In a perfect world, our most acclaimed dramatic actors would only appear in films for the sake of their art. But this isn’t a perfect world, and even Hollywood’s most beloved thespians take paycheck roles. What’s great about these honest actors is that they totally admitted taking certain roles simply for the Do-Re-Mi.
No one is judging these actors who took roles just for the money. Who can blame a young Eddie Murphy for taking a part in a bad comedy because producers flashed a million dollars in front of his face in exchange for two weeks of work? Michael Caine does not care what you think about his decision to appear in Jaws 4; he's too busy enjoying the house the $1.5 million paycheck helped build.
Some of these actors just like to mix up their Oscar-caliber films with blockbusters by incorporating a “one for them, one for me” strategy. Independent films don’t buy mansions - but appearances in Marvel movies certainly do.
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Most modern American movie fans only know Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi from the original Star Wars trilogy. However, the trained Shakespearean is widely regarded as one of the most acclaimed actors in British cinema history. He won an Academy Award in 1957 for his performance in The Bridge on the River Kwai and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1959 for his esteemed contribution to the arts.
In 1977, a young and wildly ambitious George Lucas came calling. Author Piers Paul Read published several letters in the actor's 2003 biography, Alec Guinness: The Authorised Biography. In one of the letters Guinness wrote to a friend, he called Star Wars "fairy-tale rubbish." However, he also admitted, "I may accept, if they come up with proper money."
The production indeed came up with the "proper money." The actor not only earned a salary, but also received 2.25% of the movie's royalties. Guinness must have enjoyed his millions in profits. But he did not enjoy his time on the set of Star Wars. He wrote in a 1976 diary entry:
Apart from the money, which should get me comfortably through the year, I regret having embarked on the film. I like them all well enough, but it's not an acting job, the dialogue, which is lamentable, keeps being changed and only slightly improved, and I find myself old and out of touch with the young.
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Most people know Paul Bettany from his roles in A Beautiful Mind and The Da Vinci Code. Many MCU movie fans will recognize the English actor only by the sound of his voice. Bettany voiced Tony Stark's computer J.A.R.V.I.S. in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Avengers, Iron Man 3, and Avengers: Age of Ultron, before later taking on the physical role of Vision.
Despite his prominent voice work in so many MCU installments, Bettany admitted he didn't know anything about the films at the time. He only read his lines in those early scripts because superhero movies are "just not his thing."
"I feel like a pirate. This is robbery. I walk in, I say some lines on a piece of paper for two hours, and then they give me a bag of money and I leave and I go about my day," said Bettany. "I sort of feel guilty, because at least acting can be exhausting, with long hours, but I do nothing! And I've never seen one of them."
Agree or disagree?Why shouldn't a normally serious dramatic actor occasionally take a role for the paycheck, especially if it allows them to squeeze in smaller-budget productions? Glenn Close has more than proven her dramatic mettle, with seven Academy Award nominations and a richly textured filmography that includes a range of films like The Big Chill, Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons, and The Wife.
Skepticism initially ran rampant when news spread that Marvel was planning to adapt the lesser-known comic Guardians of the Galaxy to the big screen starring that goofy heavy guy from Parks and Recreation. Things seemed even stranger when they cast Glenn Close as Nova Corps commander Nova Prime Irani Rael. Glenn Close in a superhero movie?
When she was asked why she accepted the part in Guardians of the Galaxy, she admitted it was all about the coin:
I just did two independent films this summer and I had an absolute ball with fantastic actors, but in August, I’m gonna go off and do the next generation of Marvel Comics/Disney and I get to be the chief police of the galaxy... I’m doing that because it will then afford me to go do the other kind of movies that I really love, and hopefully I will have a great time. It’ll be a new experience for me, but practically speaking it will mean that I can do those smaller movies and it’ll be okay.
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Stephen Dillane is a Tony Award-winning stage actor with a Shakespearean pedigree. He has also impressed on the big screen with roles in The Hours, Spy Game, and Darkest Hour.
