There is a thread about movie actors on the movie board, now there is one for TV actors here. Sitcoms and dramas only, no reality shows.

Howard Hesseman left Head of the Class, he did not appreciate how good he was there.

Marc Paul Gosselar said he can’t watch any of his shows because he’s too critical of himself he has said.

Don't know his opinion on the show in general but Max Bear was at one time very critical of how Jethro never really evolved.

Sarah Michelle Gellar was very vocal about the sixth season of Buffy. She hated how her character was depressed and was against a lot of the things Buffy did that year with another character. Nothing was ever confirmed, but it is speculated that that is why she quit the show the following year to avoid doing more work like that on Buffy. She felt her character should be a strong role model for the younger viewers like it was in the early years.

Alfre Woodard hated her role on Desperate Housewives along with the actor who played her son on the show, Mehcad Brooks. They both criticized the show after their one season stunt. They were written badly that year and shoved into the background hardly ever used. A lot of their scenes were cut. It was ridiculous. It was because of them that the writers learned their mistakes and did better in future seasons when having a one season character mystery.

I don't think Nancy McKeon ever said anything official, but she seemed to resent The Facts of Life by avoiding it during every mention in the 90's and 2000's. She even wanted her character killed off in the reunion movie in 2001. She thought it would be great for the girls to get together for her funeral. Molly Ringwald is another actress who hates The Facts of Life. This little show helped them get a start in Hollywood. They're both very selfish IMO.

Rue McClanahan said in an interview she hated working on Mama's Family. Her character was originally going to be like Naomi's but because they had already created Naomi, they rewrote Rue's character to be weak and have her get pushed around by Mama. Rue said she was happy when the show was canceled. I side with Rue on this. Fran was a bland character. It's a shame they didn't let her be feisty and a thorn in Mama's side like she was originally going to be.

Robert Reed frequently clashed w/ Sherwood Schwartz over his material on "The Brady Bunch". I believe he found some of the plots to be "ridiculous" and he refused to appear in the episode that wound up being its series finale w/ Greg coloring his hair orange.

He stood around for all of the Brady spin-offs (Variety Show, Brady Brides, The Brady's) because he loved working with Florence Henderson and the "kids".

Mandy Patinkin has said in various interviews, after he left the series in 2007, that he "never should have done" "Criminal Minds".

“The biggest public mistake I ever made was that I chose to do 'Criminal Minds' in the first place. I thought it was something very different. I never thought they were going to kill and rape all these women every night, every day, week after week, year after year. It was very destructive to my soul and my personality. After that, I didn’t think I would get to work in television again.”

Angus T. Jones said that he was a “paid hypocrite” on CBS comedy "Two and a Half Men".

He “wasn’t OK” with being “part of something that was making light of topics in our world where there are really problems for a lot of people.”

But yet he was there until the eight and was happy to cash those checks sort of reminds me of Katy Segal and her alleged disdain for Married With Children.

But yet he was there until the eight and was happy to cash those checks sort of reminds me of Katy Segal and her alleged disdain for Married With Children.They are not the same situations. Katey Sagal was an adult who chose to star in Married with Children. Angus didn't have a choice since he was underage when Two and a Half Men started.

His parents must've thought since John Cryer was on the show that it would be family friendly or they were unfamiliar with the premises of the show.

TV Tropes has a page about this called "Old Shame" (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/OldShame/LiveActionTV). I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Tina Louise and Gilligan's Island yet.

And she was in the right here she went from a promising film career to b-movies and breif stint on Dallas and guest roles on sitcoms later in her career.

I read once online that Larry Hagman didn’t like doing I Dream of Jeannie. Supposedly he drank a lot (also smoked pot, can’t picture the Major or JR doing true same).

Ron Pallilo who played Horseshack on Welcome Back Kotter has been critical of the show because he felt (with justification) that the character badly typecast him which prevented him to get work after the show was over. I don’t think Gave Kaolin liked acting that much, quit his high rated show and just dropped out of show business to be a “professional” poker player.

