16 Actors Who Quit Mid-Production Because Of Their Difficult Co-Star

Glamorous lifestyles, fame, and tons of money aside, the job of an actor isn't easy. Grueling hours, hundreds of auditions, countless re-shoots, and the hurry-up-and-wait mentality will get to you after awhile. Actors are also supposed to work with all kinds of people whether its costars, directors, writers, etc. and sometimes these people aren't the easiest to work with. We've all had coworkers who we couldn't stand--but imagine if these coworkers were overly dramatic performers with unrealistic demands and temper tantrums. This is what some actors have to deal with and if they're working on a TV series with their dreaded costars, they could potentially be working very close to them for years.

Though there are some costars who have absolutely hated each other, there are also some actors who have simply hated playing second fiddle to their costars. Most actors dream of being in the spotlight their entire lives and, by the time they make it to Hollywood, they aren't about to share it with anyone. This can cause plenty of disputes on set and it sometimes causes actors to simply walk offset for good.

These feuds and fights have caused actors to up and leave movie sets or refuse roles altogether and it completely changed the course of their respective movies and TV shows for good.

16 Christopher Abbott: Boy And Girls

It's no secret in Hollywood that Lena Dunham is difficult to work with. There are many actors and writers who refuse to work with her and many people in the media who have criticized her for perpetuating white feminism which is a form of feminism that ignores ethnic minority women and only focus on the struggles of white women. It's no surprise that she caused at least one Girls actor to quit the show.

Christopher Abbott claimed that he left the show because he didn't like the direction that it was taking but Jezebel reported that the reason he left was because he couldn't get along with Dunham.

You shouldn't believe everything you hear but generally, when it comes to Dunham, where there's smoke, there's fire.

15 Naya Rivera: One Diva Too Many

Technically Naya Rivera didn't quit from Glee but it seems like the Glee star was ready to leave the show anyway. After countless rumors of rifts and feuds between costars and producers, Rivera was booted from the show.

Us Magazine reported that Rivera was jealous of the screen time that Lea Michele got and wanted more attention on her character instead of on Michele's character Rachel.

Rivera has since claimed that she called out the producers for putting up with Michele's diva fits, including more than one instance where the Broadway-trained actress locked herself in her trailer and refused to come out. Though Michele was known for her tantrums on set, it was Rivera who ended up leaving. Maybe Ryan Murphy should consider focusing on this feud for Feud Season 2.

14 Leonardo DiCaprio: Mel Gibson Went Berserk Before 'Berserker'

Sometimes an actor is onboard with a project but quits after a backlash. This is something that has become fairly prevalent in the past year but it is also what happened to Mel Gibson's Berserker back in 2010. According to Mental Floss, DiCaprio signed up to star in Gibson's film but quickly changed his mind after the audio was leaked of the Braveheart actor's infamous rant(s). DiCaprio has never been upfront about exactly why he backed out of the film but it's safe to say that he didn't want to deal with the PR firestorm that would inevitably follow. Unfortunately, Gibson has continued to make more movies and A-list actors aren't as wary to work with him. Apparently Gibson is still trying to make this Viking film made and, unfortunately for us, it might actually happen. Hopefully, DiCaprio will still know better than to work with him eight years later.

13 Leah Remini: Talk It Out

Leah Remini may have just started her new stint on Kevin Can Wait (while also getting Erinn Hayes kicked off the show in the process) but there was once a time where she was not welcome on a certain TV show. Like Rivera, Remini didn't exactly quit the show but she was forced off after a feud with a fellow costar.

E! Online reported that, after feuding with Sharon Osbourne, Remini and Holly Robinson Peete were fired from the show because she didn't find them funny and went so far as to call them "awkward" and "ghetto"--at least according to Remini.

However, a few years after the fact in 2015, Remini admitted that she no longer blamed Osbourne for getting her kicked off the show and that she was rightfully fired because she, as she puts it, "a pain in the"… you know where.

12 Native American Extras: Cultural Appropriative And Unfunny

Adam Sandler isn't known for being the most "woke" actor in Hollywood but even he should know better than to make inappropriate jokes about Native Americans… but he did it anyway.

A dozen Native American extras were so offended by the immature jokes made at the expense of their race that they simply walked off the set.

Even the film's "cultural advisor" walked off along with them because, according to Indian Country Today, he wasn't allowed to speak to any of the producers about the false depiction of the Apache people. Sandler actually went as so far to say that the movie was actually "pro-Indian" and Netflix claimed that Native Americans were "in on the joke". But after seeing the movie and the tasteless jokes it's hard to tell if Sandler and Netflix were just straight up lying in order to keep the scandal at bay.

