Entertainment
7 People Who Hated the Actors Who Portrayed Them in Biopics
No movie is going to please everybody. Even the most well-crafted dramas, the most crowd-pleasing comedies, or the most factually accurate accounts of great eras in human history are going to earn their share of detractors. And the one genre of film that is guaranteed to take on the most heat is the biography... more often than not, this heat comes from the very figures being depicted therein. Heck, sometimes the movies don't even have to be made to win the scorn of the people they're about. Take the developing Joni Mitchell biopic, for instance. The iconic singer-songwriter has been far from silent with his distaste for the project... especially when it comes to the potential casting of Taylor Swift as the music legend.
Mitchell is just one of many high-profile figures to take issue with the actors chosen to portray them onscreen. Sometimes it's a matter of physical dissimilarity. Other times, it's a skewering of character that can really get the embodied party riled up. And then there's your good old lackluster performance to really do the trick.
With these and other rationales behind their derision, plenty of folks have voiced their dissatisfaction with the thespians hired to play them on film. Here are a few instances when noteworthy figures really hated their biopic counterparts.
JONI MITCHELL
The musical heroine might get her cinematic due in Girls Like Us, an adaptation of Sheila Weller’s biographical book. But Mitchell isn’t too keen on the gossip-heavy angle of the film, nor on the proposed star…
TAYLOR SWIFT
Upon hearing that Taylor Swift was being looked at to play the Mitchell role, the folk rock legend told The Sunday Times , ”I squelched that! I said to the producer, ‘All you’ve got is a girl with high cheekbones’.
LIL' KIM
Hip hop artist Kimberly “Lil’ Kim” Jones has played herself onscreen a number of times, such as in Zoolander, You Got Served, and whatever Nora’s Hair Salon is. And maybe Hollywood should stick to casting Jones as herself, as she didn’t take too kindly to the last actress who played her in a film.
NATURI NAUGHTON IN 'NOTORIOUS'
Lil’ Kim told Hip Hop Weekly that she had caught a peak at Naughton’s audition tape for Notorious, and dubbed her the worst possible candidate for the role.
DAVID LETTERMAN
David Letterman is hardly the easiest person to please in general, so we can’t put all the blame on the actor who provoked the Late Show host’s scorn with his performance on a TV movie.
JOHN MICHAEL HIGGINS IN 'THE LATE SHIFT'
Of character actor John Michael Higgins’ work in The Late Shift, Letterman remarked to Entertainment Weekly in 1995, ”I’ve seen a clip reel, and it’s just bizarre. The guy who’s playing me — and I’m sure he’s a fine actor — but his interpretation seems to be that I’m, well, a circus chimp. He looks like he’s insane, like he’s a budding psychopath. And afterward I thought, Well, maybe this is how I strike people as being.” Fourteen years later, Higgins told EW that he still felt hurt by the comments.
Image: HBO
MARK ZUCKERBERG
Mark Zuckerberg’s opinion of David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Network has been rather well-known since the film came out in 2010. Recent interviews with Zuckerberg and Sorkin resurfaced the matter, prompting the writer to apologize for hurting the Facebook founder’s feelings.
JESSE EISENBERG IN 'THE SOCIAL NETWORK'
When it comes to Jesse Eisenberg’s portrayal, Zuckerberg has been a relatively good sport. The entrepreneur even appeared beside Eisenberg on his SNL debut to lampoon the awkward rapport between the two figures.
Image: Sony
ART HOWE
Almost anyone would have reveled at the opportunity to be portrayed by the great Philip Seymour Hoffman. But after catching sight of Hoffman’s depiction of him in Moneyball, Howe had some less than favorable things to say…
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN IN 'MONEYBALL'
Around the time of Moneyball’s release, Howe told The Houston Chronicle , “Philip Seymour Hoffman physically didn’t resemble me in any way. He was a little on the heavy side. And just the way he portrayed me was very disappointing and probably 180 degrees from what I really am, so that was disappointing too.”
Image: Columbia Pictures
JULIAN ASSANGE
Considering the fact that Julian Assange makes objective truth his life’s work, it’s no real surprise that he took issue with a biopic movie that he considered to be a dramatization of the issues at hand. As for the star at the center of the project…
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH IN 'THE FIFTH ESTATE'
Assange actually begged Benedict Cumberbatch, who headlined The Fifth Estate, to leave what he deemed an evil, corrupt movie. When Cumberbatch rejected this request, Assange refused to communicate with him further for the role (though never seemed to wish Cumberbatch any personal ill will).
Image: Disney
HUNTER S. THOMPSON
Journalist, novelist, and drug aficionado Hunter S. Thompson is, himself, a freakin’ character. Yet he hasn’t always had positive things to say of the way he’s been portrayed in the realm of fiction.
Image: Ian Munroe/Flickr
BILL MURRAY IN 'WHERE THE BUFFALO ROAM'
Thompson famously hated the first attempt to transplant his life to film, the oddball comedy Where the Buffalo Roam. Despite calling the movie the product of a “low-rent script,” he is one of the rare individuals to praise the actor who embodied his character. When Bill Murray is playing you it’s kind of hard to find fault.
Image: Universal Pictures
AND JOHNNY DEPP IN 'FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS'
And while Thompson also found his good friend Johnny Depp’s depiction of him in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to be an entertaining watch, he reportedly stated, ”if he ever saw anyone acting the way Depp does in the film, he would probably hit them with a chair.”
Image: Universal Pictures
