lively uncomfortable by improvising during intimate scenes, had entered her trailer while the actress was breastfeeding, and had orchestrated a public smear campaign against the actress after she reported his behavior on set and demanded an editor she trust re-edit the film. Baldoni even alleged that Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds, based the character of “Nicepool” in “Deadpool & Wolverine” off of him, which implies that they perceive Baldoni as a “fake-feminist.” No matter what you feel about Lively, it seems pretty obvious that judging by the entire cast siding with Lively, Baldoni must’ve been as much of a nightmare as his character in the film. 

Advertisement