Everyone has their regrets in life from time to time, but only a very select few could ever rank appearing in a Star Wars movie among them.
Star Wars is arguably the biggest movie franchise of all time. To feature in one of these films is to enshrine oneself in the very fabric of a movie universe that may well end up outliving us all.
Even so, it has ended up being a thorn in the side of many a career and a source of constant remorse among those fabled few. The reasons behind the regret are many and varied.
Some have struggled to cope with the fandom and fame brought about by their Star Wars experience, while others didn’t enjoy the experience on a creative level with excessive CGI, dodgy direction, and uncomfortable outfits all referenced as a bone of contention.
Then there are those instances where the entire experience has ended up being ruined by a clash of personalities with one of their co-stars. (One particular bit of on-set beef immediately springs to mind.)
Whatever the precise reason, it’s increasingly evident that sometimes starring in possibly the biggest film of your career can end up being something of a poisoned chalice– a poisoned chalice that said actor is forced to drink from again and again and again. Each of these stars wishes they could have done things differently.
Here are the 15 Actors Who Regretted Being In Star Wars Movies.
15. Ahmed Best
It’s not a massive shock to learn Ahmed Best regretted his part in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, because most fans did too. Jar Jar Binks unquestionably ranks as the most unpopular character in the entire Star Wars franchise.
That really isn’t Best’s fault, of course. The blame instead falls on George Lucas, who seemingly created the character in an attempt to appeal to children and inject some comic relief into the movie’s dry Senate-led proceedings.
However, it still hurt Best, as he explained in an emotional profile interview with Wired.
“I was staring at the end of my career before it started… There were a lot of tears, there was a lot of pain, there was a lot of s**t I had to deal with,” he said. “I didn’t get another chance after Jar Jar.”
14. Daisy Ridley
While it would be churlish to suggest that Daisy Ridley regrets taking on the role of Rey, the role that turned her into a star, she willingly admits to having some regrets about her performance in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Ridley revealed as much, albeit in the vaguest of terms, to Elle while promoting The Last Jedi. “I didn’t think I was good in the first film, and I was struggling with that,” she said.
It may simply have come down to the fact the relatively unknown actress was starring in the biggest franchise of all time.
Ridley later admitted as much to the Press Association [ via NME]: “JJ [Abrams]… he probably doesn’t remember telling me that my performance was wooden. This was my first day! And I honestly wanted to die. I thought I was gonna cry, I couldn’t breathe.”
13. Mark Hamill
Mr. Luke Skywalker himself left it pretty late in the day to voice some remorse about his role in the Star Wars saga. The bone of contention wasn’t related to his role in the original trilogy, though, but rather his work under Rian Johnson in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
Mark Hamill had evidently clashed with the director and let his feelings be known across a series of interviews. “I’ve had trouble accepting what [Rian Johnson] saw for Luke but again, I mean, I have to say, having seen the movie I was wrong,” he admitted to IMDb.
He also told SensaCine [via Variety], “I almost had to think of Luke as another character. Maybe he’s Jake Skywalker — he’s not my Luke Skywalker.” He later apologised on Twitter for voicing his concerns in public.
12. Anthony Daniels
The man underneath C-3PO’s metallic suit endured a famously fractious relationship with original trilogy co-star and R2-D2 actor Kenny Baker – but this regret relates to his work on the prequels.
With George Lucas deciding the scenes involving C-3PO were simply too dangerous to be acted, it was determined that Daniels would only voice his iconic character, with CGI effects deployed to bring him to life.
It’s fair to say that Daniels wasn’t impressed with the results. “It wasn’t very good. In fact, I’m going to say it was awful,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “One of the difficulties is with a character that you know and love so well is that, as a member of the audience, you go, ‘Oh no, that’s not right. No, he doesn’t move like that.'”
11. Carrie Fisher
It may have gone on to be a favourite scene among adolescent fan boys, but the scene that saw Princess Leia stripped down to a gold bikini wasn’t fondly remembered by Carrie Fisher.
In 2016, she recounted the incident to NPR: “When [director George Lucas] showed me the outfit, I thought he was kidding and it made me very nervous. I had to sit very straight because I couldn’t have lines on my sides, like little creases. No creases were allowed, so I had to sit very, very rigid straight.”
Fisher did manage to see the funny side, though. “What redeems it is I get to [end] him … I really relished that because I hated wearing that outfit and sitting there rigid straight, and I couldn’t wait to [end] him.”
10. Kenny Baker
The late Kenny Baker endured a difficult relationship with Anthony Daniels throughout his time in the Star Wars franchise, helped in no small part by the fact the pair’s robot costumes made interacting between takes difficult.
Baker revealed just how much their relationship had deteriorated during an interview with Metro in 2009.
“I thought it was just me he didn’t get on with but recently I’ve found out he doesn’t get on with anyone,” Baker said. “If he just calmed down and socialized with everyone, we could make a fortune touring around making personal appearances. I’ve asked him four times now but, the last time, he looked down his nose at me like I was a piece of s**t.”
It gets worse: Baker also claimed Daniels insultingly addressed him as “little man.”
9. Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman has more reason than most to be regretful about her role in Star Wars – she was a key player in the prequel trilogy after all and wasn’t given a whole lot to do as Padmé Amidala.
There are no lightsaber battles and she doesn’t even get a proper ending, with fans still debating as to what exactly took Padmé’s life in the end.
Thankfully, the movie didn’t ruin her career, though Portman was left in a pretty dark place by the experience.
“Star Wars had come out… and everyone thought I was a horrible actress,” she told New York Magazine. “I was in the biggest-grossing movie of the decade, and no director wanted to work with me.”
