In recent years, audiences have grown far more vocal about representation problems that have long existed in Hollywood. Casting directors continue to hand roles meant for people of color to white performers, while gay characters are routinely given to straight actors and transgender roles almost always end up going to cisgender performers. This awareness has been simmering for a long time, but the discussion has exploded in recent years. More and more performers are looking back at their past work and coming to terms with the fact that their decisions denied opportunities to marginalized communities while also robbing those same communities of meaningful representation on screen.
These conversations are not going away, and the number of actors stepping forward with public apologies keeps growing. A handful have even expressed regret simply because the projects they signed onto turned out to be genuinely bad films. Below is a roundup of performers who found themselves apologizing for the roles they took.
Hank Azaria
For more than two decades, Hank Azaria provided the voice for Apu, the Indian convenience store owner on The Simpsons. Questions about the appropriateness of that casting had circulated for years within the South Asian community. When a wider cultural reckoning swept through the entertainment world in 2020, Azaria announced he was walking away from the character. The following year, in April 2021, he went a step further and publicly apologized to the Indian community, taking personal responsibility for the role he played in reinforcing damaging stereotypes.
Sarah Paulson
When Sarah Paulson appeared as Linda Tripp in the FX drama Impeachment: American Crime Story, she did so wearing nearly five pounds of body padding and after putting on an additional 30 pounds. The decision to use a slender actress in a fat suit rather than casting a plus-size performer sparked considerable criticism, with many pointing to it as yet another instance of Hollywood sidelining larger actors.
Paulson addressed the controversy in a conversation with the Los Angeles Times, acknowledging that debates around fat suits are entirely valid and that fatphobia causes real harm. At the same time, she pushed back against the idea that an actor’s physical appearance is the whole of what they bring to a role. Even so, she was candid about her regret, saying she wished she had reflected more carefully before accepting the part. Recognizing that she was speaking from a position of privilege, having already completed the role, she was clear that she would approach the decision differently today.
Anne Hathaway
Anne Hathaway took on the role of the Grand High Witch in the 2020 reimagining of The Witches. The production gave the witch characters a distinctive three-fingered appearance as part of their look. While the intent was to make the characters feel fantastical and unsettling, the design drew an immediate and painful comparison to the hands of people living with limb differences. After hearing directly from individuals in that community, including children who were deeply upset by what they saw, Hathaway issued a sincere apology for the unintended harm the design caused.
Mahershala Ali
Green Book arrived in 2018 and walked away from the Oscars with Best Picture, while Mahershala Ali earned Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of classical pianist Dr. Don Shirley. The accolades, however, did not tell the whole story. Members of Dr. Shirley’s family were deeply troubled by how the film depicted him, arguing that it painted an inaccurate picture of a man they knew to be deeply connected to his family and his community. They also took issue with what they described as a white savior framing in the relationship between Shirley and his driver. Ali reached out to the family personally, apologizing for the misrepresentation and for the fact that their input was never sought during the making of the film.
Scarlett Johansson
A 2018 casting announcement revealed that Scarlett Johansson would play a role inspired by a real transgender man in a film called Rub and Tug. The backlash from the LGBTQ community and its allies was swift and fierce. Johansson initially defended herself by pointing to other high-profile actors who had played transgender characters, but critics were quick to note that those examples were themselves part of the problem rather than a justification. She ultimately withdrew from the project, and months afterward she acknowledged that she had handled the entire episode poorly.
Woody Allen
A number of performers who had appeared in Woody Allen films felt compelled to speak out after renewed attention fell on abuse accusations made by his former partner Mia Farrow. Farrow had first alleged that Allen abused their adopted daughter Dylan Farrow back in 1992 and returned to those allegations publicly in 2014 and again in 2017.
Greta Gerwig
Greta Gerwig appeared in Allen’s 2012 comedy To Rome with Love. When the allegations resurfaced in 2018, she stated plainly that she would never collaborate with him again and expressed genuine sorrow over having been part of work that caused pain to another woman.
Rebecca Hall
Rebecca Hall had worked with Allen on Vicky Cristina Barcelona back in 2008 and was in the middle of production on A Rainy Day in New York in 2017 when Farrow went public again. Once shooting wrapped, Hall issued a public apology and chose to donate everything she earned from the film to the Time’s Up legal defense fund.
