Hollywood actresses reveal the disgusting reasons they were turned down for roles from branding Amy Adams ‘unsexy’, Kate Winslet a ‘fat girl’ and Tiffany Haddish ‘ghetto’

Rejection is always a hard pill to swallow.

Even the most prestigious celebrities have found themselves in floods of tears and questioning their abilities after being turned down for a role.

Yet when the reason behind the rejection is down to their physical attributes – it adds a whole other layer to the upset and fury.

Hollywood stars have spoken out about the disgusting and misogynistic reasons they were turned down from roles, including Amy Adams being branded ‘unsexy’, Kate Winslet dubbed a ‘fat girl’ and Tiffany Haddish called ‘ghetto’.

Actress being branded ‘unf**kable’ has also been a common reason given when being denied a role.

Now, Daily Mail reveals some of the shocking reasons Hollywood stars have been turned down.  

Kate Winslet

Kate previously revealed in an interview with Sunday Times that she dealt with harsh criticism at the start of her career.

The 50-year-old actress recalled being told she would be cast in ‘fat girl’ roles while she was a student.

‘It can be extremely negative,’ she told the outlet. ‘People are subject to scrutiny that is more than a young, vulnerable person can cope with.’

Kate, who shot to fame after playing Rose in 1997’s Titanic, says that the tides are changing now.

‘But in the film industry it is really changing,’ she noted. 

‘When I was younger my agent would get calls saying, “How’s her weight?” I kid you not. So it’s heartwarming that this has started to change.’

Tiffany Haddish

Tiffany, now 46, deliberately left her phone inside her bag in an audition room so she could find out what casting directors said about her and why she was rejected.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Tiffany said she would record on voice memos to find out information. 

‘I’d do the audition, walkout the room and leave my bag. Then I’d come back and be like, “Oh, I forgot my purse in there”,’ she said.

‘She is not as urban as I thought she would be. She’s so ghetto, I just can’t. Her boobs aren’t big enough and I really think we should just go with a white girl. 

‘This role should be changed to white’, Tiffany heard on the recordings.

Despite the disgusting things she heard, Tiffany said she would use it to ‘grow’ in the industry. 

‘I want to hear it all so I can grow. And also, so I can write it down and use it for jokes. I can use it to my advantage,’ Tiffany said. 

‘One time they were like, “She just can’t read, this wouldn’t work. She can’t read,” so then I started to practice reading my lines out loud more and stuff like that’.

Amy Adams

Amy, now 51, is renowned for her roles in Catch Me If You Can, Arrival and Enchanted.

Like many actresses, Amy was faced with a disgusting reason why she wasn’t cast a role in a movie she auditioned for.

She claims she was fired from Dr. Vegas for not being ‘sexy enough’ to play Rob Lowe’s love interest.

Rob echoed the ordeal in his book Love Life, adding that Amy wasn’t pretty in a ‘TV way’.

Amy clarified that while she wasn’t technically fired from the movie she said ‘they brought in a “really tall blonde” and I knew’. 

Sharon Stone

Sharon, now 68, opened up about her early days in film, explaining she struggled to get cast before she stripped off for Playboy in a bid to get given lead female roles. 

Then came her iconic Basic Instinct character, the seductive 1992 role she says has ‘dominated’ her life ever since.

Discussing whether the change triggered by #MeToo was noticeable to her, Sharon told the publication: ‘When I started as a model and actress, the term “f**kable” was equated with workable and camera.

‘It was a pretty misogynistic era twenty years ago. Mel Gibson, who is three years older than me, thought I was too old to star opposite him.’

Elle Fanning

Elle shockingly claimed she missed out on a movie role aged 16 because she was deemed ‘unf***able’.

The Great actress, now 27, who began her acting career aged just three, told The Hollywood Reporter’s comedy actress roundtable of the ‘disgusting’ moment she lost the role in an unspecified family film.

She said: ‘I’ve never told this story, but I was trying out for a movie. I didn’t get it. I don’t even think they ever made it, but it was a father-daughter road trip comedy.

‘I didn’t hear from my agents because they wouldn’t tell me things like this — that filtration system is really important because there’s probably a lot more damaging comments that they filtered — but this one got to me. 