Marc Paul Gosselar said he can’t watch any of his shows because he’s too critical of himself he has said.

That makes two of us! :lol:


The ones that I'm aware of are Tina Louise and Robert Reed, as mentioned above, as well as both Susan Dey and David Cassidy of "The Partridge Family". Both hated their work on the show and refused to participate in any future projects, like reunion specials or potential reboots. Which is too bad because the show was one of the biggest hits among kids and teens of the early 70s like myself as well as "The Brady Bunch" but through the years it has never achieved the same level of cult-like status or nostalgic fondness among viewers today that the Bradys have. Susan and David's attitude towards their roles along with Danny Bonaduce's constant troubles with the law may have had a lot to do with that. It still doesn't seem fair to me.

Another actor that I know that wasn't happy with his early TV work was Gavin MacLeod. He has always been proud, and rightfully so, of being part of the cast of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "The Love Boat" but he didn't like being on "McHale's Navy" because he had very little to do so he left after one season to take on various roles until his big break came many years later.

You can also add Warren Beatty and Tuesday Weld to this group. Both appeared in the first season of "The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis" as Milton Armitage and Thalia Menninger but soon left the show to achieve Hollywood stardom. They weren't happy with the show and its characters and didn't get along with the rest of the cast. They were perceived as rude and difficult to work with, a reputation that followed them throughout their movie careers.

"Sherlock's" Martin Freeman (Watson) told The Telegraph that the show “wasn't fun anymore” for him.

He said that by the fourth season, making "Sherlock" has become “kind of impossible” as fan expectations for the show got unrealistically high.

It never got to a 5th season.

I’ve heard Priscilla Barnes didn’t like doing Three’s Company.

And although it’s a movie and not a tv show, I’ve also heard Christopher Plummer didn’t like doing the Sound of Music.

I have to agree with Robert Reed. The show could have been so much better and a bit more realistic. Parents raising teenage kids in the early 1970’s. Drugs, sex, rock music, politics. It didn’t have to be a Norman Lear show (which did drive the Brady Bunch off the air), but it could have been more substantial than what it was. Maybe if it was, it could have lasted longer.

Aaron Sorkin told Vanity Fair that he couldn't get "The Newsroom" quite right.

"I was never able to get it quite right. I always felt like I had a pebble in my shoe. I felt like I could write a good scene. I could put a couple of good scenes together."

Sorkin compared the situation to a football team that can put together two good quarters of play, but not a full game's worth.





Jeffrey Dean Morgan said that he did not like how "The Good Wife" ended.

"I didn’t like it. But it’s not my show, you know what I mean? If Julianna was happy, then I was happy. My feeling was we raised so many questions about Jason and this relationship that he had with Alicia that I felt like nothing was ever answered, you know? So I walked away frustrated for my character and Alicia’s character in not having any kind of closure with that."

Sarah Michelle Gellar said she disliked the 6th season of Buffy, and how it got too dark. Charisma Carpenter has similarly stated that the fourth season of Angel destroyed her character, and it's hard to disagree with that: she went from leading lady of the series to Demoted to Extra (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DemotedToExtra). Her character was in a coma for nearly an entire year.

I’ve heard Priscilla Barnes didn’t like doing Three’s Company.
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In Priscilla Barnes' case, it wasn't about her not liking the show or looking down on it. She stated that her trouble with the show was about how The Powers That Be treated her (Joyce DeWitt had similar issues with the show.). In an episode of the "E! True Hollywood Story" about Three's Company, Priscilla Barnes said that her time on "Three's" was among the unhappiest years of her life, and went into some detail about what she endured from the producers.

Pete duel hated alias smith and Jones.

Connie Hines didn't exactly hate being on 'Mr. Ed' but she just considered the role of Wilbur's neglected wife Carol as being a steady paycheck and nothing more.

