10 Actors Who Openly Hated Working With Their Directors

Alfred Hitchcock is wildly regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers in history, and one of the few directors whose name has become an adjective. Still, like a lot of people at the top of their field, he was eccentric, which is a nice way of saying unhinged.

Tippi Hedren - or, as Hitchcock insisted, 'Tippi' Hedren (the single quotes were his insistence, for some reason), was a struggling actress who hit the jackpot when Hitchcock signed her to a seven-year contract and cast her in The Birds.

At first, she described the shoot as wonderful, and then came the infamous bird scene, where she was pelted with live birds, and even had them tied to her. Clearly, birds don't generally like to be thrown at women, for entertainment purposes or otherwise, and at one point Hedren almost lost an eye. The scene took five days to shoot.

Still, Hedren agreed to star in Hitchcock's next film, Marnie, and that's where things got creepy. Hitchcock became obsessed with Hedren, sexually propositioning her and even trying to force himself on her. Eventually it got too much, and they communicated through third parties for the rest of the shoot. When Hedren finally had enough and demanded to be released from her contract, Hitchcock responded by promising to ruin her career.

He kept her on contract, paying her to do nothing and by the time she was free to pursue other jobs, demand had died down.