14 Actors Who Had To Remind Fans They're Not The Characters They Play

The Role: Tony Goldwyn was the main antagonist of the movie Ghost, Carl Bruner. He was once a good friend of the protagonist, Sam Wheat, but he turns on him and plans to rob him. As a result of Carl's actions, Sam ends up dying.

The Mixup: In an interview on The View, Tony Goldwyn shared a bizarre experience he had after starring in Ghost. He said he went to a restaurant where the waitress refused to seat him. She acted rude and told him he could sit where he wanted, but then she wouldn't bring him a menu. After finally giving him his food, she stared at him for a while before figuring out where she knew him from. Goldwyn recalled:

Then she's staring at me,…and she says, 'I'm sorry, are you an actor?' And I said, ‘yeah.’ 'You're in that movie Ghost!' and she says, 'Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I knew I hated you but I couldn't remember why.'

The Role: Giancarlo Esposito plays Gustavo “Gus” Fring in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. He's the main antagonist and a major narcotics distributor. Most fans of the show find his character terrifying because he becomes very focused on revenge, and you never know what his next move will be.

The Mixup: Even though Giancarlo Esposito is known for playing menacing characters, he seems to have a sweet, friendly disposition in real life. Yet, many people get scared when they see him because of his character. In an interview, he mentioned an instance where a woman was scared of him while waiting in line for the airplane bathroom. When she saw him, she froze and stammered, telling him he could go in front of her. Esposito kindly told her it was okay, but she remained terrified. Esposito recalled:

She would not move off the wall. She is pinned to the wall. So I go to the bathroom. I come back out, I say, 'Hey, my name is Giancarlo. I'm not Gus.' She says, ‘I-I know but you just scared me so badly.’

The Role: Starr has had a breakout star-turn on The Boys as Homelander, a superhero who carefully manages a public persona as a noble man of the people to mask a deeply sadistic streak.

The Mixup: With the growing popularity of The Boys over the last few years, Starr has become increasingly recognizable for his portrayal of a psychopathic terror, so he's taken extra steps to shave his head or grow a beard to make himself look less like Homelander when the show's not in production. Still, fans continually act shocked when he's nothing like the icy character. Starr told Rolling Stone:

People are surprised, like, ‘Oh, my God, you’re actually not like him.’ And I’m like, 'Yeah, he’s a psychopathic narcissist. So yeah, thanks. Thank you for that.'

I actually don’t have superpowers. I have a very sensitive rump.

The Role: Since Back to the Future was such a big hit, Thomas F. Wilson is well-known for playing Biff, the bully who tormented George McFly. He continues to bully George even as an adult until George's son Marty goes back in time and affects the timeline.

The Mixup: People are quick to assume that Thomas F. Wilson is a bully just like Biff, but that's not the case at all. Usually, when he talks about his role on Back to the Future, he tries to be comedic about it, such as when he sang “Biff's Question Song” and talked about how often people ask him about Michael J. Fox. However, he eventually admitted that people would bully him to prove they were tougher than Biff, even though Biff isn't real. Wilson said:

…Guys would want to put me in a headlock, or push me around a bit, or get into a little tussle with ‘that tough guy from Back To The Future, because he’s not that tough after all.’ Well, I’m not that tough after all, because I’m an actor; because it’s pretend!

The Role: Jeffrey Dean Morgan played Negan on The Walking Dead, a famous antagonist on the show. Negan killed lots of characters throughout the series, including eight significant ones. So, many people despised him for killing their favorite character.

The Mixup: Unfortunately, some of the fans who hate Negan also hate Jeffrey Dean Morgan as a result. In a Conan interview, Morgan explained that he regularly hangs out with Norman Reedus, who plays Daryl. He shared that people always go up to Reedus to tell him how much they love Daryl, but they're often rude to Morgan for being Negan. He recalled one specific event where an old woman flipped him off:

This lady, my grandma's age, just double fisted flipped me off. After being like this with Daryl (blows kisses) like “I love you, I wanna marry you, most handsome man," she looks over at me and just gives me two fingers.

The Role: In the show, Cheers, fans adored the relationship between Sam and Diane. So, they responded poorly when Kelsey Grammer's character, Frasier, entered a love triangle with Diane after she broke up with Sam at the end of season two. Frasier was a charming psychiatrist that ended having his own self-titled show after Cheers. So, it's not that people disliked the character, but they hated that he got in the way of their favorite romance.

The Mixup: According to creator Les Charles, Frasier was the “most hated character on TV” amid the love triangle with Sam and Diane. Fans became so passionate about the fictional love story that they were sometimes rude to Kelsey Grammer in real life. In one instance, a man approached Grammer and threatened him as if he was actually Frasier. Les Charles recalled:

He stopped in a bar filled with rough characters to get a beer. A big guy comes up behind him with long stringy hair and sleeves cut off, showing his tattoos. He taps Kelsey on the shoulder and Kelsey turns around and the guy says, ‘You’re that pencil-necked son of a b*tch trying to break up Sam and Diane!’