P.S. The irony is that the Alan Young would later say in his autobio that having his character ignore the gorgeous Carol while spending all his free time with the palomino was one of the most unbelievable parts of the role.

Rooney Mara did a guest spot on "Law & Order: SVU" in 2006 before she was famous. In 2011, while out promoting The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, she bashed the role during an interview with Allure.

"It was so awful. So stupid. Me and my boyfriend—although I don't look old enough to have a boyfriend—went and beat up these fat people, and at the end of the show you find out that I used to be obese and I hate fat people.

It's ridiculous. Who would beat someone up because they're fat? People are obsessed with that show. I don't get it."





She told The Huffington Post a few days after the story blew up that her "SVU" comments were taken out of context.

"First of all, the 'SVU' thing -- that's just not true. That was my first job. It couldn't have been more exciting for me. It's an experience I hold very dear to my heart. People take things out of context, and that's just not the case.

I didn't love the experience, but I would never take it back because I feel like I learned something from it and it brought me to my next job. It's hard to have to talk about yourself all the time and things are out of context, and whatever that quote was, I don't know, but it's certainly not what I meant.

If anything, I didn't mean that the storyline was ridiculous; I meant that humanity is ridiculous. I know that 'Law & Order' makes their episodes out of real things that are happening in the city, so to me, by 'ridiculous' I meant that humanity is ridiculous. People are awful to one another; and to me, I find it ridiculous."

"Santa Barbara's" A Martinez revealed during a Facebook Q&A in 2019 that he hated one particular plot from the soap.

“Pretty much the only thing I hated — in fact I was ashamed that I did it — is when Eden came back [from the “dead”] disguised as another person to try to lead Cruz into the next stage of his life. She wore glasses and a [red] wig and we were supposed to pretend that Cruz would not know who she is when he danced with her. I was ashamed that I played that. I’ll never get over it. That was one of the weakest things I ever did as an actor.”

Rob Lowe told GQ in 2015 that he left "Brothers & Sisters" because he felt that they ran out of things for him to do.

"I left Brothers & Sisters when they ran out of storytelling runway. I mean, there are so many family dinners you can do. I eventually had to go to them and say, 'Look, I don't do spatula work. I don't do scenes with oven mitts. If you're looking for that, you've got the wrong guy. I'm not doing scenes about casseroles. It's not happening.'"





Original "Grey's Anatomy" cast member Katherine Heigl caused a stir when she revealed during an interview that she withdrew herself from the 2008 Emmy nominations.

"I did not feel that I was given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination and, in an effort to maintain the integrity of the academy organization, I withdrew my name from contention."



Her comments were seen as an attack on "Grey's" creator Shonda Rhimes and the writers and she had the image of being a diva on the set.

Her character, Izzie, was written out a short time later in 2010 and Heigl has never been invited back to the show. Even Isaiah Washington, who was infamously fired from the show for calling co-star T.R. Knight a ****** on the set, came back briefly when Sandra Oh was leaving.

Roy Scheider hated the new direction of "SeaQuest DSV" going into Season 2.

He told the Orlando Sentinel that it was "childish trash."

Late actor Max Wright who played the dad Willie Tanner on Alf was pretty vocal with his disdain for the series and playing second banana to an alien puppet. His former co-stars have said how unhappy he was on set and that he left the studio on the final day of production without saying goodbye to the cast and crew. You can read his thoughts on Alf in this article:

https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/alf-star-left-without-saying-goodbye.html/

Rob Lowe told GQ in 2015 that he left "Brothers & Sisters" because he felt that they ran out of things for him to do.

"I left Brothers & Sisters when they ran out of storytelling runway. I mean, there are so many family dinners you can do. I eventually had to go to them and say, 'Look, I don't do spatula work. I don't do scenes with oven mitts. If you're looking for that, you've got the wrong guy. I'm not doing scenes about casseroles. It's not happening.'"





