1.
While Evangeline Lilly was initially happy with the writing for her character, Kate, on Lost, she became dissatisfied as the show went on. “I felt like she became more and more predictable and obnoxious. I felt like my character went from being autonomous — really having her own story and her own journey and her own agendas — to chasing two men around the island. And that irritated the shit out of me,” she said on The Lost Boys podcast. She even admitted to throwing scripts across the room.
2.
Sam Witwer only played a minor character on Riverdale (his character died after inexplicably jumping out a window…it’s explained much later, long after Witwer left the show), but that didn’t stop him from having some strong feelings about the writing on the show. “As for why that character jumps out a window, I have no idea. But I read the script and laughed. I was like, ‘Right, of course. Of course he does,'” Witwer said. “I’d love to say I had deep thoughts about the whole thing, but I don’t think that’s really the way they work over there.”
3.
A few other members of the Riverdale cast have made some shady comments as well — notably Cole Sprouse, who plays Jughead. In particular, he disliked his infamous “I’m a weirdo” scene. “Jughead definitely has his cringe-boy moments,” he told BuzzFeed. “Juggy deserves the flak. Glad that scene resonated with the audience the same way it resonated with me as the actor reading those lines.”
4.
Shailene Woodley was not a fan of the writing for her character on Secret Life of the American Teenager. She didn’t say the quality was bad, but she didn’t like the messages it gave: “Towards the end, morally, the things that we were preaching on that show weren’t really aligned with my own integrity. So that was a bit hard to show up to work every day knowing that we were going to project all of these themes to thousands — millions — of young adults across the country, when, in fact, they weren’t what I would like to be sending out,” she said after her time on the show was done.
5.
Angus T. Jones similarly didn’t like the moral content of his show Two and a Half Men. “It was difficult for me to be on the show and be part of something that was making light of topics in our world where there are really problems for a lot of people,” he said. “I was a paid hypocrite because I wasn’t OK with it and I was still doing it.” A year before, he had said his character “means nothing” and compared watching the show to “filling your head with filth.”
6.
Ian Harding also seemed to suggest he was not a fan of the way Pretty Little Liars presented his character Ezra’s relationship with his student, 16-year-old Aria. He once called Ezra “America’s most beloved pedophile,” though he said he tried to play it as a love story. But when an advertiser dropped out early on, Harding believed it was because of his character’s illegal relationship — only to find out it was actually Emily’s lesbian relationship. “So I could be seen as a statutory rapist, and people are like, ‘I know, but love knows no bounds, as long as there is a penis and a vagina involved,’” he said dryly.
7.
Penn Badgley was pretty critical of the writers’ decision to make his character, Dan, Gossip Girl in the series finale of the eponymous show. “It doesn’t make sense at all. It wouldn’t have made sense for anybody. Gossip Girl doesn’t make sense!”
8.
Isaac Hempstead Wright was a little less obvious, but he threw a bit of shade at the Game of Thrones writers after the disastrous last season, which ended with his character, Bran, becoming king. “I genuinely thought it was a joke script and that [showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss] sent to everyone a script with their own character [ending] up on the Iron Throne,” he said. “‘Yeah, good one, guys. Oh s–t, it’s actually real?'”
9.
Katherine Heigl also subtly shaded Grey’s Anatomy over the writing decisions, saying she wasn’t a huge fan of the storyline where her character, Izzie, sleeps with ghost-Denny. She also pretty famously withdrew herself from Emmy consideration in 2008, saying, “I did not feel I was given the material this season to warrant a nomination,” although she’s since expressed regret over this, saying that it was between her and the writers, and a lot of it was about her own performance.
10.
Ed Harris, like Heigl with Grey’s, was not a fan of a particular storyline on Westworld. Specifically, he disliked Season 3. “You do what you gotta do. I mean, I signed on to play the Man in Black. I didn’t sign on to play the Man in White. So it wasn’t the most joyous season for me, I gotta say.” He also didn’t like how he didn’t know where his character’s arc was heading.
11.
And Sarah Michelle Gellar had a hard time with her character’s trajectory in Season 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. “I’ve always said that Season 6 was not my favorite. I felt it betrayed who she was,” Gellar said. The season notably featured her character entering a sexual relationship with the soulless vampire Spike.
12.
Alexander Siddig was also upset with a later version of his character when he played Dr. Bassir on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. When his character was revealed to be genetically modified, Siddig actively rebelled against acting “Data-esque,” as the producers wanted him to, messing up lines on purpose until eventually they changed the character back a bit. He also distanced himself from the Star Trek universe after the show was over.
13.
And Denise Crosby, who played Tasha Yar on Star Trek: The Next Generation, was also not fond of what her character was given to do. “I was struggling with not being able to do much with the character. I had all these ideas and couldn’t do them. I was just stage dressing. I chose to leave instead of just being satisfied with that,” she said. Her character was killed off at the end of the first season to accommodate her. “I couldn’t wait to get off that show,” she said in another interview. “I didn’t want to spend the next six years going, ‘Aye, aye, Captain,’ and standing there, in the same uniform, in the same position on the bridge.”
14.
Johnny Depp compared starring on his show 21 Jump Street in later years to being “in a prison creatively,” saying, “It started to get a little showboat-y, you know what I mean? It just started to become false. It started to become this action-packed can of soup, you know? You just market it and send it out.”
15.
Nick Jonas didn’t technically call the scripts for his show Jonas L.A. bad, but he did say he regretted doing the second season. “We shouldn’t have done that. It really stunted our growth, you know? I feel like it was just a bad move,” Jonas admitted. “It was just not the time. Literally, we couldn’t evolve because of it.”
16.
His brother and costar Joe Jonas also called the show “not good,” and Kevin Jonas agreed that the second season especially was not a fit for them, saying it fed into people seeing them as a joke.
17.
Jennette McCurdy similarly called her time on iCarly and Sam & Cat “cheesy [and] embarrassing” and said she was ashamed.
18.
Jean Yoon had issues with some of the storylines on Kim’s Convenience and said that they were “overtly racist.” She says the cast came together to express their concerns, and most of the racist jokes and scenes were taken out. She also felt that her character getting multiple sclerosis was unrealistic, and said she was told she “doesn’t understand comedy” when she expressed concerns.
19.
Glee’s Jenna Ushkowitz and Kevin McHale expressed on a YouTube show that some of the cast hated being on the series, though they didn’t name names. For their part, they did say that they hit a breaking point with the show when they performed “What Does the Fox Say,” and that Season 5 was rough. Ushkowitz also exhibited clear discomfort with having to do the rap in “Gangnam Style,” and both Ushkowitz and McHale agreed with the interviewer’s sentiment about how insensitive the show could be.