‘I was 16 years old, and a person said, “Oh, she didn’t get the father-daughter road trip comedy because she’s unf***able.”‘

‘It’s so disgusting. And I can laugh at it now, like, “What a disgusting pig!”‘

The star added that she always felt ‘immensely confident’ growing up in the public eye and didn’t feel like the early fame damaged her.

She said she was ‘very protected’ as a Hollywood child star and credited her ‘amazing’ manager and agent who she has been with since she was ‘eight or nine’ for their support.

Melora Hardin

Melora once recalled ‘busting into tears’ when she was fired from Robert Zemeckis’ blockbuster Back To The Future.

When Michael J. Fox replaced Eric Stoltz in the lead role of Marty McFly, it turns out the casting decision led to a second firing.

Melora was originally cast as Marty’s girlfriend Jennifer Parker. She was replaced by Claudia Wells.

‘Back to the Future’ was a huge disappointment. I was 17, you know. I burst into tears,’ Melora told Entertainment Weekly.

‘It was very sad. There were quite a few of those that I remember, you know, things that never really got made. But that I remember being very tough.’ 

She also explained she was fired because studio executives thought she was ‘too tall’ to star opposite Michael. 

‘It was apparently the two female executives at the time that thought that it was emasculating for their lead male character to be in scenes with a woman that was taller than him. 

‘If I had done it, I’m sure it would have all gone in a different way. I wouldn’t have done The Office.

‘To be where I am, you have to have failed more than you’ve succeeded. I think people don’t realise that when they look at it from the outside – you have to really be somebody who’s comfortable with failure, and with putting yourself on the line all the time.

‘That failure doesn’t mean anything about you. You just have to fail better, and keep failing better … to be able to really weather this career choice.’

Zoë Kravitz

Zoë previously claimed she was rejected for an audition in The Dark Knight Rises because she was ‘too urban’.

The daughter of Lenny Kravitz, 37, recalled auditioning for Christopher Nolan’s movie and claimed that the reason she didn’t get the part was because of her race.

Zoë told The Observer: ‘Being a woman of colour and being an actor, and being told at that time that I wasn’t able to read because of the colour of my skin, and the word “urban” being thrown around like that, that was what was really hard about that moment,’ she said. 

‘I don’t know if it came directly from Chris Nolan. I think it was probably a casting director of some kind, or a casting director’s assistant.’

The actress revealed that her father Lenny and mother Lisa Bonet once gave her ‘the talk’ to prepare her for the industry.

‘I think they were more focused on trying to make sure I understood that despite the colour of my skin I should be able to act or dress or do whatever it is I want to do’, she said.

Reese Witherspoon

American actress Reese, 49, was once considered ‘too smart and feisty’ for a part in a film she auditioned for.

Back in 2019, the Legally Blonde star reflected on rejection and said while it was difficult at the time, shaped her into who she is now. 

The Oscar-winning star wrote on Instagram: ‘So many stories on Instagram focus on success, but sometimes it’s important to remember that rejection or failure can really be a great help in our lives.

‘When I first started as an actor, I went on an audition for a part that I wanted more than ANYTHING. 

‘This was an incredible movie with a huge male movie star as the lead. I had 3 callbacks, then a screen test and one day my agent called and said, ‘You didn’t get the part, the lead actor liked working with the other actress more’. 

‘Oh boy, did I cry. Ugly tears. For 3 whole days. But I recovered. And I got a different job. It wasn’t the same and I never watched that movie (!) but I learned so much from that experience. Over the years, I lost as many parts as I got.

‘I was always considered TOO something. Too short. Too feisty. Too energetic. I once got told I seemed too smart to play a young female character.

‘I’m not gonna lie, sometimes all the rejection would hurt my feelings, I would take it personally. I definitely cried in the shower a lot in my 20’s. What I didn’t know then was: rejection teaches you perseverance and how to get tough.

‘And you also learn… not every path is right for you. My friend @kerrywashington always says ‘Rejection is God’s protection’.

‘You are on a path that is made for YOU. Sometimes the universe is protecting you from a bad job or a toxic relationship.

‘So remember next time you fail at something or someone leaves you heartbroken…. let yourself be sad, grieve what didn’t happen for a minute but move ON. Better things are waiting for you.’