Dillane had a major role in the early seasons of the HBO series Game of Thrones. The Brit played wannabe king Stannis Baratheon. In one of the most brutal scenes in a show filled with brutal scenes, Stannis burns his own young daughter to death as a sacrifice because he thinks it will help him sit atop the Iron Throne.
Turns out Game of Thrones was not the British actor's cup of tea. He even admitted to not watching the series: "It’s pretty brutal, I couldn’t watch much of that anyway. It’s hardcore. Too tough for me... It’s just too painful."
Dillane also revealed that he took on the role of Stannis for the scratch: “Money is the main thing I got out of it. It’s an odd situation. There is a kind of etiquette around these things. I think it’s extraordinary. I am not dismissing it at all."
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Sir Michael Caine has played nearly every kind of movie role from hero to villain, spanning nearly every genre across six decades. In 1987, Caine won his first Academy Award for his performance in Woody Allen's film Hannah and Her Sisters. In that same year, the British actor starred in Jaws: The Revenge (AKA Jaws 4).
It's tough to find a reason - besides money - why such an esteemed actor would appear in a movie so bad that it reached the dreaded 0% on Rotten Tomatoes and is widely regarded as one of the worst sequels in film history.
Caine admitted in his 1992 memoir What's It All About that he signed on for the sequel just for the paycheck: "I have never seen the film, but by all accounts it was terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific."
The actor reportedly earned $1.5 million for what amounted to a week's worth of work.
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In the 1980s, Jackie Chan was a huge movie star in his native Hong Kong. In time, the actor deftly combined his martial arts expertise with screwball comedy in order to become an international movie star. However, it wasn't until his co-starring role opposite Chris Tucker in the 1998 buddy cop action movie Rush Hour that American audiences got a real chance to witness Chan's talent.
Rush Hour became a blockbuster success and even spawned two sequels. It made Chan a household name and one of the richest actors in show business, with a reported net worth of around $400 million. Yet, it's the movie that Chan dislikes the most in his filmography, which features well over 100 acting credits.
The actor revealed during an interview in 2012 that the only reason why he made Rush Hour was for the cheddar:
I have reasons to do each film, I have something to say. Unlike Rush Hour - there was no reason [in making it], you just give me the money and I'm fine. I dislike Rush Hour the most, but ironically it sold really well in the U.S. and Europe.
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Morgan Freeman has been the calm, cool voice of reason in a number of cinematic classics. Perhaps the eponymous potty-mouthed talking teddy bear from Ted 2 paid Freeman's finest attribute the best compliment when he said, "I think I want to sleep on a bed made of your voice."
Freeman won his lone Academy Award in 2005 for the tearjerker Million Dollar Baby. Just a few of his other impressive dramatic films include Lean On Me, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption, Seven, and Unforgiven. His filmography features well over 100 movies. Even still, there aren't a lot of action thrillers on the list. But hey, even Morgan Freeman can take a break from all the drama. Freeman appeared in 2013's Olympus Has Fallen and its 2016 sequel London Has Fallen as Speaker of the House Allan Trumbull. Neither movie was a hit with critics. The sequel was especially disappointing.
However, these blockbuster-type movies typically perform well at the box office, which means they pay well. Freeman admits to taking a "one for them, one for me" strategy in selecting his film projects.
When asked what he found appealing about London Has Fallen, he replied by singing the lyrics, "money, money, money," from the O'Jays tune, "For the Love of Money."
"These large production action films pay well," Freeman added. "The rewards are many."
Agree or disagree?Perhaps Star Wars fans should turn away? Harrison Ford played the sarcastic but (reluctantly) heroic Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy. The series turned Ford into one of the biggest movie stars of the 1980s and '90s.
However, the Raiders of the Lost Ark star isn't that sentimental about his glory days fighting Darth Vader and the Empire. During a 2015 interview with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, the talk show host asked Ford if he got emotional wearing Han Solo's wardrobe for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the long-anticipated seventh installment in the blockbuster franchise.
Ford responded simply: "No, I got paid."
