10 TV Lines Actors Refused To Say

These actors drew the line at speaking these lines.

[sydney]

The one with Dylan Sprouse is so sweet. Takes courage to stand your ground with your boss and at a young age

[PrinceIsot]

Yeah could you imagine Christina Ricci's Wednesday saying that crap? Me neither 😂 good for Jenna

[euansmith]

James Arness displayed a clear understanding of the dynamics of the show; he sounds like a useful actor to have on set. Maybe he got a taste for staying silent when playing "The Thing From Another World".

[dylanogg]

Way to go Sprouse! I got mad respect for my forename-sake.

[WardNightstone]

The one from Jenna Ortega really pissed off the writers for some reason, even though she was 100% right! Wednesday would NEVER say that

[GroundhogJay]

Jenna Ortega was right. There's respecting writers and then there is honouring dreck.

[kris]

Okay… James Arness makes waaayyy too much sense in how fricken badass he was as a character now lol. I grew up groaning and eye-rolling at all the westerns my dad used to watch, but Gunsmoke was a particular side-eye for me. And Marshall Dillon was a particular badass in my eye. Knowing now that his intimidating silence was a choice of the actor makes the character SO MUCH fuckin cooler 😂

No one fucks with Marshall Dillon. Or else they get the hell outta Dodge.

[obviousalias]

It's come out since that Arness had been dealing with terribly painful arthritis through most of his time on Gunsmoke, so letting the rest of the actors carry more of the screen time also gave Arness a chance to rest up.

[matthewpatrick]

Jenna Ortega does know a lot more about the character Wednesday Addams than the writers of that show. She's what made it enjoyable and that's why she has more control for season 2. I just wish she'd had more control of season 1.

[jessesanchez]

Dave Gorelz - The Muppet Show- Zoot. Dave said there were a couple of times when they gave Zoot some dialogue. But he passed the dialog onto other performers. The only way he wanted Zoot to communicate was through his saxophone.

[nixeleth]

Ortega had the right of it, imo. Wednesday *would never* react that way to wanting to wear a dress.

[AJ-xcqe]

4:27 she didn't clarify which episode she's talking about but it had Pamela Eells O'Connell written all over it! If you've seen her work, you'll know she loves mean spirited humor, whether she does it right or not. Her sense of humor in general, while some of it is great in some episodes, largely didn't age well.

[screenwriterjohn]

Is it "Je-zus" or "Hey-zus." I literally never watched an episode.

[sanddagger]

having a character say too much is how you end up with hermione granger

[nellurban]

as if we needed more evidence that Dylan is the superior Sprouse

[jacobdrolet]

Amazing video of actors refuse to say lines in there tv shows, fantastic job.

[AustynSN]

In disagreement with multiple other commenters (and Jenna Ortega), I could actually imagine Wednesday saying that line. However, I'd imagine her saying it in an even more monotone nature than Wednesday would usually speak, with some disgust when she says "Oh my god, I'm freaking out over a dress" and serious self loathing when she says "I literally hate myself".

Ortega was right, and giving an actor flak for disagreeing with the writers over a character is dumb.

Writers are not infallible, and often an actor who has played the character for a while has just as good of an understanding of the character as them - if not better - so they are able to spot out-of-character moments in the script that the writers missed. (Or improvise in-character moments, which are often the highlights of a given work. Nobody is giving grief to Leonard Nimoy for improvising the neck pinch instead of a karate chop that he thought extremely OOC for Spock, and it's become an iconic part of the franchise.) Bringing a character to life is ultimately a collaborative process that requires the participation of the writers, directors, makeup department, costume department, countless others behind the camera that I'm probably forgetting, and of course the actor. While the actor's contribution is mainly playing what is written for them, doing it effectively requires understanding the character.

Hell, if the writers had disagreed, they could have pushed for the line to stay in the script, but they clearly saw her point as well.

[ttaitt]

You mean fewer lines, not less lines.

[maestroclassico]

Jim Arness definitely figured it out. In the later years (the ones I actually remember seeing on prime time....I was 9 when it went off), there were some episodes where he wasn't prominent at all. The ensemble cast proved to be vital in keeping it on the air for so long.