7 actors who say they were misled

Cast and crew-members of Roe v. Wade have apparently walked off the set after discovering they’d been misled about the film’s true purpose.

But it’s not the first time a film’s cast have claimed to have been surprised by the movies they’ve signed up for.

We’ve compiled some of the most fascinating mix-ups, which range from ridiculous to actually pretty disturbing.

1. Bill Murray – Garfield (2004)

When Bill Murray was offered the title voice-over role in the first live-action Garfield movie, he was excited. “I thought it would be kind of fun, because doing a voice is challenging, and I’d never done that. Plus, I looked at the script, and it said, ‘So-and-so and Joel Coen.’ And I thought: Christ, well, I love those Coens! They’re funny. So I sorta read a few pages of it and thought, Yeah, I’d like to do that.”

Unfortunately for Murray, it was Joel COHEN not Coen, which is a fairly significant difference (Joel Coen has written The Big Lebowski, Blood Simple and Raising Arizona, while Joel Cohen has written Monster Mash: The Movie, Money Talks and Cheaper by the Dozen).

But Murray only found out after he’d signed on to do the film, and expressed his regrets in the movie Zombieland (in which he appeared as himself).

Still, it didn’t stop him from popping up in the sequel Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties.

2. Terence Stamp – Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)

When asked why he agreed to do The Phantom Menace, Terence Stamp was pretty honest. “I must admit, I had a terrible crush on [Natalie Portman].”

Now, we’re going to leave aside the fact that there was a fairly massively inappropriate age-gap between Stamp and Portman and focus on the fact that the actor didn’t get what he wanted, because they didn’t actually perform together in any of the scenes they shared.

Stamp was reduced to acting opposite a piece of paper stuck to a wall. “It was just pretty boring,” Stamp said.

3. John Callen – Hobbit trilogy (2012 – 2014)

John Callen, the New Zealand actor who played the dwarf Oin in The Hobbit trilogy, has said that when the film was switched from a one-off movie to a trilogy, he and his fellow dwarves weren’t informed of how that would affect their roles.

“We got left behind a bit. How much that was based on what was originally intended, I’m not sure, because we didn’t initially have complete scripts for three films, because initially there were going to be only two films. All I can tell you is that there was a definite feeling within the core cast that Peter [Jackson] was, if you like, he wasn’t the final arbiter.”

This left them feeling misled about how significant they’d be to the final story.

“Even though we were in the core cast we really did feel at some point that we were actually becoming the world’s highest-paid extras.”

4. Adrien Brody – The Thin Red Line (1998)

When Adrien Brody went on the press tour for The Thin Red Line he thought he was doing interviews as the film’s lead. Then he saw the movie. Director Terrence Malick has a reputation for finding films in the edit, and had almost completely cut Brody’s character from the film – without telling him.

“I was so focused and professional, I gave everything to it, and then to not receive everything…in terms of witnessing my own work. It was extremely unpleasant because I’d already begun the press for a film that I wasn’t really in. Terry obviously changed the entire concept of the film. I had never experienced anything like that…” Brody went on to suggest that Malick’s reputation isn’t entirely deserved: “You know the expression ‘Don’t believe the hype’? Well, you shouldn’t.”

5. Alec Baldwin – Mini’s First Time (2006)

When Alec Baldwin wrote in his biography that he wasn’t told that his love interest in Mini’s First Time was underage at the time of filming, one of the producers of the movie hit back.

“I was forty-seven, and it never occurred to me to ask how old Nikki Reed was. When I found out, just as we finished, that she was seventeen, I flipped out on the producers, who had told me something different,” Baldwin wrote.

“It’s a lie,” producer Dana Brunetti told The Hollywood Reporter. “I read it and was like, ‘What the f—. Of course he totally knew how old she was. That’s why there’s no nudity in the movie. He knew before we even cast the movie. I think he’s been method acting Trump too much and he doesn’t know the difference between fake news anymore.”

6. Cindy Lee Garcia – Innocence Of Muslims (2012)

Innocence Of Muslims, which was called ‘Desert Warrior’ when the cast and crew signed on to do the film, was transformed into a hugely controversial movie in the edit – with references to the Prophet Muhammed and anti-Islamic rhetoric being added in during the post-production process.

“It was going to be a film based on how things were 2,000 years ago,” Garcia said. “It wasn’t based on anything to do with religion, it was just on how things were run in Egypt. There wasn’t anything about Muhammed or Muslims or anything.”

The 80-member cast and crew later released a statement making their feelings on the film clear.

“The entire cast and crew are extremely upset and feel taken advantage of by the producer. We are 100% not behind this film and were grossly misled about its intent and purpose. We are shocked by the drastic re-writes of the script and lies that were told to all involved. We are deeply saddened by the tragedies that have occurred.”

7. Ahmad Khan – The Kite Runner (2007)

Ahmad Jan Mahmidzada, the father of Ahmad Khan, a schoolboy who was recruited at 12 to play one of the main roles in The Kite Runner, was unaware of the book’s more controversial elements.

Mahmidzada said he had no idea the film would portray deep ethnic divisions, nor did he know that a key character is a child rapist and that his child would play the victim.

“They said the movie is about kite flying and nothing else. They didn’t give us a script or a story or a book, nothing that says what the movie is about.”

“I’m worried people from my tribe will turn against me, even cut my throat and kill me,” he said.

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