15 Actors Who Stormed Off Set While Filming

As we learned with the Screen Actors Guild strikes of 2023, the life of your average working actor isn’t all glitz and glam. Actors at all levels are expected to work round-the-clock hours, surrounded by dozens of people led by sometimes egotistical directors. They forego food, sleep, even bathroom breaks to get that perfect take. Though the final product we see onscreen may look perfect to us, the making of the films and TV we love sometimes comes at the expense of the actors’ sanity.

Actors are human, and despite years of formal training, even they have breaking points. Some breakdowns are completely reasonable, others, well, let’s just say “dramatic” would be a charitable interpretation of them. Stars from renowned classic cinema to beloved sitcoms have stormed off set for surprising reasons, for the better and worse of the media they starred in. 

Here are 15 actors stormed off set while filming a movie or TV show.

Although Gene Hackman is best known for his role as Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in “The French Connection,” his road to an Academy Award for the part was not easy. Director William Friedkin detailed at an Academy event in 2016 that Hackman actually quit the production two days in because of the intensity demanded of him. Friedkin would chide Hackman with insults like, “You better get a day job,” in order to draw out the rage needed of him for the role. It didn’t help that Hackman wasn’t Friedkin’s first choice for the lead, and as revealed at an event hosted by the Directors Guild of America, his addition to the production came at very last minute.

In the beginning, Hackman struggled with the racism and viciousness of the real person he was portraying, Eddie Egan. According to Friedkin, Hackman “didn’t want to go there.” Once the two reached an understanding that Friedkin would be purposely pushing Hackman’s buttons for the sake of the art, the production was able to continue. Still, Hackman continued to abandon set when a scene became too heated.

In the last 15 years, CGI has become the foundation for science fiction and fantasy media. Not every actor has adjusted well to this reality, however. Ian McKellen was one such case, admitting to Contact Music (via The Mary Sue) that he broke down in tears over how isolated he felt on long set days with the green screen and questioned if he should continue acting altogether, let alone in “The Hobbit.” 

In the extended DVD edition of “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” (via The Guardian), he said that he struggled immensely with the change at first. McKellen recalled, “It was so distressing and off-putting and difficult that I thought ‘I don’t want to make this film if this is what I’m going to have to do’ […] ‘It’s not what I do for a living. I act with other people, I don’t act on my own.'” Director Peter Jackson was similarly off his game for the messy new trilogy, but luckily was able to refocus McKellen for filming.

The cast also sweetly decorated the actor’s trailer with props from “The Lord of the Rings” to cheer him up. Those physical reminders of “the old way” of filming were enough to get him back on track and ultimately stay on for the remaining two films.

In perhaps a strange bit of foreshadowing for the tragic shooting on the set of Alec Baldwin’s “Rust,” Nicolas Cage reportedly stormed off set after a similar incident occurred while shooting “The Old Way.” The Wrap reported that armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed worked on both sets, and according to “The Old Way” key grip Stu Brumbaugh, Gutierrez-Reed fired two rounds on set without warning the cast and crew. Gun safety protocols mandate that you announce the arrival of firearms on production sets and provide a warning before they are used. Gutierrez-Reed did neither, and fired a gun two times in three days. 

The second incident enraged Cage, who yelled at her, “Make an announcement! You just blew my f****** eardrums out!” before angrily leaving the set. Brumbaugh later learned that “The Old Way” was the young armorer’s first movie. Months later, she’d be the armorer on the “Rust” set, where cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot by Alec Baldwin. Gutierrez-Reed would eventually be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months in prison. For what it’s worth as well, “Rust” also tanked at the box office.

The production of “Rocky IV” lived up to its title, with stop-start filming due to none other than Dolph Lundgren.

The Swedish actor and karate champion played his role a little too well and actually injured his co-stars. He hit Sylvester Stallone so hard in the torso that he caused Stallone’s heart to hit his breastbone. Without immediate medical attention for the resulting blood pressure spike, the actor has said that he could have died. Stallone’s eight-day ICU stay stopped production for two weeks.

When it came time for Carl Weathers to film his brutal scenes with Lundgren, he was understandably hesitant. Lundgren recalled to Yahoo! Entertainment that he felt Weathers “was a little scared of [him].” After forcefully punching Weathers into the corner of the ring during one take, Weathers reportedly ran off set, which then stopped production again – but this time for only four days. This ultra-realistic approach to sports acting may seem shocking to us with today’s eyes, but as Lungdren explained, that’s simply the way things were. “This was back in the day when you didn’t have CGI, so everything you did had to be in-camera. You wanted a good hit, you had to make it look good in-camera.” It’s safe to say he succeeded.

