Hollywood stars seem like they have everything, but all that fame, fortune, and fantasy is
not always as glamorous and magical as it seems.
Between the pressures of stardom and the pressures of the job itself, with tens of millions of
dollars riding on something as small as the inflection of your voice, it's no wonder that
stress sometimes gets to even the best actors.
Here's a look at some movies that almost made actors walk off the set - or even quit acting
entirely!
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
The first three films in The Fast and the Furious franchise were all hits.
But the franchise nearly came to an end after star Paul Walker decided to quit after being
passed over for The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.
Even though he was offered a starring role in the fourth entry, 2009's Fast & Furious,
Walker told the Los Angeles Times he had had enough of it all.
"I thought [the franchise] was stale.
I was like, 'Are you kidding me?
Really?'
Obviously, we made the first one that catered to pop culture and a youth-driven audience.
But trends shift overnight with that audience.
Nine years later, I really questioned if there was even an audience anymore."
Luckily, Vin Diesel was able to convince Walker to return for just one more film - which eventually
turned into four more until Walker's tragic passing in a car accident before filming on
Furious 7 was complete.
Alexander
Once one of Hollywood's biggest stars, Colin Farrell nearly walked away from acting entirely
after his performance in Oliver Stone's 2004 historical epic Alexander led to bad reviews
from critics and fans alike.
He told the Irish Independent,
"I'm not going to apologize for how much it affected me emotionally and psychologically.
I was going to walk away from acting.
I couldn't buy a packet of cigarettes without feeling I needed to apologize to the guy behind
the counter in case they saw the f***ing thing."
Thankfully for his fans, Farrell reconsidered and stuck with it, even finding some humor
in his misery.
"If you're going to fail, fail spectacularly."
Maze Runner: The Death Cure
After breaking out with a role on television's Teen Wolf, Dylan O'Brien took to film, starring
in the successful Maze Runner franchise.
But disaster struck in March 2016, when he was seriously injured while filming a high
speed stunt for the third film, Maze Runner: The Death Cure.
He told Cosmopolitan,
"I was so consumed by what was going on in my life at the time that I couldn't really
imagine acting again.
It was hard for me to be able to envision being on set again [...] you get shell-shocked."
Six months after the accident, O'Brien was healed enough to return to the Maze Runner
set to complete the film and the trilogy.
"Obviously it was a task to push through.
But, once I did, it was the best decision I ever made."
Brideshead Revisited
Emma Thompson says she's been a, quote, "card-carrying, radical feminist" since age 19, and throughout
her career, the actress' convictions have been put to the test by the demands the film
industry places on actresses to look a certain way.
During an interview on a Norwegian talk show, she revealed that while working on the 2007
film Brideshead Revisited, producers requested that one of her co-stars lose some weight
- and Thompson threatened to quit.
"And I said to them, if you speak to her about this again on any level, I will leave this
picture.
You are never to do that."
The Soloist
Jamie Foxx is a skilled and successful comedian, singer, and actor.
But the stress of filming the 2009 film The Soloist nearly proved too much, as he told
The Los Angeles Times,
"I was in a bad place.
I felt like I might be literally losing my mind […] I thought about just walking away
from this movie."
That's because the demands of playing the schizophrenic main character in The Soloist
caused Foxx to suffer anxiety and paranoia from post traumatic stress caused by a terrifying
episode from his college years.
He told The Los Angeles Times that when he was just 18 years old, someone spiked his
drink with an unknown substance that caused a severe reaction.
"It ripped me apart.
I had to go to the hospital.
I mean, I was gone, it was the kind of trip that . . . you know you're losing your mind.
I kept thinking, 'I can't live like this.'
It didn't go away, either -- for 11 months, I had flashbacks."
Goodfellas
Many film fans know Paul Sorvino best as Paulie Cicero, the imposing mob boss in Goodfellas.
But during a panel discussion at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2015, Sorvino revealed that
he was planning to quit Goodfellas four weeks into production because he couldn't find the
character within himself.
"I am a poet.
I'm an opera singer.
I'm an author.
None of it is gangster.
[…] When I was trying to find this, I was really at a loss.
[…] So, I called [my agent] up and said, 'Get me out.'"
But before his agent could pull the plug, Sorvino found what he was looking for.
"I was going to fix my tie and I saw this guy…"
"And it scared the hell out of me."
The Watcher
Keanu Reeves probably keeps his friends a lot closer than he used to because, back in
2000, the actor found himself in a sticky situation after a so-called pal allegedly
forged the actor's signature on a binding contract.
Reeves told the Calgary Sun that after he turned down the lead role in The Watcher,
his friend went behind his back and committed him to the role.
Reeves said he wanted to quit, but couldn't.
"I never found the script interesting.
But a friend of mine forged my signature on the agreement … I couldn't prove he did
and I didn't want to get sued, so I had no other choice but to do the film."