Actors who didn’t get along with their directors
When it comes to making a Hollywood blockbuster movie, there are always a lot of big personalities involved, both on and off screen.
While actors and directors mostly collaborate in harmony to create movie magic (think Robert de Niro and Martin Scorsese), sometimes those on screen can’t stand the ones behind the camera.
While a lot of the time these feuds can go unnoticed, there have been several times where the stars of a movie have come out swinging against their directors, despite the success of a film.
Keira Knightley and John Carney
Working together in the 2007 musical drama Begin Again, director John Carney dubbed actress Keira Knightley a “supermodel” and criticised her acting while speaking to The Independent.
He said, “Being a film actor requires a certain level of honesty and self-analysis that I don’t think she’s ready for yet.”
He has since apologised for his comments, but despite accepting his apology, Knightley said working on Begin Again was “very difficult” and the pair just “didn’t get on”.
The cast of Steel Magnolias and Herbert Ross
Despite the 1989 film being a beloved classic, the tense production between director Herbert Ross and actresses Julia Roberts, Sally Field, Shirley Maclaine and Dolly Parton became an issue for the cast.
“My deepest memories of the film were how we bonded together after he told one of us or all of us we couldn’t act,” Sally Field said in 2013. “He went after Julia with a vengeance. This was pretty much her first big film.”
In 1993, Ross commented on Julia Roberts’ acting, saying she “looked bad and gave a very bad performance,” prompting her to respond, “If he thinks he can talk about me in such a condescending way and not have me say something about it, then he’s nuts”.
George Clooney and David O Russell
On the set of the 1999 film Three Kings, actor George Clooney said he confronted director David O Russell after he “went nuts on an extra”.
“I would not stand for him humiliating and yelling and screaming at crew members, who weren’t allowed to defend themselves,” Clooney said in 2003.
He went on to say that working on the film was “the worst experience of my life.”
Faye Dunaway and Roman Polanski
The feud between Dunaway and Polanski on the set of the 1974 film Chinatown went down in Hollywood lore, with the director dubbing the actress as “difficult” and a “gigantic pain”.
In response to his accusations, Dunaway claimed that Polanski was “incessantly cruel” and has a “never-ending need to humiliate her”.
In her autobioghraphy, she said his disgusting behaviour “bordered on sexual harrassment”.
Bill Murray and Harold Ramis
After collaborating together on classic films such as Groundhog Day, Caddyshack and Ghostbusters, Murray and Ramis had a seemingly unbreakable comedic bond.
However, on the set of Groundhog Day, the relationship between the pair escalated until Ramis ended up grabbing Murray by the shirt collar and throwing him against a wall, according to a 2018 biography of Ramis by his daughter Violet.
According to the biography, Ramis was left “heartbroken, confused and yet unsurprised by the rejection”.
More than 20 years later, Murray appeared at Ramis’ side when he was on his deathbed and proceeded to mend the relationship with his collaborator at the very last minute.
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