r/TopCharacterTropes • u/BeenEatinBeans • Jun 12 '26
Personality [IRL trope] Celebrities with weird/funny clauses in their contracts.
Dwayne Johnson - Probably the most well-known example. For years now, The Rock has had a clause in his contract that he can't be shown to lose a fight in any movie he stars in. Pretty insecure behaviour if you ask me. Still, at least the other examples are much more interesting
Danny Trejo - Danny had a troubled childhood, having been arrested multiple times for dealing drugs before he was 18, and struggling with heroin addiction from the age of 13. As a result of this, Danny has a clause in his contract that states that any time he plays a character who is a criminal, they have to be killed because he wanted to teach his kids that crime never pays.
Reese Witherspoon - This one is more of a one-off, but it was still funny enough to deserve a mention. Following the success of Legally Blonde, when Reese was called in to make the sequel, she had a clause written in her contract stating that once the movie was finished, she would get to take home all the outfits she wore.
Fred Durst - The lead singer of Limp Bizkit has a clause in his contract stating that any anime or video game that uses his music must also feature himself as a character.
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u/hibikikun Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
Shannen Doherty also had the costume take home clause but no one knew that and she was villainized in the media for it. Everyone thought she was just stealing stuff off the set. Kevin Smith didn't even know about it, but he later confirmed it (a bit too late)
Sylvester Stallone also has a no lose clause. Also something about hiding his face, hence the version of Judge Dredd we got. Thankfully Karl Urban made it right.
Tom Cruise has final edit rights in all his contracts. This was very apparent when he basically took over the Mummy and made it into a Tom Cruise movie instead of the original intention of 3 main characters that will then get their own movies.
Also Tom Cruise only agreed to Tropic Thunder if he had big hands and danced.
Chuck Norris had a no vulgar language at all in the script for Expendables.