8 Famous Actors Forced Into Roles They Never Wanted
1. Roy Scheider - Jaws 2
Steven Spielberg's Jaws is one of the greatest films of all time, but its sequels were consistently disappointing. Jaws 2 is the best of the bunch, but that's not saying a lot when your competition is the dreadful duo of Jaws 3D and Jaws: The Revenge.
Universal knew that it would be a struggle for any of these sequels to capture the allure of the original, so in attempt to at least give Jaws 2 a fighting chance, they strong-armed star Roy Scheider into making it, something the actor really did not want to do in the slightest.
And weirdly enough, 1978's The Deer Hunter was the catalyst for this. Scheider was set to appear in the film before dropping out with only two weeks to go before shooting, a move which (understandably) annoyed Universal, who had to scramble to find a replacement.
The way they saw it, Scheider owed them a performance in something, and the studio saw an opportunity with Jaws 2. So, using his abandonment of The Deer Hunter as leverage, the studio pressured the actor into starring in the great-white-sequel, promising him that they could go their separate ways when the movie was done.
And go their separate ways they did. Scheider wisely avoided the third and fourth movies, with Jaws 2 being the last sharky encounter of his career.