10 Actors Who Wanted To Quit Huge Movie Franchises

When making a sequel trilogy to one of the most beloved and acclaimed film series of all time - The Lord of the Rings - it's probably not a great feeling when legendary lead actor Ian McKellen offers to quit on the very first day.

McKellen had already been slightly put off by the delays in production making it a five year long process, but his isolated first days on set made him so uncomfortable that the production crew could tell he was visibly miserable.

His first few days on set were in front of a green screen working with no other actors, after which McKellen said: "it's not what I do for a living. I act with other people, I don't act on my own". In order to create the height difference between wizard and hobbits believable on screen, McKellen had to record his lines separately from his co-stars to be edited together later on.

Luckily, McKellen stayed on for the entire trilogy. But the incident made him question whether it was time to stop acting for good due to the sheer lack of enjoyment he had on set.