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Jeremy Irons honed his dramatic chops in London's famed West End performing in Shakespeare plays like The Winter's Tale and Macbeth. He later won a Tony Award for his 1982 Broadway debut, The Real Thing. A few years later, Irons catapulted to the top of the Hollywood ladder with his Oscar-winning portrayal of an accused attempted murderer in 1988's Reversal of Fortune.
What you won't often find in the thespian's filmography are fantasy flops. That changed in 2000 when Irons accepted the role as the villain-wizard Profion in the much-criticized fantasy action movie Dungeons & Dragons - a bad film with few, if any, redeeming cinematic attributes.
In 2010, Irons sat down for an interview with The Guardian. When asked about why he accepted the role in what was clearly not a great story, he pointed to the Benjamins. Ordinary people can understand the pressure of having to pay a mortgage, but Irons had an even bigger bill to pay.
"I just bought a castle! I had to pay for it somehow," said Irons, perhaps jokingly adding, "Like Alec Guinness in Star Wars, I had to give the project some gravitas."
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An action movie directed by John Woo, adapted from a Philip K. Dick story? Sounds like a winner on paper. Unfortunately for Ben Affleck, the 2003 sci-fi action film Paycheck turned out to be an empty mess. It also came around the time that Affleck couldn't seem to make a decent movie. In the early 2000s, the Academy Award-winner had a string of major swings and misses, including Daredevil, Gigli, and Jersey Girl.
While Affleck was out promoting Paycheck, he sat down for an interview with Conan O'Brien. The late-night host asked Affleck why he made Paycheck. The actor responded, "The answer lies in the title."
Affleck later "won" the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor for his performance in the film. He earned the same "honor" for Gigli and Daredevil. Thankfully, Affleck got his groove back in the 2010s. Not only did he start landing better roles, but he also proved to be a talented director.
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No one was a hotter commodity than Eddie Murphy in the early 1980s. He exploded onto the radar as the breakout talent on Saturday Night Live and then hit box-office gold with his first two feature films, 48 Hrs. and Trading Places. From there, he could have done anything. What most Murphy fans forget is the third movie he made in 1984: Best Defense.
The comedy was supposed to be a Dudley Moore film. Murphy was not even originally involved. However, the previews were poorly received. Studio executives had the thought, "Eddie Murphy is hotter than any actor on the planet. Let's give him a giant sum of money, film a few extra scenes, and edit them into the movie."
Murphy initially turned down the film - but then Paramount sweetened the deal. He explained:
Paramount was determined to get me in the movie. They finally came back with an offer of a million dollars for something like a couple weeks' work. Now, I want you to tell me a 22-year-old is going to turn down a million dollars for two weeks’ work?
Unfortunately, not even Murphy's immense comic talents could save Best Defense. The film flopped at the box office and with critics.
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Rachel Zegler had a very good senior year of high school. At age 17, she beat out 30,000 other actresses at an open audition call for the role of Maria in the 2021 film version of West Side Story directed by Steven Spielberg. Until then, Zegler had performed in school theater productions, and became known for a video of her singing “Shallow” from A Star Is Born. When West Side Story came out, The Associated Press named Zegler one of its “Breakthrough Entertainers of 2021," and in 2022, Zegler won a Golden Globe Award for best actress in a comedy or musical for playing Maria.
Spielberg said Zegler was “extraordinary”:
She walked on to this huge set, never having made a movie before, surrounded by a bunch of fairly formidable people and superbly talented actors with much more experience than her. She watched, she listened, she learned at a jaw-dropping rate, but she also brought with her that mysterious quality of having been born to do what she’s doing. Her Maria is a revelation.
But despite all the early-career kudos, apparently the COVID-19 pandemic got in the way and Zegler had trouble finding more roles. In March 2023, at the premiere of Shazam: Fury of the Gods, in which Zegler plays Athena, The Hollywood Reporter asked Zegler why she wanted to “step into this world of DC heroes.” Zegler responded:
I needed a job. I’m being so serious.
