Actors have to say the lines that are written for them in scripts. Sounds like a pretty simple and uninteresting sentence, right? That’s the number one job of an actor! Whether on stage or on screen, actors have lines they must read, stage directions they must follow, and marks they must hit to make a production go smoothly as planned and led by a director.
But actors don’t always say the lines in their scripts just as the writers intended. In fact, sometimes, actors refuse to say their lines at all! The reasons behind those refusals can be wacky at some times and weirdly inspirational at others. And in this post today, we’ll take a look at ten of the most legendary of those instances.
In this list, we’ll explore the real stories behind ten infamous times when actors refused to say the lines in their scripts. Writers wrote these lines intending for the actor to deliver them as expected. But when it came time for the director to call “action,” these actors surprisingly backed off!
Related: 10 Actors Who Turned Down Movie Roles and Regretted It
10 Patrick Warburton
One episode of Family Guy was so unbelievably offensive that actor Patrick Warburton flat-out refused to say any of the lines. Of course, Warburton was the one who voiced Joe, who was Peter Griffin’s wheelchair-bound friend on the show. And it’s not exactly a secret that Family Guy is filled with all kinds of off-color jokes and highly offensive humor. But sometimes, things can go too far, even for the actors who signed on to do the show and agreed to portray the raunchy characters. And for Warburton, that’s exactly what happened.
While the world doesn’t know exactly which episode the offending lines came in (the episode itself was completely scrapped rather than going through a rewrite), Warburton has talked candidly about why it was so bad. And it had something to do with religion—and Jesus Christ himself. “The episode was so offensive that I can’t repeat it now,” the voice actor said in an interview after the controversy died down. “It had to do with Christ on the cross, but there was no humor in it, and it was just so, so horribly offensive.”
Warburton continued, explaining that it wasn’t one of Joe’s lines that set him off but rather the entire thrust of the episode that failed to hit the mark on telling jokes and moved straight into the territory of being brutally offensive. “It wasn’t a Joe line,” Warburton explained, “but I said, ‘Guys, I can’t participate in this episode if that line is in it. It’s a personal thing.’ I know what I signed up for. I signed up for a really offensive show, and it is satire, and there are different rules that govern satire… because of what they’ve gotten away with.” Ultimately, it didn’t matter, as the producers eventually admitted the joke would have never gotten approved anyway, so they killed the entire thing.[1]
9 Robert Downey Jr.
At the end of The Avengers, Robert Downey Jr.’s iconic character Tony Stark is shown to be unconscious—until he suddenly wakes up. In the script, as he awoke, he was supposed to say, “What’s next?” RDJ didn’t really care for that line as it was written, though. He felt it wasn’t right for his character.
So he brainstormed with the screenwriters to put down a few other options on paper. Several new ideas came to the forefront, including Stark coming out of his unconscious period by saying, “Please tell me nobody tried to kiss me.” Which is very funny! But it wasn’t the iconic (and altered!) line that everybody really remembers.
Of course, the line we’re referring to is, “And then shawarma after?” RDJ felt like that goofy line was more on brand for Tony Stark, so he delivered it in his patented way. And it delighted theatergoers! In fact, fans loved the line so much that an end credits scene was later added to the movie in which the group of “Avengers” characters is shown grabbing food together after their big-screen adventure. Gotta go get that shawarma after a hard day’s work, ya know?[2]
8 Crispin Glover
Crispin Glover originally turned down the role of the Thin Man in Charlie’s Angels after he was offered it by producers. He felt that the character’s dialogue was absolutely terrible and not believable, so he didn’t want to be a part of the movie. In his opinion, the dialogue was far too expositional, for one. But he did have ideas to improve the film—and the villain. Luckily, the movie’s producers took the time to listen to him. And they eventually cast him in the role… after Crispin wiped out ALL the character’s lines! Every single one!