James Cameron’s underwater action thriller “The Abyss” was a rollercoaster (or a tsunami, to keep with the water theme) of emotion. The director, like many others on this list, lost himself in the filmmaking, at times to the detriment of his cast. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio’s character, Dr. Lindsey Brigman, decides to sacrifice herself by drowning during a pivotal point in the plot. The shooting of the scene involved her being saved and then resuscitated, the latter of which entailed being slapped in the face multiple times.

Imagine you’re Mastrantonio, you’re in the scene, your eyes are closed, you’re waiting for the director to yell “Cut!” as your scene partner slaps you repeatedly. You wonder what’s taking so long for the scene to be called, until finally the slapping stops and you learn the camera ran out of film and no one bothered to say anything. Her reaction? According to an Entertainment Weekly interview with Ed Harris (the one doing the slapping), she exclaimed, “We are not animals!” and proceeded to leave the set. Let’s hope they at least offered her some ice for her cheeks afterward.

The stage-to-screen pipeline is a common route to household name status for actors. Patrick Stewart was no exception, getting his start in theatre and later etching his name in television history as Jean-Luc Picard on “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Former stage actors tend to bring a different gravity to their roles in film and TV that is palpable while watching their performances. Sometimes, they might even take their jobs a bit too seriously, as Stewart admitted in his memoir “Making It So” (via The Hollywood Reporter).

While filming the first season, he recalled for his book how he actually held a meeting to lecture his co-stars on joking around between takes. He confessed, “I could be a severe b*****d.” He went as far as to say that they were not on set to have fun, a comment the cast didn’t take well. In fact, they laughed at him. “I didn’t enjoy being laughed at. I stormed off the set and into my trailer, slamming the door,” he said. With the benefit of hindsight, Stewart could laugh at his younger self and his eagerness to impress in this would-be iconic role. But who knows how far the series, which seemed doomed from the start, would have gone if he didn’t take his part seriously. Perhaps we should be thankful that we never had to find out.

Oh, Diana Rigg, the treasure you were.

An alum of the same theatre company as Patrick Stewart (the Royal Shakespeare Company), Rigg carried a similarly formidable presence on set. In “Fire Cannot Kill A Dragon,” the 2020 tell-all about the making of “Game of Thrones,” the show’s creators and crew spoke fondly about how commanding the late actress was about her job. She brilliantly riffed on her lines and worked on her time, not anyone else’s.

One day, while the crew was setting up for a scene, she walked in before setup was complete and announced she was ready to shoot. She called out, “Roll the cameras!” and delivered her lines in two takes. Finally ready to film her properly, someone said they were going to do a closeup shot of her. Rigg had other plans and instead announced she was done for the day. She waltzed off the set, and due to her age, got assistance in doing so.

No one in the book seemed to have any bitterness toward Rigg for her behavior. When you’re a veteran of her stature, your inferiors bow down willingly.

Joaquin Phoenix was faced with a unique task in “Her,” as the actor had to sell audiences on his character falling in love with a cinematic version of Siri. If that wasn’t difficult enough, take it a step further and act out phone sex with your co-lead Scarlett Johansson, who is not physically in the scene with you. Even for a skilled actor like Phoenix, it’s understandable that he felt a bit uncomfortable at points filming such scenes.

Johansson revealed as much on Dax Shepard’s podcast, “Armchair Expert” in 2022. She said that Phoenix was “losing it” as they filmed the “sex scene” together. Despite director Spike Jonze’s best efforts to make the intimate set comfortable for Phoenix, the actor couldn’t cope. He got in his head about what he was doing, and part-way through the take, he decided to abruptly leave the set. Johansson empathized, “You definitely don’t want to hear what you sound like having an orgasm. You definitely don’t want to hear what you sound like having a fake orgasm.” Hard to argue with her there!

Jessica Alba recounted to ELLE Magazine (via Today.com) that she once questioned her acting abilities because of a sexist request from director Tim Story. During a death scene in “The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer,” she was asked to “cry prettier.” Cue the groans of every woman who’s ever been told to smile more. Why would an actor be directed to emote less, especially during a scene depicting something so visceral?

She was told, “‘It looks too real. It looks too painful. Can you be prettier when you cry? Don’t do that thing with your face. Just make it flat. We can CGI the tears in.'” Alba said she subsequently questioned her instincts as an actress and even her entire career, and thought, “F*** it, I don’t care about this business anymore,” before obviously deciding to continue forth in acting. It leads one to wonder how many actresses are subjected to covert misogyny by simply doing their jobs a little too well.

Speaking of misogyny, Teri Garr once took a stand against her own director while filming “Star Trek: The Original Series.” Guest starring in the episode “Assignment: Earth,” Garr’s character is helping to stop a nuclear launch while wearing, for some reason, a skimpy pink and orange skirt. Director Gene Roddenberry insisted that her skirt be shortened by two more inches, and Garr vehemently rejected the suggestion by leaving the set.

