Nobody wants to go to a job they hate. Yet, in Hollywood, it happens plenty. Actors and actresses have admitted to taking jobs just for the money, despite knowing the project was bad. The mindset of “get in and get out” creeps in when trying to decide how to best fulfill the contract.
For movies, it’s typically a one-off that takes up a certain amount of time, but there’s an end in sight. TV series are a bit different. Actors and actresses usually have to sign several-year contracts in case their show is a hit. Being stuck in a role for that long can have damaging effects on someone’s psyche. These performers all felt that way during their shows.
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Robert Reed, ‘The Brady Bunch’
People may not think that Mike Brady hated his show, but that just goes to show the professionalism that Robert Reed treated his job with. Reed was a classically trained, Shakespearean actor who thought that the scripts written by the writing staff were beneath him. He didn’t like the playful nature of the show and thought a lot of the storylines weren’t realistic.
Reed would clash with creator Sherwood Schwartz about the role throughout its entire run. He famously refused to appear in The Brady Brunch finale because he disapproved of that week’s script. On set, Reed was known for his professional nature as he honored his contract, despite being frustrated. One thing that kept him going was his affection for the rest of the cast as the group formed a family off the screen.
Chevy Chase has been known to be a tough person to get along with on set. He famously left Saturday Night Live, thinking he was the show’s main star and not wanting to share as much screentime. He also nearly made John Carpenter quit Hollywood after working with him. After years of success in movies, Chase was cast in Community, a series about an odd collection of students who create a pseudo-family while attending community college together. The series starred Chase as Pierce Hawthorne, a man who made a fortune in the moist towelette industry, but wanted to get more from life.
He clashed with creator Dan Harmon frequently about the series not being funny enough and clashed with castmates like Donald Glover. Chase was let go from the series after Season 4, due to his using a slur directed at Glover and his egotistical behavior behind the scenes and increasing tensions surrounding how his character was being portrayed.
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Charlie Sheen, ‘Two and a Half Men’
Charlie Sheen didn’t always hate Two and a Half Men. It made him the highest-paid TV actor ever, but for anyone that remembers the Charlie Sheen public flame out of the early 2010s, it was unsurprising that he was removed from the series for his erratic behavior. His problems worsened and his off-set antics were out of control.
He feuded with show creator Chuck Lorre publicly bashing him and the show. Sheen was fired from Two and a Half Men after his behavior caused tension on the set. He was replaced by Ashton Kutcher, and the show ran a few more seasons before wrapping up for good.
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Katherine Heigl, ‘Grey’s Anatomy’
Katherine Heigl had been working in the entertainment industry for a while, but burst onto the scene in 2005 when she was one of the original cast members of Grey’s Anatomy. The smash ABC medical drama was a pop culture phenomenon, and many of the cast members became recognizable stars. Heigl’s storyline with Jeffrey Dean Morgan in Season 2 made her a household name, and she won an Emmy the following season for her work.
Unfortunately, Season 4 saw a storyline featuring an affair between her character and T.R. Knight’s character, which Heigl was not a fan of. She didn’t like how showrunner Shonda Rhimes was writing her character. She even removed her name from Emmy contention after Season 5 because she didn’t feel her content warranted recognition. She and Rhimes came to an agreement in the middle of Season 6 to write her character off the show, bringing her time on Grey’s Anatomy to a close early in the show’s run.
6
Mandy Patinkin, ‘Criminal Minds’
Mandy Patinkin is a world-renowned actor, known for his performances in theater, TV, and film. He has been in some well-known projects over the years, including Homeland, Chicago Hope, The Larry Sanders Show, The Princess Bride, Ragtime, and Yentl. He was also one of the main stars of Criminal Minds when it first aired. He played FBI Senior Supervisory Special Agent Jason Gideon, the previous lead of the Behavioral Analysis Unit.
Patinkin’s character came back from multiple nervous breakdowns to return to work. Like his character, the themes of the series were getting to him as an actor. He quit the show in the middle of the third season, sending remorseful letters to his colleagues. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Patinkin said that the show “was very destructive to my soul and my personality.” He cited the series’ propensity to show intense violence and sexual abuse as a part of the plots, something he did not realize would be the case when he signed up.