Of course, if you’ve seen Charlie’s Angels, you know Glover’s character was written as a mute. That was his idea—to go that far with the character and make him come off in an unsettling way. And the director went along with it! So Crispin accepted the role by being allowed to play the character without saying a word.
Recalling the phenomenon after the hit movie’s success, Glover explained his decision to change (really, eliminate) all of his dialogue. “In the case of Charlie’s Angels, it was a very active character that had to do with a lot of physicality. When I read the screenplay, it was quite expositional; it didn’t need to be said. So it made it much stronger for the character not to say anything.”[3]
7 Joyce Dewitt
One episode of the sitcom Three’s Company called for people to mistake Chrissy (played by Suzanne Somers) for a prostitute because she had a friend on the show who was a prostitute, and they looked similar. In the episode, that friend was supposed to call Chrissy “priceless.” And in response, Janet (played by Joyce Dewitt) was supposed to deliver a line about how “she’s going to stay that way.” But the real-life Dewitt hated the line, hated that it seemed as though it was devaluing women who are forced into sex work for lack of other options, and flat-out refused to say it.
Things got so contentious during a table read that fellow co-star John Ritter actually offered to have his character say the line instead. However, screenwriters refused to change the script to accommodate that! They REALLY wanted Dewitt’s character Janet to deliver that line. And Dewitt kept refusing. When it was time for the cast, producers, and writers to hold their table read in preparation for that controversial episode, Dewitt blew up at a producer named Mickey over the prostitute line.
Recalling the fight about the script years later, Dewitt said, “I leaned back in my chair and took the deepest breath. And instead of answering his idiotic question [about saying the line], I said, ‘Mickey, I’ll tell you what the deal is with this line. You can come out with a gun during the five-thirty show and hold it to my head, and I still won’t say that line for you. Is that clear enough?’ That’s what it took.” And indeed, the line was removed from the script and Dewitt got her way. Good for her![4]
6 Robert Reed
When Robert Reed played Mike Brady on The Brady Bunch, he was notorious among producers and screenwriters on the sitcom for fastidiously fact-checking all of his scripts. The most notable case in which Reed fact-checked a script and demanded a line change came during an episode where his TV co-stars Carol and Alice were cooking with strawberry preserves. The script called for Mike (played by Reed) to enter the room and say that the house smelled like “strawberry heaven.” There was just one problem with that line: Strawberries don’t have a smell when they are being cooked.
Reed was skeptical that anything could smell like “strawberry heaven,” so he did his research. And sure enough, he confirmed that strawberries smell like nothing while being cooked into dishes! So he decided he couldn’t say the line since it wouldn’t be true and accurate. He told screenwriters that he wouldn’t say that line since it wasn’t actually true, and he didn’t want to pass along misinformation. In an era like the modern one where fake news seems to be rampant, it sure is a breath of fresh air to hear of an actor so committed to telling the truth in every one of his lines![5]
5 Matthew Perry
Forget about just changing one or two lines in a script—sitcom star Matthew Perry once got an entire episode of Friends nixed! The episode was all about Perry’s character, Chandler Bing, going to a male strip club. The premise of the ep was that Chandler would go to the male strip club and even become a regular there because he liked the sandwiches—and not the men dancing on stage. However, the real-life Perry didn’t think that was a very wise episode for the long-running hit show to churn out. So he used his influence to kill the episode.
Perry read the script after it was first put in front of him for a table read. While the screenwriters were hopeful it would be a hit, he balked at it right from the start. Years later, Perry recalled how he killed the episode in an interview with Andy Cohen. And at the time, the legendary sitcom star needed just one line to do it! Perry told Cohen how he telephoned the executive producers with his simple demand: “And I called up [the producers], and I said, ‘Let’s not do this one.’” And that was that! The premise was rejected, and the male strip club plotline never came up in any future Friends episodes.[6]
4 Ian Wright
Famous soccer player Ian Wright had the thrill of a lifetime when he appeared in the hit television series Ted Lasso with a minor cameo. However, Wright’s small but memorable appearance hit a major snag when he was asked to say something nice about the professional soccer club Tottenham! He had spent his entire career on the pitch playing against Tottenham (most notably as part of both Crystal Palace and Arsenal). So he simply couldn’t muster up the desire to say something nice about a club he had opposed so aggressively during his time in the game!
