10 Actors Who Were Too Scared To Accept Movie Roles

3. Bette Midler Was "Afraid" Of The Violence In Misery

Bette Midler For The Boys
20th Century Studios

The 1990 thriller Misery is a truly harrowing movie to watch, anchored by Kathy Bates' captivating, frightening performance - a performance that won her an Oscar at the 1991 Academy Awards.

Bates is so perfect in the role that it's impossible to imagine anyone else doing it, but when the movie was originally gathering its cast, she wasn't even in the running. In fact, her role was first offered to Bette Midler, who ultimately declined for a rather unusual reason.

Discussing some of her biggest career mistakes in a 2010 interview, Midler touched on her decision to pass on Misery, explaining that she was scared about some of the movie's shocking violence:

"I also didn’t do Misery and Kathy Bates won an Oscar for it. That’s not to say I would have. It was so violent and I had no relation to it. I was afraid."

To be fair, violent movies aren't for everyone, and considering that Midler's character would've had her head bashed in by a doorstop, you can see why she was reluctant.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!