Original "Grey's Anatomy" cast member Katherine Heigl caused a stir when she revealed during an interview that she withdrew herself from the 2008 Emmy nominations.

"I did not feel that I was given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination and, in an effort to maintain the integrity of the academy organization, I withdrew my name from contention."



Her comments were seen as an attack on "Grey's" creator Shonda Rhimes and the writers and she had the image of being a diva on the set.

Her character, Izzie, was written out a short time later in 2010 and Heigl has never been invited back to the show. Even Isaiah Washington, who was infamously fired from the show for calling co-star T.R. Knight a ****** on the set, came back briefly when Sandra Oh was leaving. rob lowe seems to say they ran out of thing for me to do every time that he leaves a show he said the same thing when he left the west wing and parks and rec

David E. Kelley did not like his 2013-14 CBS sitcom "The Crazy Ones".

He told THR, "It was terrible. Robin Williams was great, but the show itself was not very good."

Rob Lowe seems to say they ran out of things for him to do every time that he leaves a show. He said the same thing when he left the west wing and parks and rec.

Makes you wonder if he will say the same thing after a season or two more of 9-1-1: Lone Star...

Pernell Roberts was very unhappy as his time on Bonanza went on. His desire for new "challenges" resulted in his being the only main cast member to move on.

In Priscilla Barnes' case, it wasn't about her not liking the show or looking down on it. She stated that her trouble with the show was about how The Powers That Be treated her (Joyce DeWitt had similar issues with the show.). In an episode of the "E! True Hollywood Story" about Three's Company, Priscilla Barnes said that her time on "Three's" was among the unhappiest years of her life, and went into some detail about what she endured from the producers.

Rose McGowan kind of reminds me of Priscilla Barnes. Like Priscilla replacing Suzanne Somers and by extension, Jenilee Harrison, Rose McGowan replaced Shannen Doherty on Charmed and stayed on for the remainder of the series.

But Rose would go on to say that whenever she learned that Charmed would be renewed, she would cry. I think that she was originally lead under the assumption that she would only stay for two years at the most. Rose later accused Alyssa Milano of helping make the work environment toxic.

"Orange is the New Black" creator Jenji Kohan revealed in a New Yorker interview that she wasn't that pleased with the show's 5th Season (the prison riot season).

She described some of the plots as "fan fiction" -- a product of losing some of the show's original writers as they moved up in the ranks and hiring on new blood. "We had lost a bunch of the original writers. It was just a new dynamic -- people were attached to the characters as viewers, not as creators."

While doing a new interview to promote the "Bones" rewatch Podcast, "Boneheads", actress Emily Deschanel addressed things about the show that she did not like.

While not going into specifics, she mentioned that she did not care for how the show dealt with terrorism.



"As I am re-watching 'Bones', I am seeing some difficult episodes that have some things that I don’t love in them. When episodes would deal with terrorism in a way that, looking back, I don’t love, and I’m not sure how I felt about at the time. It might have been uncomfortable.

I think as a whole, I don’t have a full perspective on it yet because we’ve just started re-watching them, but I would say, in general, I just have more of an affection for the show and I appreciate it even more now."

https://screenrant.com/bones-emily-deschanel-show-criticism/

Conleth Hill, who played the eunuch Lord Varys on all eight seasons of HBO’s "Game of Thrones" series, is opening up on why the final seasons of the series drew complaints.

The reason for the disgruntled fan reactions, Hill said in a Times UK interview, was that HBO and the series showrunners were not on the same page.

The disagreements between HBO and showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss in the final season, which went beyond the George R.R. Martin source material, led to confusing plot developments, Hill said.



“Right up until the last two series, I had no complaints at all,” Hill told The Times.