Garr never returned to the series after the incident. In fact, she harbored resentment toward Roddenberry and the “Star Trek” franchise more broadly for the rest of her life. When asked about her appearance on the show by Starlog Magazine in 2013, she dismissively remarked of her experience, “I have nothing to say about it […] I did that years ago, and I mostly deny I ever did it.” She may have been one of the first actresses to experience sexism in the sci-fi genre, but she’d unfortunately be far from the last. Garr had the wherewithal to check out early, and honestly, good for her.

Faye Dunaway and Roman Polanski are two of Hollywood’s most sinister figures, and it turns out that when these two combustible elements combined, they created fireworks. Dunaway was the star of Polanski’s “Chinatown,” and the pair clashed frequently throughout the production. Dunaway’s outbursts, which contributed to her almost being fire from the film, though almost always denied by the actress herself, are the stuff of Hollywood legend (or Ryan Murphy series, if you’re into that). The most discussed spat from the “Chinatown” set involves a single lock of hair.

Dunaway was in the middle of a scene, and Polanski noticed a strand of her hair out of place. It was catching the set lights, so Polanski took it upon himself to walk over and pluck it out of Dunaway’s head without her consent. Enraged, the actress stormed off set. Decades later, she stated in her memoir “Looking for Gatsby” that the hair was the straw that broke the camel’s back with the director. She said, “It was not the hair, it was the incessant cruelty that I felt, the constant sarcasm, the never-ending need to humiliate me.”

One of the stranger walkouts on this list is James Caan’s exit from David O. Russell’s production of “Nailed.” Per Entertainment Weekly, Caan’s character, a U.S. Speaker of the House, was written to choke to death while eating a cookie. Seems straightforward enough, except Russell instructed Caan to somehow choke and cough at the same time. The actor and director had words about this, with Russell attempting a compromise of shooting two versions of the scene (one choking, one coughing), but Caan refused and hastily exited the project.

The irony of Caan’s decision is it inadvertently caused a domino effect of key players leaving the production, including David O. Russell himself. The film would be passed around by its financiers and undergo name changes before finally being released as “Accidental Love.”

Caan’s initial reasoning for leaving “Nailed” might have been minuscule in the grand scheme, but his instincts ended up being correct: The film was doomed from the start.

When in Rome, apparently you ghost your film set.

While filming “A Golden Boy” in Italy, Sharon Stone was very particular about being watched on set, according to the Avati brothers. Producer Antonio Avati told The Hollywood Reporter that Stone disappeared from set in the middle of filming the final scene of the movie. The actress took issue with a bevy of photographers hovering around, as well as a TV cameraman. Annoyed by this, Stone ran off and hid so well the crew couldn’t find her. In her absence, she called her agent and had them communicate to Avati brothers that she’d not return to set until all non-essential personnel were cleared.

Once those people were gone, Stone returned and completed her scene without incident. Although Avati said that he’d have no problem working with the actress again, his words about her behavior throughout filming belie a certain disdain toward her. For Stone, it’s safe to say “A Golden Boy” doesn’t feature on her personal career highlight reel, as opposed to something like “Casino” with Martin Scorsese.

In the wake of documentaries like “Quiet On Set” and “Child Star,” it’s rare to hear a story of a former child star who took a stand against unfair treatment. But Frankie Muniz did just that during his tenure on “Malcolm in the Middle,” standing so firmly on business that he was missing for two episodes.

He revealed to his castmates on “I’m A Celebrity: Australia” (via Australian news) in 2024 that his two missed episodes were the result of his walkout. “Everyone was so afraid to stand up when certain people were controlling or rude or disrespectful. Like they walked on pins and needles,” he explained. He also noted that he felt he had the leverage to stand up to those disrespectful people because the show centered around him. Muniz also told an Australian news outlet that he never felt quite at home in Hollywood, making it unsurprising in hindsight that he had little tolerance for abusive antics.

Another infamously caustic creator/actor duo that led to walkouts was Dan Harmon and Chevy Chase. As reported by Deadline, Chase and Harmon were two hot-headed people that clashed often on set while working on “Community.” Although Chase allegedly walked off set numerous times while working on the series, one particular instance saw him leave while filming for the end of the season three finale was underway. Chase claimed he did not receive the script beforehand.

In retaliation for the walkout, Harmon slandered Chase at the season wrap party, cursing the actor out in front of his family, the cast, and crew. He even attempted to get others to join in with his profanity. Chase then left Harmon a colorful voicemail that the latter shared with others. Between Harmon’s pettiness and Chase’s obnoxious reputation on set, it’s not hard to see why the actor didn’t last for “Community’s” entire run.