It’s necessary to divorce fiction from reality when it comes to actors since once the cameras are off, they might still be horrible people, but that’s none of our business at that point. Most folks that play truly horrid people on screen are in real life quite nice and don’t deserve even a fraction of the vitriol that they receive from fans of the shows and movies they starred in. For one reason or another though, fans tend to think that they’re entitled to simply hurl abuse at these folks since they didn’t like their character and think that they need to hear it. Some individuals are even blamed for the deaths of fictional characters as though they committed actual murder on their show or in their movie. Yes, there are those types of crazies out there that think that what happens on TV is THAT important. Strange enough, the same folks can watch the news and not feel a thing.
Here are actors that got in trouble for the roles they played.
5. Carice van Houten – Game of Thrones
When you burn a little girl on a beloved show that millions of people watch, it’s bound to happen that someone is going to look at you a bit crossly. The fact is that Melisandre was a hard character to like since she tended to give absolutes when it was time for action and didn’t really move from her own convictions when it came time to perform some of the worst acts. From giving birth to a shadow to burning a kid to bringing Jon Snow back from the dead, she was a very confusing character that didn’t make a lot of friends but had people in the show that were in awe of what she could do.
4. Jeffrey Dean Morgan – The Walking Dead
You can just imagine what people thought of Morgan when he walking down the street, at least if they’d been watching The Walking Dead. Glenn Rhee’s death was already told in advance in the comics, but people were still holding their breath when it finally happened. Considering the fakeouts that happened when it came to Glenn over the course of the show, one might have thought that this was a chance to say ‘finally’, but then one might have been slapped had they said such a thing. I wish that was a joke, but some people are absolutely serious about their shows, and Morgan received a good deal of hate.
3. Michael Caine – Alfie
The fact that a guy is a ladies’ man on screen doesn’t mean he’s going to act the same way when the cameras stop rolling, as the point is being made throughout this article. Michael Caine actually took a bit of heat for his character since he was a womanizer that had to learn how to see the errors of his ways, but once again people took it way too far. One has to wonder just what’s going on in the minds of those that are so ready to vilify actors for the characters they play, and why they can’t appear to stop and reason with themselves that this is an actor, someone playing a role, and not a truly despicable being.
2. Anna Gunn – Breaking Bad
This one is a little surprising since Skyler was pretty annoying, but the fact is that Walt was taking his family down a dark path and Skyler was scared and ready to simply bolt if she’d had the chance. But obviously, Walt wasn’t going to let that happen, and their son was willing to defend his dad for a while. Perhaps it’s because Skyler’s reaction to the danger was to cheat on her husband, turn into a nag, and generally just devolve into someone that kind of detracted from the show instead of adding to it. But no matter what it was, Anna didn’t deserve the same treatment that other actors tend to get for playing hated characters.
1. Kelly Marie Tran – Star Wars: The Last Jedi
This level of hatred was profound since as a character, Rose Tico wasn’t that big of a deal. Why she was given so much time is hard to say other than female empowerment appeared to be a big part of The Last Jedi, but it kind of flopped in a big way. Parts of the movie were okay and it wasn’t the worst thing to ever be made, but Rose, actually Kelly, was treated so horribly that she had to shut down her social media accounts. Does anyone remember the days when we could just openly state our dislike for a character without having to take it out on the actor? Seriously, there was a day when such a thing happened.
It’s one thing if the actor is, in real life, a jerk and waste of space, but quite often the most hated characters are played by actors that are actually decent people. Get a grip, folks.
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