11 Julie McCullough: A Real Pain For Kirk Cameron

According to Mental Floss, Kirk Cameron was originally cast as Mike in Growing Pains because he didn't seem very smart and after his audition, a producer noted that, "He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he sounds like Mike." After becoming a breakout star on the show, young Kirk Cameron was drunk with power. Cameron was not at all happy when he found out that the actress who played his girlfriend Julie (Julie McCullough) had posed for Playboy and that went against his strict religious beliefs. The two characters were supposed to get engaged and eventually marry on the show but that didn't happen. The two apparently butted heads during filming and eventually, McCullough was written off the show. Mike ended up getting engaged to Kate played by Chelsea Noble who he married in real life.

10 Taylor Momsen: The Gossip Girl's Rebellious Stage

Tim Gunn was one of the many people on Gossip Girl who did not get along with Taylor Momsen. Momsen was known for holding up production and Gunn was not happy about it. After Gunn appeared on the show, he told E! News,

 "I thought to myself 'Why are we all being held hostage by this brat?'"

Her costars and the show's producers were fed up with her brattiness and they weren't fond of the fact that she had started a punk band, The Pretty Reckless and wore goth makeup while she was supposed to naive and innocent on the show.

Momsen was obviously not fond of working on the show either and, shortly after Gunn's comments hit the newsstands, Momsen left the show for good. Whether or not she was fired, we may never know. To be fair, Momsen had been playing the young/naive girl since she was a kid (she was Cindy Lou Who in How the Grinch Stole Christmas) and she was undoubtedly ready to go through her angsty teen stage by the time she was in her late teens.

9 Kel O'Neill: Method Madness

Originally, Kel O'Neill was cast as Eli Sunday in Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood alongside Daniel Day-Lewis and he had to be replaced with Paul Dano just two weeks into the film's 60-day shoot. According to the New York Times, it was because O'Neill was scared off by Lewis' intense method acting and he "suffered from intimidation." Of course, Day-Lewis denied the claims and, ten years later, O'Neill did as well. O'Neill said in an interview with Vulture that it was Anderson's instruction that the actors "soak up the isolation" that led to his ultimate replacement. Still, there's no denying that Lewis' character in There Will Be Blood is straight-up terrifying and if Day-Lewis was in character every single day, it would scare anyone silly.

8 Mia Farrow: Frank Sinatra's Baby

When Frank Sinatra married Mia Farrow, she was not the big star she would eventually become. She was one of the stars of the soap opera Peyton Place but she had yet to land the role that would launch her into superstardom: Rosemary's Baby. The couple married in 1966 but it wasn't long before they started to have problems. Sinatra initially married Farrow because she wasn't a big star who could outshine him. However, his celebrity mixed with her breakout role on Peyton Place made her a hot commodity in Hollywood which is why Roman Polanski cast her in his first Hollywood movie.

This the way the story goes according to Newsweek: at the time Rosemary's Baby started filming, Sinatra's own movie The Detective was already in production and Farrow was set to be the lead opposite Sinatra.

Farrow eventually had to turn down the role because the Rosemary's Baby shoot had gone on longer than expected.  Jacqueline Bisset replaced Farrow, Sinatra served his wife divorce papers on her film's set, The Detective flopped, and Rosemary's Baby was a colossal hit.

7 Debra Winger: No Love For Madonna

Back in the 80s, Madonna was known for her scandalous fashion choices, her suggestive dancing, and, of course, her music. Even after starring in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Shanghai Surprise (1986), and Dick Tracy (1990), she was not known for being an extraordinarily good actress. Debra Winger was known for being an extraordinarily good actress but she was also known for her many feuds with co-stars including Richard Gere and Shirley MacLaine. According to Looper, Winger was cast as the lead in A League of Their Own but when she found out that she would be acting alongside Madonna, she had a thing or two to say to the director, Penny Marshall. Winger deemed this as stunt casting and according to Marshall's memoir, Winger said, "You're making an Elvis movie!" Winger quit the movie and Geena Davis took her place as Dottie Hinson.

6 Janet Hubert: The Aunt Viv Of Bel-Air

Sometimes family just doesn't get along. It's no secret that Will Smith and Janet Hubert who played Aunt Viv on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air didn't see eye to eye which was why she was eventually replaced.