As it was originally intended, the line was supposed to be Wright saying in his guest-starring shot, “You know, it’s gonna be a tough game for Richmond because Tottenham are a great side.” But when it came down to it, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t even act like he was saying anything good about Tottenham because he wouldn’t have meant it! Ted Lasso star Phil Dunster recalled what happened when Wright was handed the line in a script: “He was really lovely. He was just like, ‘You’re going to have to change it because I can’t say that.’” And they changed it! The line was removed altogether.[7]
3 Meryl Streep
The line was supposed to be, “Everybody wants to be me.” But in the end, Meryl Streep made a game-time decision to change it to “Everybody wants to be us.” And when an actress as talented as Meryl Streep makes a call like that, well, what are you going to do? Tell her NOT to change the line? I don’t think so!
We’re talking here about the film The Devil Wears Prada, of course. Streep’s character, Miranda, was the aggressive and intimidating boss of the fashion empire in the flick. In the very last line of the film, screenwriters set it up so that her character could sum up her overly confident attitude by claiming that everybody wanted to be like her, sitting atop the fashion world in New York City. But during the table read for the movie, Streep didn’t like the vibe of that line as it was. So, she altered the “me” to “us” and gave the world an equally memorable final delivery of her own accord!
Actress Anne Hathaway looked back on that table read and the subsequent change in the movie itself years later. During her nostalgic analysis of Streep’s off-the-cuff change, Hathaway reasoned, “I think we all had an idea of what Miranda would sound like. It was a strident, bossy, barking voice. So when Meryl opened her mouth and basically whispered, everybody in the room drew a collective gasp. It was so unexpected and brilliant.”[8]
2 Jane Fonda
Later in her career, Jane Fonda starred in the sitcom Grace and Frankie. During her run on the show, the legend was held in obvious high regard. In fact, she was so highly thought of that when she balked at delivering a line that the script had called for based on her religious beliefs, writers quickly took out the offending line at her request!
The context was an episode in which Grace, Fonda’s character, had to say, “Jesus Christ” at one point as an exclamation of shock. Fonda quickly informed show creator Marta Kauffman that she wasn’t comfortable with saying those words due to her strong Christian faith. Kaufmann relented and quickly made the change.
Speaking later about the incident and Fonda’s steadfast faith, the show creator explained, “These four actors are the most professional, glorious people I’ve ever worked with. I love them. So when they have an issue, it’s not that they’re being divas. It’s not that they’re being self-important. They have a real issue.”[9]
1 Harrison Ford
In the original Star Wars script, Harrison Ford’s character Han Solo was supposed to say, “I love you, too,” after Princess Leia, played by Carrie Fisher, delivered her memorable “I love you” line. But when it came time to do the scene, Harrison went off-road with the improvisation and changed the line completely! Instead of saying, “I love you, too,” when Fisher dropped the monumental admission, Ford’s Han Solo replied, “I know.” And the whole thing was completely off the cuff!
Years later, Star Wars fans came to learn that Harrison hadn’t told anyone about his intention to change the line at the last minute. In fact, he didn’t really know that it would play out like that until he did it on the spot. He felt like “I know” fit Han Solo’s cocky personality much better than dropping an “I love you, too” on Princess Leia.
So he went with his gut and delivered the unscripted line. Thankfully for Ford, filmmaker George Lucas loved the ad-lib and kept it in the movie. It quickly became one of the most memorable lines of the whole damn thing, too. Turns out Ford had some pretty good instincts working in his favor on that one![10]