She got things back on track with V For Vendetta a year after her Star Wars tenure ended but it was shaky for a while.
8. Hayden Christensen
Though Ahmed Best and Natalie Portman both expressed regret over their involvement in the Star Wars prequel trilogy because of the effect it had on their career, Hayden Christensen found a very annoying, almost Anakin Skywalker-esque, reason to be unhappy.
As it turns out, the meteoric rise to fame that Christensen enjoyed off the back of Star Wars left him with a bad case of imposter syndrome.
“I felt like I had this great thing in Star Wars that provided all these opportunities and gave me a career, but it all kind of felt a little too handed to me,” he explained to the L.A. Times. “I didn’t want to go through life feeling like I was just riding a wave.”
As a result, Christensen opted to take a break from acting in the years since.
7. Peter Serafinowicz
Peter Serafinowicz never appeared in the Star Wars prequels but had important role in proceedings, providing the voice of Darth Maul. It was the role of a lifetime for the self-confessed Star Wars fan… until it came time to watch the movie at the premiere.
Told on Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast, Serafinowicz recalled how he began to have a bad feeling when Jar Jar Binks and the movie’s various CG aliens turned up.
“It reminds me of, if you’re watching Channel 4 during the day and there’s an old black-and-white film on, and someone’s in blackface, and they just bought this film for eight pounds to show and nobody’s checked it. It was like, the most racist film of the twentieth century!” He also described it as “one of the worst-paying jobs” that he ever did.
6. Ewan McGregor
He was the Chosen One. The actor was supposed to destroy the naysayers, not join them. Unfortunately, this was not the case for actor Ewan McGregor.
Much like everyone involved in the prequels– bar George Lucas– McGregor was left with regrets over his role in The Phantom Menace.
He dressed them up as much as he could during a chat with Details magazine [via The Independent], though: “I watched it once, at the premiere, so I’m not in a good position to judge. They had a tall order, the three films I did.”
He continued: “The fans waited so long and wanted to feel like they did when they watched the first film, but they were grown-ups by that time. I don’t mind the criticism. I’ve heard it to my face.”
The fact he has only watched the movie once says it all.
5. Terence Stamp
The veteran British actor hated working on The Phantom Menace, or more specifically with George Lucas, who he slammed during an interview with Empire.
“I didn’t rate him that much as a director, really,” Terence Stamp told the magazine [via CBM]. “I didn’t feel like he was a director of actors; he was more interested in stuff and effects. He didn’t interest me and I wouldn’t think I interested him.”
Things got worse when Stamp arrived in Australia to film what he thought would be a scene with Natalie Portman – someone he was looking forward to working with.
“On the day I’m supposed to do my scene with her, for which I’d travelled halfway around the world, I said, ‘Where’s Natalie?’ And George says, ‘That’s Natalie,’ and points to a bit of paper on the wall. It was just boring," Stamp stated.
4. Jake Lloyd
Poor Jake Lloyd. If any of the actors on this list deserve some sympathy, it’s Lloyd who was plucked from obscurity as an eight-year-old to star in a movie that pretty much everyone thought would be awesome.
The Phantom Menace’s failure was in no way down to Lloyd, either.
Unfortunately, the entire experience ended up having a negative effect on his life.
“My entire school life was really a living hell,” Lloyd told The Telegraph a few years back.
Not only was the budding actor subjected to “up to 60 interviews a day,” but he was also taunted by “really mean” school bullies who made “the sound of the lightsaber every time they saw me.”
He ended up retiring from acting at the age of 12 and destroyed all of his valuable Star Wars memorabilia. Poor guy.
3. Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford has had a pretty complicated relationship with the character of Han Solo over the years. Though he undoubtedly put his heart and soul into both A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, the passing of time and development of his career saw his perspective on the franchise change.
During an interview on Letterman to promote Return of the Jedi, Ford reflected “Three is enough for me. I was glad to see that costume for the last time.”
It may have been down to the constant questions and fan attention, though Ford doubled down on his view during a chat with ABC in 2010, saying, “As a character, he was not so interesting to me.”
Though he did return for The Force Awakens, it’s no coincidence that his character was cut out of the series.
2. David Prowse
The man behind Darth Vader’s mask has endured a difficult relationship with Star Wars creator George Lucas, who all but disowned David Prowse after accusing him of leaking The Empire Strikes Back’s big twist to the press.
Though never officially confirmed, it’s believed that Lucas ended up hiring actor Sebastian Shaw to play the de-masked version of Vader that features at the end of Return of The Jedi as a result.
“My wife won’t have anything to do with Darth Vader and says Star Wars has been an intrusion into our life,” Prowse said.
He told The Sun: “People ask what went wrong with George Lucas but to be honest, I still don’t really know… Those behind the film cut me out and have continued to ignore me for years. So do I have any interest in watching the new movie? No, I don’t.”
1. Alec Guinness
Though it might be difficult for some Star Wars fans to take, the fact of the matter is Obi-Wan Kenobi, himself, really wasn’t a fan of the franchise.
Obi-Wan Kenobi is one of the most revered characters in the popular Star Wars franchise, the actor who first brought him to life didn’t think too much of the role.
A letter posted on Reddit [via GeekTryant] that was written by Alec Guinness to a friend during filming on the very first instalment in the sci-fi saga shed light on his experience and disdain for the movie.
“Can’t say I’m enjoying the film — new rubbish dialogue reaches me every other day on wages of pink paper — and none of it makes my character clear or even bearable. I just think, thankfully, of the lovely bread,” Guinness wrote. We suspect the bread may have been money.
Can you think of any other Star Wars actors who regretted their roles? Sound off in the comments!