Halle Berry
Halle Berry found herself at the center of a controversy when word got out that she was open to playing a transgender man in an upcoming project. Members of the transgender community responded quickly, explaining why it mattered for trans stories to be told by trans performers. Berry listened, withdrew her interest in the role, and apologized, affirming that the transgender community deserves the chance to represent its own experiences.
Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Paltrow was reflecting on her filmography in a 2020 interview when she singled out Shallow Hal, the 2001 comedy in which she wore a fat suit, as the performance she regrets most. The film has faced sustained criticism over the years for its treatment of body size and weight. Paltrow has since said the project was a poor decision and that she simply would not agree to it if she were approached today.
Zoe Saldana
Zoe Saldana, who has Dominican, Puerto Rican, and Lebanese roots, was chosen to portray legendary African-American musician Nina Simone in the 2016 biographical film Nina. To inhabit the role, she wore prosthetics and had her skin darkened with makeup. The response from critics and from Simone’s admirers was overwhelmingly negative. Saldana later spoke out about her regret, saying she should have fought harder to make sure the role was given to a Black actress better suited to carry Simone’s legacy.
Alison Brie
Alison Brie spent years lending her voice to Diane Nguyen, a Vietnamese-American character on the beloved Netflix animated series BoJack Horseman. After the broader conversation around representation in voice acting gained momentum, Brie took to Instagram to express her regret, acknowledging that the role should have gone to a Vietnamese-American performer and that her casting was a missed opportunity for authentic representation.
Rooney Mara
The 2015 big-budget fantasy film Pan cast Rooney Mara as Tiger Lily, a character with Native American origins. The decision to cast a white actress in the role was met with criticism from Indigenous communities and advocates for more equitable casting. Mara later apologized and, in a conversation with The Telegraph, expressed how much she hated being on the wrong side of the whitewashing debate.
Kristen Bell
Kristen Bell voiced Molly, a biracial character, in the animated musical series Central Park. When the conversation around voice actors playing characters of different racial backgrounds intensified across the industry, Bell announced she was leaving the role. She paired her departure with an apology, saying she had not given enough thought to why it was important for the character’s voice to come from someone who shared her background.
Jenny Slate
Jenny Slate originated the role of Missy, a biracial Black and Jewish teenager, on the hit Netflix animated series Big Mouth. She had long rationalized her involvement by focusing on the Jewish side of Missy’s identity, which mirrored her own background, but eventually acknowledged that she had been wrong to overlook the character’s Black identity. In 2020 she stepped away from the role and offered a public apology, saying it was time for a Black actress to take over.
Tim Roth
Tim Roth starred in United Passions, a 2015 drama that told the story of FIFA, the governing body of international soccer. The film was almost entirely financed by FIFA itself and presented the organization and its leadership in a deeply flattering light. The timing could not have been worse. Just as the film was preparing for release, authorities arrested 14 FIFA officials on federal corruption charges. Roth, who played disgraced ex-president Sepp Blatter as an honorable visionary, later said he deeply regretted not asking harder questions about who was behind the film and what their motives were.
George Clooney
George Clooney stepped into the Batsuit for the 1997 superhero film Batman and Robin, a production that went on to become one of the most ridiculed entries in comic book movie history. The film was savaged by critics and audiences alike, and Clooney has spent years openly expressing his embarrassment over it. He has told the story of personally apologizing to the late Adam West for his role in nearly derailing the Batman franchise, having crossed paths with him backstage at a Comic Con event.
Paul Newman
Before Paul Newman became one of the defining stars of American cinema, he appeared in his first feature, a 1954 period piece called The Silver Chalice. Critics tore the film apart, and Newman himself was not shy about agreeing with them, calling it the most embarrassing film to come out of the 1950s. Years later, when he found out the film was scheduled to be broadcast on television, he spent $1,200 taking out notices in major newspapers to apologize to anyone who might stumble across it. The campaign backfired spectacularly, drawing a much larger audience to the broadcast than the film ever could have attracted on its own.
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