10 Planned Movie Scenes Actors Refused To Film

An Aragorn cameo in The Hobbit made no sense AT ALL.

Lord Of The Rings Aragorn For Frodo
New Line Cinema

It's simply inevitable that creative disagreements will emerge on even the most smoothly run of film sets, and while actors often get a hard time for being "difficult," it'd also be foolish to dismiss their input out of hand.

Sometimes actors have very good reasons for objecting to a scene as written and planned - perhaps it doesn't suit the character's headspace in that moment, or maybe there are practical on-set concerns which make shooting dangerous or excessively unpleasant.

And so, in the case of these 10 planned movie scenes, the focal actor(s) involved put their foot down and refused to perform them in front of cameras.

Perhaps an actor exerted their power to help an embattled filmmaker win a creative fight with the studio, or simply couldn't bring themselves to shoot a scene that felt emotionally dishonest.

While these arguments surely gave producers and studio executives major headaches, for the most part it's at least easy to appreciate where each actor was coming from.

After all, are actors mere props to be bossed around, or vessels for empathy who can provide insight that the writer or director might've otherwise missed?...

10. Daniel & Miranda Get Back Together - Mrs. Doubtfire

Lord Of The Rings Aragorn For Frodo
Fox

Mrs. Doubtfire quite shrewdly avoids serving up a sappy, unrealistic happy ending with former married couple Daniel (Robin Williams) and Miranda (Sally Field) getting back together, instead ending with them still divorced albeit on far more amenable terms.

Yet the original scripted ending indeed saw Daniel and Miranda rekindling their romance, in turn nudging aside Miranda's charming - if pepper-allergic - new boyfriend Stu (Pierce Brosnan).

But given that both Robin Williams and Sally Field had been through divorce themselves and appreciated the effect it had on their own children, they felt it would be disingenuous to end the film on a note that might give false hope to younger viewers with divorced parents.

Ultimately director Chris Columbus agreed, and so this planned ending was scrapped, with a bolder - if more emotionally honest - finale being filmed instead. And like that, the movie's status as an enduring family classic was ironically cemented.

Contributor
Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.