#1. Michelle Rodriguez in The Fast and the Furious
During production on the first Fast and Furious movie, series regular and all-around badass Michelle Rodriguez actually considered walking away over concerns with the way her character, Letty Ortiz, was written. Specifically, Rodriguez took issue with the way the script had Letty betray her true love Dom and fall for undercover cop Briana betrayal she felt made no sense for a woman who'd clearly prefer an alpha male to a pretty boy. Refusing to betray her vision of Letty, Rodriguez put her foot down, telling producers she'd quit the movie if she had to. Fortunately for Fast and Furious fans, the storyline was tweaked to Rodriguez's liking, and the rest is blockbuster history.
#2. Jim Carrey in How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Jim Carrey nabbed the role of the Grinch after making it through an audition process that included earning the approval of Dr. Seuss' widow, but those obstacles were minor compared with what he faced on the set. He had a particularly hard time in the makeup chair, where he spent hours a day during the lengthy shootand had to be fitted with uncomfortable contact lenses that proved so painful that the studio brought in a military torture adviser to help Carrey cope. Those techniques got him through filming without quitting, but just barely; in fact, some shots of the Grinch's eyes had to be digitally fixed in post-production because Carrey couldn't bear to wear the contacts.
#3. Ian McKellen in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
It's almost impossible to imagine the role of Gandalf being played by anyone other than Sir Ian McKellen, who put his indelible stamp on the character in all six Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films. But if things had worked out a little differently during the filming of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, director Peter Jackson might have had to find a different actor for the part.The problem? McKellen was acting almost exclusively to a green screen, owing to the fact that his character towered over the hobbits and their interactions had to be stitched together digitally in production. The frustration of acting alone eventually got to McKellen, who broke down on the set at one point, but Jackson did a little emergency outreach to convince him to stick around.
#4. Lauren Cohan in the Walking Dead
The Walking Dead nearly suffered what would have been a devastating loss in Season 3, when Lauren Cohan, who plays Maggie, contemplated quitting over a particularly stressful scene. After reading the script and realizing Maggie was supposed to perform an emergency c-section on another character, she took her concerns to co-star Steven Yeun, explaining she was worried it would be too intenseyet after further consideration, that's exactly why she decided to stay. Recognizing that TWD is a show about people pushed to grueling extremes, she drew on her discomfort to deliver an affectingly honest performance.
#5. Jessica Alba in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
You think you hated Fox's first couple of Fantastic Four movies? Try being Jessica Alba, whose experiences playing Sue "Invisible Woman" Storm nearly made her walk away from acting altogether. Alba's frustrations stemmed from working with director Tim Story, who she later claimed issued absurd demands like telling her to keep her facial expression flat during a crying scene so she'd stay "pretty." After 2007's Rise of the Silver Surfer, she realized she didn't care about the movie business anymore, but things have still worked out pretty well for hershe went on to co-found the Honest Company, currently valued around $2 billion.
#6. Brad Pitt in Interview with the Vampire
Interview with the Vampire united Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in a visually sumptuous adaptation of the bestselling Anne Rice novel, but being part of 1994's most eagerly anticipated beefcake summit wasn't all it was cracked up to be for Pitt. Years after the movie came and went, Pitt admitted he was so miserable during filming that he actually approached producer David Geffen about buying out his contractonly to reconsider after Geffen informed him it'd cost $40 million.
#7. Emma Watson in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
For a lot of actors, scoring a regular role in a successful franchise can mean the difference between financial security and decades of struggleand although Emma Watson definitely appreciated the career opportunities afforded by her part in the Harry Potter films, she gave some serious thought to quitting. Watson reached her crossroads during contract renegotiations for the fifth chapter, 2006's Order of the Phoenix, after years of enduring strict studio oversight over schedule and appearance, and although she eventually re-signed, she admitted feeling a major sense of relief after the series ended.
#8. Russell Crowe in Robin Hood
Nine times out of 10, an actor who signs up to play a major role in a movie can at least be on counted on to identify with the basic crux of the story. For the exception to that rule, we turn to Russell Crowe, who agreed to star in Nottingham even though he thought the concepta role-reversal on the Robin Hood story, with the Sheriff of Nottingham turning out to be the real good guywas fundamentally flawed. Demanding a complete overhaul of the script, Crowe ended up costing the studio millions in extra development, and the result was the retitled Robin Hood, one of 2010's most critically lambasted major movies.
#9. Al Pacino in The Godfather
Al Pacino earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his work as Michael Corleone in The Godfather and a Best Actor nomination for the sequel, so it's laughable to think studio execs initially wanted him removed from the roleyet according to Pacino, that's exactly what happened. He felt resistance so acutely, in fact, that he later claimed he would have walked off the set if director Francis Ford Coppola hadn't been so supportive during those early days on the Godfather shoot.
