Top 10 Times Actors Refused to Film Specific TV Scenes
#10: Kato Wouldn’t Lose to Robin
“The Green Hornet” (1966-67)
Who would win in a fight between Superman and Batman? That’s a question where legitimate arguments can be made for both sides. But, when it comes to the question of a fight between Kato and Robin, there’s only one right answer. At least that’s how Bruce Lee felt about it. The martial arts master played Kato on “The Green Hornet” in the late ‘60s and on a “Batman” crossover episode, where the script called for Kato to lose a fight with the boy wonder. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. As Lee said when he walked off the set “There's no way that anyone would believe [that]”. They eventually got him back and had the fight end in a tie instead.
#9: A Less Intimate Reunion
“The Witcher” (2019-)
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How would you react if the love of your life, who you thought had been killed, suddenly showed up alive and well? We can probably all agree that there would be one hell of a kiss. But what about after the kiss? Well, spoiler alert: this exact situation comes up in season two of “The Witcher” when Geralt is reunited with Yennefer. While the script called for things to get more hot n’ heavy after the kiss, actors Henry Cavill and Anya Chalotra felt differently. They felt that jumping right into bed wouldn’t be very true to life, given that someone had just… returned from the dead. Instead they “wanted it to be emotional rather than sexual”, and they pleaded their case and got their way.
#8: Bates Wouldn’t Pray to Satan
“American Horror Story” (2011-)
When Kathy Bates agreed to come back for another season of “American Horror Story” in 2018, she did so without knowing exactly what the season would be about and what character she’d be playing in it. However, when she found out she was cast as a Satanist in “American Horror Story: Apocalypse” she had one major request to the show’s creators. Well, it was less of a request and more of a statement, really. As she told Entertainment Weekly, she called them over and said “Dudes, I am not praying to Satan”. Bates is a two-time cancer survivor and, as she put it, “[she wasn’t] gonna screw around with that!”
#7: Waterford Wouldn’t Do That to His Wife
“The Handmaid's Tale” (2017-)
As fans of “The Handmaid's Tale” know, Commander Fred Waterford is not a good man. But, at least according to actor Joseph Fiennes, there are some things even Waterford wouldn’t do. Namely, sexually assaulting his wife. In season two of the Hulu series, Waterford and his wife travel to Canada on a diplomatic mission for Gilead. While there, he is harassed by the husband of his handmaid, an incident that - in the original script - led to him forcing himself on his wife later in their hotel room. For Fiennes though, this was a step too far. And, after multiple lengthy emails making his case, the producers agreed and they never filmed the scene.
#6: Cole Sprouse Was Cold
“Riverdale” (2017-)
The season three “Riverdale” finale ends with Archie, Veronica, and Betty standing half-naked and bloody around a bonfire burning their belongings - including Jughead’s beanie. On its own this moment probably doesn’t stand out as that weird given the strange things that have happened on the show since. However, this moment did have some fans wondering why Jughead wasn’t there. Did this mean that Jughead was dead? Nope. Turns out, it just meant that Cole Sprouse was cold. The scene was originally scripted to have all four characters around the fire, but Jughead actor Sprouse was feeling a bit chilly. As actress Lili Reinhart told an interviewer, “he was like, 'I don't wanna do it,' so he didn't.”
#5: Mr. Brady Got Facts Wrong
“The Brady Bunch” (1969-74)
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Sometimes, actors will refuse to film a scene because they feel it doesn’t make sense for their character. And sometimes, they’ll refuse because it just doesn’t make sense in general. In the case of Mike Brady actor Robert Reed, it was the latter. The problem was that he got his facts wrong. Originally Reed was to come home, find Alice making strawberry preserves and comment on how the kitchen smelled like “strawberry heaven.” Reed refused, saying the Encyclopedia Britannica says that cooked strawberries don’t produce a smell. Reed was taken to the set to see that the strawberries being cooked did actually produce a scent, but that didn’t matter. He still made them change the line.
#4: Zendaya Wasn’t Going to Have Her First Kiss on Camera
“Shake It Up” (2010-13)
Zendaya wasn’t yet 15-years-old when she made her debut on the Disney channel sitcom, “Shake It Up” in 2010. While she’d never appeared in a TV show prior to that, there was something else she’d never done and that was kiss anyone. As she told British Vogue, there was a scene on the show that called for the then teen actress to kiss a boy on the lips and she opted to kiss him on the cheek instead, because she preferred to have her real first kiss go unrecorded. A wise decision indeed, and we’re happy it was respected.
#3: No Male Strip Club for Chandler
“Friends” (1994-2004)
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You might remember Chandler Bing going to a female strip club with Monica, Rachel and Phoebe as part of the getting-over-Kathy process. But do you remember him going to a male strip club? The reason you don’t is because Matthew Perry refused to do it. The pitch was that Chandler kept going back to the joint because he loved the sandwiches there. It actually sounds like a funny premise to us, but Perry wasn’t down with it for one reason or another. Now that we think about it, given that the storyline involved a love of sandwiches, it probably should’ve been Joey going to the club anyway.
#2: Lena Headey Refused to Walk Naked
“Game of Thrones” (2011-19)
“Game of Thrones” had many powerful scenes, but one that no doubt stands out in the minds of most fans is Cersei’s ‘walk of atonement’ at the end of the fifth season. In the scene, the leader of the religious Faith Militant organization forces Cersei to walk through King’s Landing nude while being berated by onlookers. It’s an utterly humiliating act and one that actress Lena Headey fully committed to… except for the naked part. Headey has done nude scenes before, but in this case, she didn’t feel she could do justice to the performance while also being nude. What you see in the final cut is Headey’s head CGI’d onto another woman’s naked body.
#1: Jim Wouldn't Cheat on Pam
“The Office” (2005-13)
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Actor John Krasinski has said that he can only recall putting his foot down once during “The Office’s” nine-season run, and he did it in season eight, in defense of Jim and Pam. Theirs was a great love story, but their relationship wasn’t perfect, especially by the end. Regardless of problems they might’ve had, neither ever cheated, thankfully - though the writers initially wanted to have a storyline where Jim did. In the episode “After Hours”, Cathy gives Jim her best flirty moves, which Jim resists, and nothing comes of it. Originally, the script called for him to sleep with Cathy - an act of disloyalty Krasinski felt was too much. He believed that Jim cheating would push audience reception to a point the show could never quite recover from.