5
Mischa Barton, ‘The O.C.’
Not many people have had a meteoric rise like Mischa Barton did after she starred on The O.C. The series was arguably the biggest show on TV when it first aired and became a huge hit with millennials while also being a launching pad for many actors. It featured Barton as Marissa Cooper, the daughter of a well-off family in Ocean County, California, whose life is turned upside-down when she meets Ryan Atwood (Ben McKenzie), an underprivileged teenager taken in by another wealthy family.
Barton’s Marissa was such an important character because of the phenomenon that followed the show. She went through a lot of changes in her stories, which is ultimately what was her undoing. Barton became so famous because of the show that she lost all sense of a private life. She felt unprotected and didn’t like all the attention. She didn’t feel supported by the production team and the showrunners felt like they couldn’t advance her character much more. It became an underlying part of the production that Barton wasn’t happy, and the show wrote her off in one of the more shocking episodes it ever had.
4
Christopher Eccleston, ‘Doctor Who’
Eccleston was cast as the ninth Doctor in Doctor Who, the beloved cult British television series. He only lasted for one season, which was shocking to fans who took a liking to his take on the eponymous character. Eccleston made 13 episodes but was then criticized in the press for leaving. He stated many years later that he had creative differences with Russell T. Davies, the showrunner, as well as executive producers Phil Collinson and Julie Gardner, the BBC executive in charge of the show.
He said he left the show because his relationship with those people broke down, and they didn’t allow him to play the Doctor his way. He cited not wanting to “get involved with politics” and ultimately felt like he was getting sucked into something he wasn’t prepared for. Eccleston’s time as the Doctor is paid attention to even more now that his traveling companion, Rose Tyler, showed up in the most recent season finale.
3
Tina Louise, ‘Gilligan’s Island’
Gilligan’s Island was a popular series that aired from 1964 to 1967 and became incredibly more so during its syndicated run in the 1970s and ’80s. The series focused on seven castaways on an island after their boat was shipwrecked. Bob Denver played Gilligan, the hapless first mate to Alan Hale Jr.’s The Skipper. One of the other characters was Tina Louise’s Ginger Grant, a Hollywood movie star.
Louise worked on all three seasons of the series, but reportedly was unhappy as the show continued on, as she feared she would be typecast going forward. She claimed working on Gilligan’s Island ruined her chance to have a starring movie career, and did not return for any of the Gilligan’s Island sequel movies.
2
Jessica Biel, ‘7th Heaven’
The WB Network had some heavy-hitting teen dramas in the 1990s. With the success of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dawson’s Creek, and 7th Heaven, the network found its way into primetime programming. 7th Heaven followed the Campbell family, which featured a Protestant reverend and his wife raising seven kids in California. The breakout star of the series was Jessica Biel, who played Mary Camden, the eldest daughter.
Generally, the show portrayed wholesome values and Biel began to feel stifled in her character’s image. As a 17-year-old, Biel posed for a semi-nude photoshoot in Gear Magazine, which led to ire from the show’s producers. She wanted to break free of the show after that in order to attend college and advance her film career. She came to an agreement that she would not be a full-time cast member, but appeared occasionally in a recurring role. It’s unclear if she will have anything to do with the proposed reboot.
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Jennette McCurdy, ‘iCarly’
iCarly was a prominent show on Nickelodeon that ran from 2007 to 2012. It stars Miranda Cosgrove as Carly, who hosts a web show with her friends, Sam and Freddie. McCurdy plays Sam, who becomes famous from the web series in the same way McCurdy shot to fame from the show’s success. She would then star in a spin-off of the show Sam & Cat.
When talks of a revival of iCarly were discussed, McCurdy vehemently refused to return, as it brought back memories of abuse from her mother. McCurdy’s tell-all memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died, highlights the horrors she dealt with while growing up and filming the series. Her mother was physically and sexually abusive to her, contributing to an eating disorder by the time she was 11 and forcing her into acting to support the family. She also highlighted the show’s creator Dan Schneider’s inappropriate behavior on set, which included pressuring actors and providing unsolicited touching, as detailed in the docuseries Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV.
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