“I just felt frustrated with the last couple of [seasons] because Varys wasn’t the all-knowing character he had been. I think the writers wanted to do one thing to end it and the studio HBO wanted to do another. I felt that last [season] was a bit rushed. I was inconsolable, but now I’m fine about it.”

https://deadline.com/2023/08/game-of-thrones-star-conleth-hill-admits-the-last-couple-seasons-werent-my-favorite-interview-1235454731/

Jennette McCurdy mentioned on her new podcast that she does not want to be associated with Sam Puckett, her character from "iCarly" and "Sam & Cat".

"One of the things that's really important to me in press, if possible, is that 'iCarly' or 'Sam & Cat' are not mentioned. To have been known for so long for something that I did when I was 13 was very shameful for me. I feel myself tighten when I hear them [titles].

The more popular that Sam got, the more I just felt unseen as Jennette and fundamentally, I think that was coming from not being able to see myself. I want to be past this."

Bradley Cooper felt that he did not get enough screentime on "Alias" and asked J.J. Abrams to write him out.

He told GQ in 2013, "I would only work three days a week. And then for the second season, I got even more sidelined. I was like, 'Ugh.' And then next thing you know, I was like, 'I want to ****ing kill myself.'"

"I then asked J.J. Abrams to write me out and he was like, 'OK.' He probably would've fired me, anyway."

The actor Max Wright who played the father Willie Tanner on ALF, supposedly hated being on the series, mostly for playing a supporting actor to a puppet. Not to mention that the show ALF was very challenging to make in the first place (complete with trap doors on set!) and supposedly the guy who created ALF was a perfectionist. Here is more about ALF here….

https://www.cracked.com/article_135_6-beloved-tv-shows-that-traumatized-cast-members-life.html

I know Wright was in another sitcom for about two seasons (with Norm McDonald) but that was about it. Supposedly, Wright went right off the deep end, turning into a drug addict who was pictured smoking out of a soda can (probably crack) with some unsavory looking characters. He got divorced and just was lost in the underbelly of Hollywood. Then he died.

Bette Midler called her 2000 sitcom "Bette" a "big mistake" and said she was relieved when the experience was over.

https://ew.com/bette-midler-sitcom-bette-mistake-lindsay-lohan-exit-8644737

Jennie Garth revealed at '90s Con Florida that she regrets doing The CW's "90210"

“I wish I hadn’t done it. No offense to them. The producer was a friend of a friend, and I remember he came over in my living room, sat me down, [billed it as] this chance of a lifetime. He asked me to do it, and I didn’t know how to say no then. But the people were very nice and all the best to them.”

https://deadline.com/2024/09/jennie-garth-90210-cw-reboot-regret-1236088178/

Rooney Mara did a guest spot on "Law & Order: SVU" in 2006 before she was famous. In 2011, while out promoting The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, she bashed the role during an interview with Allure.

"It was so awful. So stupid. Me and my boyfriend—although I don't look old enough to have a boyfriend—went and beat up these fat people, and at the end of the show you find out that I used to be obese and I hate fat people.

It's ridiculous. Who would beat someone up because they're fat? People are obsessed with that show. I don't get it."

She told The Huffington Post a few days after the story blew up that her "SVU" comments were taken out of context.

"First of all, the 'SVU' thing -- that's just not true. That was my first job. It couldn't have been more exciting for me. It's an experience I hold very dear to my heart. People take things out of context, and that's just not the case.

I didn't love the experience, but I would never take it back because I feel like I learned something from it and it brought me to my next job. It's hard to have to talk about yourself all the time and things are out of context, and whatever that quote was, I don't know, but it's certainly not what I meant.

If anything, I didn't mean that the storyline was ridiculous; I meant that humanity is ridiculous. I know that 'Law & Order' makes their episodes out of real things that are happening in the city, so to me, by 'ridiculous' I meant that humanity is ridiculous. People are awful to one another; and to me, I find it ridiculous."

Dang. I feel like her later statement is her back tracking to save face. Though, yeah, I've witnessed people be aggressive towards the obese, so...it happens.

