For most actors, appearing as a character in a Marvel movie would be a dream come true. Stars of MCU movies have gone to have huge careers after starring as superheroes.
For some actors, they had a pretty rough time working on these superhero blockbusters. Whether it was pay disputes, a hatred of being sat in the makeup chairs for hours or an issue with how their character was edited, some stars have spoken negatively about their experience working on the blokbusters.
Here are just some of the reasons why these actors hated making Marvel movies.
9 Terence Howard Wasn't Happy With His Marvel Pay
Iron Man actor Terence Howard received $3.5 to $5 million for playing Tony Stark’s wingman James Rhodey, this was six times more than Robert Downey Jr. After this superhero film was a massive success, Downey received a HUGE pay increase and Howard did not.
Howard believes that he had helped convince studio execs to hire the then-disgraced Downey in the first place and hoped to get something in return. “I called Robby… leaving messages with his assistants, called him at least 17 times that day and 21 the next and finally left a message saying, ‘look, man, I need the help that I gave you’. Never heard from him…And guess who got the millions I was supposed to get?”
According to early conversations with his agent and Marvel, Howard allegedly was looking for an $8 million payday, yet was offered $1 million. Instead of taking a pay decrease, he was replaced with Don Cheadle.
8 Hugo Weaving Had Contract Issues With Marvel
Hugo Weaving played the villainous Red Skull in the first Captain America and is unfailingly polite while clearly not interested in repeating the experience.
“It’s not something I would want to do again,” he told Collider. “It’s not the sort of film I seek out and really am excited by.”
His character appears in Avengers: Infinity War, just not played by Weaving! This wasn't necessarily because he didn't want to return. “Oh, yeah. I loved playing that character Red Skull – it was a lot of fun. We were all obliged to sign up for three pictures: I was thinking [Red Skull] probably wouldn’t come back in ‘Captain America’ but he may well come back as a villain in ‘The Avengers,'” Weaving revealed to Time Out.
“By then, they’d pushed back on the contracts that we agreed on and so the money they offered me for ‘The Avengers’ was much less than I got for the very first one, and this was for two films. And the promise when we first signed the contracts was that the money would grow each time. They said: ‘It’s just a voice job, it’s not a big deal.’ I actually found negotiating with them through my agent impossible. And I didn’t really wanna do it that much. But I would have done it.”
7 Anthony Hopkins Found It Acting In Marvel Movie To Be 'Pointless'
Anthony Hopkins appeared in the Thor franchise as Odin, the ruler of Asgard. Hopkins infamously wrote “No Acting Required” on his script for the original Thor.
“I try to apply it to everything I do: no acting required,” Oscar-winning Hopkins told The New Yorker in 2021 about acting in Marvel movies. “On ‘Thor,’ you have Chris Hemsworth—who looks like Thor—and a director like Kenneth Branagh, who is so certain of what he wants. They put me in armor; they shoved a beard on me. Sit on the throne; shout a bit. If you’re sitting in front of a green screen, it’s pointless acting it.”
6 Idris Elba Struggled To Play Marvel's Heimdall After Other Roles
Idris Elba had spent eight months playing iconic activist Nelson Mandela before returning to the role of Heimdall in Thor: The Dark World and he struggled to find worth in the filmmaking process.
He didn't want to be there for the reshoots, but his agent told him, "You have to, it’s part of the deal."
He told the Daily Telegraph, “In between takes I was stuck there, fake hair stuck on to my head with glue, this f***ing helmet, while they reset. And I’m thinking: ‘24 hours ago, I was Mandela’…Then there I was, in this stupid harness, with this wig and this sword and these contact lenses. It ripped my heart out.”
Despite his issues with the process, he did reprise his role in Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Infinity War.
5 Mickey Rourke Was Let Down By Iron Man 2 Edits
Mickey Rourke played the villain Whiplash in Iron Man 2 but felt like he was let down by the filmmakers. Years later he is still throwing digs at the franchise.
Rourke told Seth Meyers, “I’m not a Marvel fan… Once I did a movie for Marvel, and they cut the whole goddamn thing out.”
In another interview, he once again took a dig at the studio for cutting him out. “I explained to [Jon] Favreau that I wanted to bring some other layers and colors, not just make this Russian a complete murderous revenging bad guy. And they allowed me to do that. Unfortunately, the [people] at Marvel just wanted a one-dimensional bad guy, so most of the performance ended up [on] the floor.”
Rourke added, “At the end of the day you’ve got some nerd with a pocketful of money calling the shots. You know, Favreau didn’t call the shots. I wish he would have.”
4 Christopher Eccleston Hated The Makeup Chair For Thor: The Dark World
Thor: The Dark World is often considered one of the worst Marvel films and Christopher Eccleston would probably agree with you.
The Doctor Who actor played the villain Malekith in the first Thor sequel and told The Guardian that starring in the film was similar to "having a gun in his mouth."
His hatred was mainly due to sitting in the makeup chair. "They said to me in the negotiations, 'There’ll be a little bit of make-up,‘" The Leftovers actor explained. "What they didn’t say was that it’d be seven hours of it, which was very dishonest of them. That was a miserable experience and a dreadful performance."
3 Sally Field Thinks Spider-Man's Aunt May Is One Dimensional
Sally Field explained the reason she took on the role of Aunt Mya to Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man, "It's not my kind of movie. But my friend Laura Ziskin was the producer, and we knew it would be her last film, and she was my first producing partner, and she was a spectacular human."
She later admitted to Howard Stern that she didn’t put "a great deal" of thought or preparation into the role, and agreed with the DJ that the character basically existed to prop up Spider-Man, from time to time.
"It's really hard to find a three-dimensional character in it, and you work it as much as you can, but you can't put ten pounds of s*** in a five pound bag," the Steel Magnolias star explained, referencing the fact Aunt May spends most of the movie folding laundry.
2 Dave Bautista Wants Something More
Whilst he is grateful for the Guardians of the Galaxy performance, Dave Bautista has told GQ, "I just don't know if I want Drax to be my legacy — it's a silly performance, and I want to do more dramatic stuff."
The former wrestler has played Drax for almost a decade but it wasn't always easy due to the lengthy makeup process. "It wasn't all pleasant. It was hard playing that role. The makeup process was beating me down," he revealed in the same interview.
1 Natalie Portman Was Unhappy With The Change Of Director
Natalie Portman was widely reported to be unhappy with Marvel while filming Thor: The Dark World. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Portman had championed director Patty Jenkins but was blindsided when the Wonder Woman director was fired (news she learned about through the media).
At this point, Portman had to stay on to make the poorly-received sequel, due to contractual obligations. Although she did not speak in public about the deal, she apparently wasn't shy about her distaste for Marvel behind the scenes.
Although she didn’t film new scenes for Endgame, she did provide some voice-over and showed up to the film’s premiere. She made her comeback to the MCU in Thor: Love and Thunder.
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