11 actors who completely burned their bridges

Chase burned his bridges with Community creator Dan Harmon in spectacular style – by leaving a rage-fuelled voice message. “It’s just a mediocre f***ing sitcom,” Chase said. “I want people to laugh, and this isn’t funny.” Chase was fired from the show, and hasn’t been back for any of the reunion episodes.

Just like the rest of us, Mark Wahlberg wasn’t a fan of The Happening. “F—king trees, man. The plants. F—k it,” he said at a press conference promoting The Fighter. “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.” He hasn’t worked with Shyamalan since.

Following the success of Timecop, Van Damme decided that he should be paid the same amount as Jim Carrey (who was taking home $20m per picture at that time). Unfortunately, producers didn’t agree, and Van Damme lost projects. “The people will read this and say, ‘What a f***ing piglet.’ I wanted to play with the system. Like an idiot. Ridiculous. I was on the blacklist. That was it.”

Prinze Jr didn’t enjoy his time on 24, thanks to star/executive producer, Kiefer Sutherland. “Kiefer was the most unprofessional dude in the world … I’d say it to his face. I think everyone that’s worked with him has said that.” Prinze hasn’t had a regular role on a live-action TV series since, but contributes voice work to the animated Star Wars series Rebels.

Fox criticised the Transformers movies as having “too much SFX and not enough acting opportunities.” before going on to say that Michael Bay “wants to be like Hitler on his sets, and he is. So he’s a nightmare to work for but when you get him away from set, and he’s not in director mode, I kind of really enjoy his personality because he’s so awkward.” Fox didn’t make another Transformers movie after that.

Receiving her Razzie for Catwoman, Berry decided to directly criticise the studio who cast her in it. “I want to thank Warner Bros for casting me in this piece-of-s***, god-awful movie. It was just what my career needed – I was at the top, now I’m at the bottom.” It would be another seven years before Berry worked with Warner Brothers again, for another terrible movie: New Year’s Eve.

“Miami Vice? I didn’t like it so much. I understood that we were trying to paint a relationship with Tubbs and Crockett that was so grounded and familiar that there was no need for them to incessantly talk to each other – or look at each other – over two and a half hours.” Miami Vice was released in 2006, and Michael Mann hasn’t asked Farrell to be in any more of his movies.

When Heigl removed herself from consideration for an Emmy because, as she put it, “I did not feel that I was given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination and in an effort to maintain the integrity of the academy organization, I withdrew my name from contention.” Heigl was released from her contract two seasons later, eighteen months early, and has never returne to the show.

Constructive criticism after the fact is never popular in Hollywood, even if it’s about a film pretty much everyone agrees is really bad. “I feel like I dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved and cherished. [Harrison Ford] wasn’t happy with it either,” LaBeouf said about The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. As with Transformers (which LaBeouf also criticised, before being dropped from the franchise as a result) don’t expect Shia to show up in Indiana Jones 5.

Charlize Theron wasn’t a fan of the – actually quite good – Reindeer Games, the Christmas-set thriller starring Ben Affleck. “That was a bad, bad, bad movie. But I got to work with [director] John Frankenheimer. I wasn’t lying to myself – that’s why I did it.” Weirdly, Theron didn’t end up working with the director a second time, you know, after she called his movie terrible.

Criticising The Bourne Ultimatum’s script, Matt Damon was pretty candid about his feelings for the film’s writer. “I don’t blame Tony for taking a boatload of money and handing in what he handed in. It’s just that it was unreadable. This is a career-ender. I mean, I could put this thing up on eBay and it would be game over for that dude. It’s terrible. It’s really embarrassing.” Damon realised he’d burned a bridge with one of the most well-respected writers in Hollywood, he called up the journalist who’d reported his comments in an attempt to retract his statement.