Emma Thompson

Love Actually star Emma, 66, has long championed body positivity having suffered with body dysmorphia in her teenage years and twenties.

So when a male Hollywood executive deemed her ‘not pretty enough’ to do nude scenes in a movie role – Emma had a lot to say.

The Nanny McPhee star has captured the nation with her infectious smile and warm personality for decades. 

Yet behind her smile is an actress who has faced rejection and body shaming.

Speaking about her experiences in the industry in an interview with The Times, Emma said she was repeatedly told she didn’t have the ‘right kind of body’ for nude scenes. 

‘I’ve never really been offered sex scenes. As my mother said, I’ve basically played a series of ‘good’ women. I do “cerebral,” she said. ‘And I have also never conformed to the shape or look of someone they might want to see naked.

‘And by “they,” I mean male executives. I’m too mouthy, not pretty enough, not the right kind of body. And, crikey, you are constantly told what kind of body you have,’ she added. 

Priyanka Chopra

Indian actress Priyanka, 43, is one of Bollywood’s most popular stars.

Yet when the Hollywood icon auditioned for a role in a 2017 movie, she was told she wasn’t the right fit ‘physicality’.

Confused by what the wording meant at the time, Priyanka explained in an interview with Vogue years later that she was rejected because of her race.

‘It happened last year’, she said in 2018. ‘I was out for a movie, and somebody [from the studio] called one of my agents and said, She’s the wrong – what word did they used? – “physicality.”

‘So in my defense as an actor, I’m like, “Do I need to be skinnier? Do I need to get in shape? Do I need to have abs?” Like, what does ‘wrong physicality’ mean? 

‘And then my agent broke it down for me. Like, “I think, Priy, they meant that they wanted someone who’s not brown.”

‘It affected me. No one will say that a woman is getting paid less because she’s a woman of colour, but the numbers mostly end up reflecting that.’ 

Priyanka quit her career in Bollywood following a dehumanizing experience she faced on a movie set.

‘This may have been 2002 or 2003,’ she stated in an interview with The Zoe Project.

The mother of one added, ‘I’m undercover, I’m seducing the guy – obviously that’s what girls do when they’re undercover. But I’m seducing the guy and you have to take off one piece of clothing [at a time].’

Priyanka then revealed, ‘I wanted to layer up. The filmmaker was like, ‘No, I need to see her underwear. Otherwise why is anybody coming to see this movie?”

The star explained to the outlet, ‘He didn’t say it to me. He said it to the stylist in front of me. It was such a dehumanizing moment.

‘It was a feeling of, “I’m nothing else outside of how I can be used, my art is not important, what I contribute is not important,”‘ she further expressed.

Only two days after the incident, Priyanka revealed that she had quit the film. However, at her father’s urging, the actress compensated the production from her own pocket to make up the funds that had already been spent.

She stated that the main reasoning for walking off the project was that she ‘couldn’t look at him every day,’ referencing to the director.

Despite finding hardships when first moving to America and finding her own footing in the industry, the star started to land acting roles in Hollywood, such as the hit series Quantico, which aired on ABC from 2015 through 2019.

In 2018, she tied the night with Nick Jonas, and the couple welcomed their daughter, Malti, via surrogate in January 2022. Their baby girl initially spent 100 days in the NICU, but was able to go home shortly before Mother’s Day.

Oliva Wilde

Olivia was deemed ‘too old’ to play the part of Teresa Petrillo, Leonardo DiCaprio’s character’s first wife, or the character Naomi Lapaglia in Wolf Of Wall Street.

At the time she was 32, while Leonardo was 37.  

Instead, a then 22-year-old Margot Robbie scooped the role up of Naomi. 

Speaking on The Howard Stern Show previously, Olivia, now 42, was asked if she had ever been denied a role for being too beautiful.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘The funniest thing I heard recently was I had heard for a part that I was too sophisticated. 

‘And I was like, “Oh, that sounds nice.” I like that feedback. I didn’t get the part, but I’m a very sophisticated person. 

‘And then I found out later that they actually said “old.” I want to make a translation sheet for Hollywood that’s all the feedback your agents give you and what it really means.’