The reality is we’re in the middle of a pandemic and I was not working and I couldn’t get a job for the life of me, because West Side Story hadn’t come out yet. It was really hard to book work for me.
The pandemic slump seems to have lifted, however, with Zegler landing future roles as Lucy Gray Baird in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Snow White in a live-action version of the Disney film, and Princess Ellian in the animated Spellbound.
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Sean Penn may be the definition of a "serious dramatic actor." He won Academy Awards for Best Actor in Mystic River and Milk. There aren't a lot of gaps in his impressive filmography. However, in the early 1990s, Penn's then-partner (and future wife) Robin Wright was busy working in Ireland after giving birth to the couple's daughter.
Additionally, Penn dedicated a chunk of time during that period in attempting to adapt an 800-page novel. He also wrote and directed The Crossing Guard. In other words, he needed an acting paycheck. Penn got a call from director Brian De Palma. He admits to taking a role in the auteur's stylish crime epic Carlito's Way because of the money - that, and the opportunity to work with Al Pacino.
"I got a late-night call from Brian De Palma, whom I’d worked with before on Casualties of War," said Penn. "I needed a chunk of change - because I had a kid now and bills to pay - and the part Brian was offering me in Carlito’s Way was a good one, plus it was with Al [Pacino], whom I love, so I did that."
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Richard Dreyfuss is no stranger to difficult film shoots in the ocean. He battled all the notorious production woes of Jaws. He lived to tell about it and won an Oscar for his performance in The Goodbye Girl two years later.
The Close Encounters of the Third Kind actor announced his retirement from Hollywood in 2004. He wanted to concentrate on theater. However, he was lured out of retirement in order to make another disaster film on the ocean: Poseidon, a remake of the 1972 hit The Poseidon Adventure.
The change of heart all came down to the bottom line: "Money, simple. I announced my retirement just one number short of winning the Spanish national lottery. I waited until the 10th and then, 'I'm retired! Oh sh*t! Ahhh!' So that’s why [I came back]."
Poseidon tanked at the box office, as did Dreyfuss's retirement plans. He has several additional acting credits post-Poseidon, including a recurring role on the Showtime series Weeds and a turn as Dick Cheney in Oliver Stone's W.
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Perhaps no actor from the classic period of Old Hollywood screams "serious dramatic actor" quite like Sir Laurence Olivier. The British thespian became the big-screen embodiment of Hamlet, Othello, and Richard III.
However, the 11-time Academy Award nominee (including one win for Best Actor, in addition to two honorary Oscars), with his dignified stage voice and English charm, worked in show business for over six decades. During that kind of prolific career, not every movie can be a Shakespeare adaptation or enduring epic.
This is where cult leader Sun Myung Moon randomly enters Olivier's story. The Unification movement founder financed a 1981 Korean epic war movie called Inchon. Olivier was in his 70s and certainly no longer in the prime of his career when he accepted the role of General Douglas MacArthur. It turns out even British acting royalty can sign on to make a really, really bad movie in the name of the almighty dollar.
In Jerry Vermilye's book, The Complete Films of Laurence Olivier, Olivier revealed exactly why he agreed to Moon's movie:
People ask me why I'm playing in this picture. The answer is simple. Money, dear boy... Nothing is beneath me if it pays well. I've earned the right to damn well grab whatever I can in the time I've got left.
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Gary Oldman has made a fine career stealing the show playing delicious villains in films like Léon: The Professional and True Romance. The British actor won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2018 for his performance as Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour. However, not every film in the actor's decades-long career was made for the sake of art.
Oldman played the cyborg scientist/creator Dennett Norton in the 2014 remake RoboCop. The superhero film left many critics wondering why the original 1987 film needed to be remade in the first place. Oldman was extremely candid when asked why he agreed to star in the remake. "Why am I in this movie? Money," Oldman revealed. "I'm at the mercy of what the industry is making and what comes through my door."
The actor complimented the movie, as well: "But I thought this was an intelligent script and I love José [Padilha]'s point of view."
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