David E. Kelley did not like his 2013-14 CBS sitcom "The Crazy Ones".

He told THR, "It was terrible. Robin Williams was great, but the show itself was not very good."

Weird. That show seemed fine, especially compared to other stuff airing at the time.

Late actor Max Wright who played the dad Willie Tanner on Alf was pretty vocal with his disdain for the series and playing second banana to an alien puppet. His former co-stars have said how unhappy he was on set and that he left the studio on the final day of production without saying goodbye to the cast and crew. You can read his thoughts on Alf in this article:

https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/alf-star-left-without-saying-goodbye.html/

I always found it really weird he felt that way. Like, did he not know what he was signing up for? That's like Bob Saget being angry that he had to share screentime with Stamos and Coulier, and feeling like he was "playing second fiddle" to them and the other cast members of Full House. The entire premise is that he's the dad in a family where they have an alien "housemate", him being "second fiddle" is baked into the premise of Alf.

Not that she hated it, but Melissa Joan Hart has made it known through various interviews that she favors "Melissa & Joey" and "Clarissa Explains it All" over "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch".

She said in 2017 that "Melissa & Joey" was her favorite role because it was the most fun for her to play. "Clarissa" is dear to her because it was her first leading role and she was also involved in a reboot that never got off the ground.

She said in 2024 that she didn't really "relate" to Sabrina. She said that she probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much if she didn't get to dress up in costumes or experience situations like being a part of Cirque du Soleil.



Caroline Rhea said that she hated the elaborate wardrobes.

She said back in 2013 that Sabrina was dressed like an accountant going to high school and that she looked like she's going to a coronation for a very senior royal member. "It's breakfast! Why is my hair this high?"

Anjelica Huston has revealed she did not have a good time filming "Smash".

"I wasn't very happy when I was on that show," Huston told PEOPLE. "I was living in New York and I wasn't very happy living in New York for the obvious reasons. It was a cold winter."

Huston also said that she "didn't feel very prized in that role," adding, "I was a bit depressed by it. It was hard, really. I didn't really have a good time making it."

https://ew.com/anjelica-huston-wasnt-happy-making-smash-series-11713751

George Carlin said that he hated the experience of working on "The George Carlin Show" (1994-95).

He released a statement at the time the show was cancelled on his website, "'The George Carlin Show' premieres on Fox Television. Lasts 27 episodes. Lesson learned: always check mental health of creative partner beforehand.

Loved the actors, loved the crew. Had a great time. Couldn't wait to get the **** out of there. Canceled December, 1995."




In his book Last Words he wrote, "I had a great time. I never laughed so much, so often, so hard as I did with cast members Alex Rocco, Chris Rich, Tony Starke. There was a very strange, very good sense of humor on that stage...

The biggest problem, though, was that Sam Simon was a horrible person to be around. Very, very funny, extremely bright and brilliant, but an unhappy person who treated other people poorly...I was incredibly happy when the show was canceled. I was frustrated that it had taken me away from my true work."

Katee Sackhoff, who played Bo-Katan Kryze on "The Mandalorian", recently explained how the role “just broke her” and led to a nearly three-year hiatus from onscreen acting roles.



“I lost all of my confidence after Mandalorian. All of it,” she explained on her podcast The Sackhoff Show.

“I’ve always played two steps removed from myself, in a sense. It always felt grounded in some part of my belly, of who I was. Bo-Katan is nowhere near who I am as a human being. Her life, what she wants — I didn’t understand her. As much as I understood her, I never felt her in my stomach. I never identified with her. I didn’t know how to find her.”



“It broke me. It just broke me,” explained Sackhoff.

“I started doubting everything about myself. I’m not a strong auditioner on tape, and I was having to put myself on tape. I wasn’t booking anything. And for three years, I basically didn’t work, and it just destroyed my confidence.”

https://deadline.com/2025/08/katee-sackhoff-not-acting-three-years-after-the-mandalorian-1236495678/