Posted 1 minute agoSubscribe to Screen Time NewsletterCaret Down"The Audience Will Never Forgive Him": 9 Times Actors Straight-Up Refused To Shoot A Scripted Storyline To Protect Their CharacterEveryone say 'thank you' to these actors for rejecting messy, cruel, or just plain wrong plot points.by Stephanie SoteriouBuzzFeed StaffFacebookPinterestLink A viral tweet recently pondered: "I wonder if actors ever read scripts and think damn that's going to piss our fans off," and the internet wasted no time chiming in with moments that they think fit the bill. Think controversial twists, baffling character choices, and, well, the entirety of Season 8 of Game of Thrones. However, there's actually been a whole bunch of times when actors have pushed back against their character's proposed storylines - and changed the course of their show in the process.
So, here are 9 examples of actors who took one look at their script and said: "Absolutely not," and we dutifully thank them for their service. 1. Matthew Perry in Friends: Chandler Cheating On Monica NBC / Via Netflix First up is Matthew Perry, who point blank refused to act out a Friends storyline where his character, Chandler, would cheat on Monica, played by Courteney Cox. Chandler and Monica first got together at the end of Season 4, and according to guest actor Lisa Cash, Chandler was scripted to cheat on her in the Season 5 finale "The One in Vegas: Part 1."Lisa played a Las Vegas hotel worker in the episode, and told TMZ: "The scene was Chandler and Monica were arguing in Vegas about Monica having lunch with Richard, and initially in our script, Chandler goes up to the hotel room, orders room service, and I bring it up as a hotel worker and we end up talking and laughing and connecting and Chandler ends up cheating on Monica with my character.""We had rehearsed it and everything," Lisa went on. "Then the day before we were shooting in front of a live audience I was told that [Matthew] went to the writers and said the audience will never forgive him for cheating on Monica, which he was probably right. That would have changed possibly the course of the show and of his character."The episode ended up cutting this scene with Chandler and the hotel worker entirely, and Lisa ultimately played a flight attendant in a scene with Ross and Rachel instead. 2. Matthew Perry in Friends #2: Chandler's "Gay Panic" NBC / Via Netflix And cheating on Monica wasn't the only time that Matthew stepped in to protect Chandler's honor, with the actor apparently also shutting down a storyline that he feared would be anti-gay. According to Friends expert Saul Austerlitz, who is one of the most prominent pop culture chroniclers of the show and has interviewed several writers, directors, and crew members over the years, a storyline was once proposed in which Chandler would start frequenting a gay bar because he can't get enough of their tuna melts. The comedy was said to stem entirely from Chandler's presence in a queer space as a straight man. Writing in his 2019 book Generation Friends: An Inside Look At The Show That Defined a Television Era, Austerlitz revealed: "Perry said no, and the story was shelved." 3. John Krasinski in The Office: Jim Cheating On Pam NBC / Via youtube.com Similarly to Matthew, John Krasinski refused a Season 8 episode of The Office where his character, Jim, was scripted to cheat on his wife, Pam, with Cathy, who was Pam's maternity leave cover.
The proposed plot would have seen Cathy make romantic advances toward Jim and then kiss him in his hotel room during a business trip to Florida in the episode "After Hours," but John straight up wouldn't film it."That's the only time I remember putting my foot down," he recalled in the book Welcome to Dunder Mifflin: The Ultimate Oral History of The Office. "I remember saying things that I never thought I'd say before, like: 'I'm not going to shoot it.'""My feeling is there is a threshold with which you can push our audience," John explained. "They are so dedicated. We have shown such great respect to them. But there's a moment where if you push them too far, they'll never come back. And I think that if you show Jim cheating, they'll never come back."Apparently, creator Greg Daniels' rationale was that he wanted to make the audience think they were going to have "a bad ending so they were happy when they got the good ending," but John was able to convince him that while Cathy may flirt with Jim, she can never seem like any actual threat to Pam. 4. Amber Riley in Glee: Mercedes Losing Her Virginity To Sam Fox / Getty Images During an episode of the And That's What You Really Missed podcast, Glee star Amber Riley revealed that she refused to film a "full-blown" sex scene for the show, despite the script already being written.
Amber played Mercedes on the hit series, and show runner Brad Falchuk wanted to show her character lose her virginity to her boyfriend Sam, played by Chord Overstreet, but Amber told him: "Absolutely not