According to a radio interview that Smith did in 1993, he said that  Hubert wanted the show to be the "The Aunt Viv of Bel-Air" and added that he once heard Hubert had said, "I've been in the business for 10 years and this snotty-nosed punk comes along and gets a show."

She eventually left the show and that "snotty-nosed punk" turned out to be one of the biggest actors in Hollywood but Hubert still was never impressed. Years later, Hubert told TMZ that she didn't care at all about not being invited to a Fresh Prince reunion and that she didn't want to be anywhere near Will Smith who she considered being "an egomaniac and has not grown up."

5 Will Smith: He Might Have Regret After 'After Earth'

Will Smith's biggest problem with Quintin Tarantino's script for Django Unchained wasn't that he didn't get along with his costar but the fact that he was the costar. After reading the script, he determined that it was Christoph Waltz's character, Dr. King Schultz, who was the lead and not Django. According to an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Smith said, "Django wasn't the lead, so it was like, I need to be the lead." Smith turned down the role to star in M. Night Shyamalan's After Earth alongside his own son, Jaden Smith. While Django Unchained was Tarantino's biggest box office hit to date After Earth flopped and proved that Jaden did not have what it took to be a big star like his dad. Also, Waltz ended up winning the Oscar for 'best supporting actor' so it turns out that Smith was wrong about a lot of things.

4 James Purefoy: The Mask

James Purefoy didn't quit V for Vendetta because of a feud with a costar. It wasn't a someone as much as it was a something. The Altered Carbon actor quit because of an issue with a prop. This prop was the Guy Fawkes mask that the character, V, had to wear and Purefoy hated working with.

According to Zimbio, after filming had already begun, he decided that he didn't like the idea of acting underneath the mask for the entire shoot and he straight-up hated the idea of his face never appearing seen for the entire film.

Purefoy had to be replaced and, fortunately, it was for the best. After the producers, Joel Silver and the Wachowskis worked with Hugo Weaving on The Matrix, the decision he was perfect for the role of the anarchist terrorist. Weaving didn't seem to have a problem with not being seen in the movie and he gave a great performance.

3 Stana Katic: Queen Of The Castle

Just because two actors star in eight seasons of a TV show together, doesn't mean they like each other which is exactly what happened to Stana Katic and Nathan Fillion in Castle. They may have had a lot of chemistry onscreen but, offscreen, they couldn't stand each other--at least if the rumors are to be believed.

An insider told UsWeekly that there was so much friction between the two stars that,

"Stana would cry on set because Nathan was such a bully to her. Stana would go into her dressing room and cry. A lot of people who work on the show don't like Nathan. It's not just her." 

Before season 9 started filming, it was announced that Katic would not be coming back to the ABC crime procedural. However, soon after this announcement, it was announced that the show would not even be returning for a ninth season. This makes a lot of sense considering that the series was winding down and lost one of its two leads.

2 Kim Cattrall: Shut Down Before It Even Began

Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall may have played best friends onscreen but since their feud has hit the tabloids, it seems like it was just acting. It all started when Cattrall said that she had no interest in appearing in a third SATC movie which is totally understandable considering how terrible the second movie was. However, Cattrall also said that the cast didn't have as much offscreen chemistry as you'd think and SJP responded by saying she was offended by Cattrall's statements. According to New York Post, Cattrall was never truly accepted by SJP during filming and Cattrall also noted that her slurry was significantly lower than Parker's. SJP fired back at her for keeping the third movie from happening. However, now that Cynthia Nixon is running or governor of New York, it doesn't look like a third movie was going to happen anyway.

1 Richard Gere: The Origin Of Hollywood Lore

You probably haven't seen The Lords of Flatbush but you have probably heard of the rumor which wouldn't be here today without this relatively unknown Sylvester Stallone movie. Richard Gere was meant to star opposite Stallone in the film but backed out suddenly and Stallone later said that it was because the two just didn't click.

According to an interview with Ain't It Cool News, Stallone said that Gere thought he was "the worst knight at the round table" and he got a little too into character.

The friction between them was too much and one of them had to go, Gere ended up walking but he held a grudge against Stallone for years. Stallone wasn't too fond of him either and there are rumors that it was the Rocky actor who started the "gerbil" rumor about Gere.

References: Jezebel, Us Magazine, Mental Floss, E! Online, Indian Country Today, Mental Floss, E! News, New York Times, Vulture, Newsweek, Looper, TMZ, Entertainment Weekly, Zimbio, Us Weekly, New York Post, Ain't It Cool News