Roles Actors Apologized For

If there's one thing you can depend on, it's that people make mistakes. The first step to fixing those mistakes is apologizing. This is a tough step for many, made even tougher when the mistake in question is public. Consider the position of actors: Everything they do is public by the very nature of their profession, and addressing mistakes can chip away at a carefully crafted image. It takes something truly important (though "important" has many definitions in Hollywood) to get an actor to apologize — especially when it comes to the projects they work on. No one wants to badmouth their own movies, and time can heal many wounds: Today's flop could be tomorrow's cult classic. For an actor to apologize for a role, something momentous needs to have gone wrong.

How does the mistake of taking the role happen in the first place? Sometimes, actors are forced into the role. Other times, they fail to understand the role in question. Every now and then, it's a simple matter of bad direction, writing, or editing. Regardless, the role is taken, and in these cases, goes over so badly that the actor ends up apologizing. These are the roles actors apologized for, from the obnoxiously outdated to the horrifically ill-conceived.

Batman & Robin is often considered to be the Caped Crusader's worst hour — or, to be more exact, his worst two hours and five minutes. The puns, the camp, and the Bat Nipples are cultural touchstones for all the wrong reasons. Few bore the brunt of this more than George Clooney, who has spent years apologizing for his part in the fiasco.

During the Tomorrowland panel at 2014's New York Comic Con, some of the panelists teased Clooney about Batman. Clooney joked that his portrayal got him "disinvited to Comic Con" and how he almost apologized to Adam West backstage that day. He added that he was "sorry about the nipples on the suit," then joked, "Freeze, Freeze! I apologize for that one," for good measure.

Several months later, the Tomorrowland cast was interviewed on The Graham Norton Show. Norton acknowledged Clooney's apology, to which Clooney responded, "I always apologize for Batman & Robin." He admitted that he thought he killed the franchise until Christopher Nolan brought it back. "I thought at the time that this was going to be a very good career move," he said, with a pause. "Um, it wasn't."

Mahershala Ali's performance as Don Shirley in Green Book won him critical acclaim and plenty of awards. The movie as a whole, however, is often criticized as a "white savior" narrative. The Shirley family — who were never contacted, let alone consulted about the depiction — expressed particular issues with the movie, which led to a personal apology from Ali.

Shirley's nephew Edwin said watching Green Book was "rather jarring," and took exception to how his uncle was portrayed. Green Book's Don Shirley is shown as estranged from the black community and out of contact with his family. Edwin noted that Shirley marched in Selma with Martin Luther King Jr., was close friends with many other black musicians, and was absolutely in contact with his family. Edwin called Shirley's depiction in Green Book "very hurtful" and "100% wrong."

Shirley's brother Maurice went further, calling Green Book "a symphony of lies." He noted that in 1962, "[Shirley] had three living brothers with whom he was always in contact," and that the two of them had monthly phone calls until Don's death. Maurice's wife Patricia also noted that Shirley's relationship with Tony was "employer-employee."

In response, Ali called both Maurice and Edwin Shirley. "I was not aware that there were close relatives with whom I could have consulted," Ali disclosed in a call Edwin described as "very, very respectful." 

FIFA, the international governing body of association football (AKA soccer), are as well known for the sport as they are for corruption. One of their many attempts to smooth this over was the 2015 film United Passions.

United Passions goes beyond puff piece and directly into hagiography. As FIFA put up 90 percent of the budget, this isn't a shock. No one could have predicted how terrible the film's timing would be, however: Just before release, 14 FIFA officials were arrested on corruption charges.

Tim Roth plays Sepp Blatter, then President of FIFA. Just days before the movie's opening, the real Blatter resigned from his position, and has since been banned from FIFA operations for six years. In the movie, however, he's a peerless leader, distinguished by his impeccable ethics.

Shortly before the movie was released, Roth was interviewed by German newspaper Die Welt. He expressed remorse over his part in it, admitting that he had not even watched the finished product. "I didn't question the director, I didn't question the script," he said. "This is a role that will have my father turning in his grave."

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a contentious movie. Mutt Williams, Indy's sidekick and son, is one major factor in fans' mixed feelings. As it turns out, Shia LaBeouf, his actor, has some misgivings of his own.

While promoting 2010's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps at Cannes, LaBeouf went off on Crystal Skull. "You get to monkey-swinging and things like that and you can blame it on the writer and you can blame it on [Steven Spielberg]," he said. "But the actor's job is to make it come alive and make it work, and I couldn't do it. So that's my fault. Simple." LaBeouf said that he and Harrison Ford talked it over and were both unsatisfied. Though he holds Spielberg in the highest regard, he stated that the director still bears some of the blame: "He's done so much great work that there's no need for him to feel vulnerable about one film. But when you drop the ball you drop the ball."

Ford later called LaBeouf an "idiot" for lambasting the film. When it comes to a controversial film, there are no winners.

Carol Burnett is a comedy icon, but that doesn't mean she's never had an off day. Consider Burnett's role in Billy Wilder's 1974 movie, The Front Page. She knew during filming that her performance was dreadful, an opinion shared by many reviewers. In a story she loves telling, this led her to give a personal apology to a captive audience.

Some time after making the movie, Burnett and her husband Joe Hamilton were on a flight. Fans recognized her with excitement. The flight attendant then announced that the in-flight movie was The Front Page, which caused Burnett to sink into her seat.

As the credits rolled, a silence gripped the plane, so Burnett decided to face the music. She went up to the flight attendant — itself an act of a bygone era — and asked to use the speaker. Burnett introduced herself and said, "I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to each and every one of you for my performance in that movie." The passengers erupted into laughter and applause.

Jim Carrey plays Colonel Stars and Stripes, a reformed mafioso, in Kick-Ass 2. A month after Carrey finished filming, the Sandy Hook school shooting happened. On June 23rd, 2013, Carrey tweeted that "in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence," and wouldn't be promoting the film. He relayed his "apologies to others involve [sic] with the film. I am not ashamed of it but recent events have caused a change in my heart."

Kick-Ass creator Mark Millar responded by respecting Carrey's beliefs, but saying he was "baffled by this sudden announcement as nothing seen in this picture wasn't in the screenplay 18 months ago." He also noted that Colonel Stars and Stripes deliberately avoids using guns, and that violence is guaranteed in a movie literally called Kick-Ass. Miller later stated that Carrey did the movie a favor by getting it in the news.

A year later, Millar and Kick-Ass co-creator John Romita, Jr. changed their tune. They both expressed disgust that Carrey would, in their eyes, abandon the people who worked on the project. They also said he was "not a smart enough guy" to square playing an anti-gun character with his real life support of gun control.