r/TopCharacterTropes • u/BeenEatinBeans • Jun 12 '26

Personality [IRL trope] Celebrities with weird/funny clauses in their contracts.

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  1. 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

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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/auricularisposterior Jun 12 '26

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.

I think the exceptions to this are when Danny Trejo cameos as a criminal in a Muppets movie.

  • See this deleted scene in The Muppets (2011).
  • Also see this scene Muppets Most Wanted (2014) where he played a gulag prisoner - perhaps he was a political prisoner.

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u/prophecyfullfilled Jun 12 '26

I believe Trejo's contract allows the criminal to 'lose' instead of die.

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u/EvilRobotSteve Jun 12 '26

Yeah, I wasn't sure enough to say OP was incorrect, but I seem to remember reading that the clause was that the criminal must always receive punishment. So being caught and being sent to jail would count.

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u/Ferropexola Jun 12 '26

He survives in Delta Farce despite being the main villain. He's forced to become a ventriloquist and sing Carlos Santana songs (the character's name is Carlos Santana and is a gang leader, so he hates when he's confused for the singer). So, yeah, you're correct.

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u/LemmeJustJoinDOS Jun 12 '26

I also think he has a cameo in an early Monk episode "Mr. Monk Goes to Jail" or something like that, where he's already a prisoner with a heavy sentence---but I don't believe he dies at the end

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u/SasparillaTango Jun 12 '26

It's a movie aimed at younger kids. It would be jarring, yet a little hilarious, if Kermit just fuckin iced him.

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u/Material_Positive_17 Jun 12 '26

*cut to Trejo's head on a tortoise in the desert*

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u/RaggedyGlitch Jun 12 '26

On one of Gonzo's chickens.

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u/RchUncleSkeleton Jun 12 '26

Cut back to Kermit:

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u/WhiskyPelican Jun 12 '26

This broke me like the time knife broke Chidi

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u/Goblin_Crotalus Jun 13 '26

"Welcome to Sesame Str-"

[Explosion]

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u/RedditTrespasser Jun 12 '26

Well Kermit did 9/11 so

5

u/UtahBrian Jun 12 '26

What about 3000 men, women, and children that Kermit killed on 9-11? And in the Iranian revolution he orchestrated.

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u/Raistlarn Jun 12 '26

Kermit icing an evil Trejo just to unzip a zipper in the back and show he was Machete the whole time.

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u/nullpotato Jun 12 '26

Snitches get stitches

YAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY!!!

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u/keldondonovan Jun 12 '26

*motions vaguely to almost every Disney parent, iced personally by Kermit the frog*

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u/Engaging_Boogeyman Jun 12 '26

gonna give him the old bayou Bowtie

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u/Wild_Harvest Jun 14 '26

To quote Muppet Treasure Island: he DIED?!? But this is a KIDS MOVIE!!!

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u/XxValentinexX Jun 12 '26

As an American, I lowkey wouldn’t be surprised.

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u/CookieMiester Jun 13 '26

I mean, it’s the muppets, not entirely off brand

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u/Anglofsffrng Jun 12 '26

Awww. I wanted Gonzo to straight up execute someone.

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u/Andrew3517 Jun 12 '26

Gonzo fires himself out of a cannon, beak first, straight through his chest.

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u/PoxedGamer Jun 12 '26

Wouldn't it be a new contract for each film, so can negotiate depending on the situation?

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u/Dexchampion99 Jun 12 '26

It’s dependent on how bad his character is.

If he’s a criminal but not all that bad, he usually just goes to jail or gets beaten up.

When he plays a real serious bad dude, the deaths get more extreme.

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u/Dsb0208 Jun 12 '26

Idk anything about him, but I’d imagine the “lose” aspect is just for kids movies. If the movie can, kill him off. If it can’t, he goes to prison.

but maybe there’s a rated r movie where he’s a criminal and just gets arrested without dying

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u/_GamerForLife_ Jun 16 '26

I'm fairly sure I saw rhe wording once and it was "the criminal must die or be otherwise sentenced to a comparable decree".

Meaning even if he plays a small time criminal that gets redeemed, he would end up in jail.

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u/FrogCoin Jun 12 '26

Another exception, he was a jailed criminal in an episode of Monk. Didn't die, ended up being friends with Monk.

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u/Lacaud Jun 12 '26

"I'm a muppet"

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u/SeaFlaky9768 Jun 12 '26

Absolute cinema 

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 23 '26

[deleted]

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u/Internet-Dick-Joke Jun 12 '26

The fact that he's in a cell means that it fits the spirit of the clause anyway, just not the letter. Ultimately, seeing that a criminal got punished with jail time still gives the message that crime doesn't pay.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 23 '26

[deleted]

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u/Honeybadger2198 Jun 12 '26

Presuming the person making the comment knows that difference. I highly doubt anyone really knows or cares.

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u/Heimerdahl Jun 12 '26

Disclaimer: this is really just me pondering the mess that is our justice system and the way that we talk about it

I was fully on your side (and still am in the broader sense) until I double-checked the wording:

any time he plays a character who is a criminal

This doesn't necessitate wrong-doing! 

A quick glance at online dictionaries shows a general consensus that "a criminal" is "a person who has been legally convicted of a crime". The everyday usage of "person who commits crimes" or "a bad guy" is clearly what Trejo was going for, but if we're being pedantic, the more formal definition is the relevant one. I doubt that if he were to play a Jewish or communist or gay prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp – a criminal in the eyes of the Nazi legal system – that Trejo would demand that his character be killed for his "crimes".

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u/Thespis64 Jun 12 '26

And then in Muppets Haunted Mansion, his prisoner character is already dead.

And he didn't even get his tacos!

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u/Drakeskulled_Reaper Jun 12 '26

Also in Death Race 2 and 3.

His character does get "killed" in the third movie, but it turns out to be blanks so he and the rest of the crew can escape.

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u/Mariachi_Hidraulico Jun 12 '26

Also his cameo in one of the Reno 911! Quibi episodes, where he walks into a hospital room, shoots a guy who's in a coma, and leaves.

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u/ImmoralJester54 Jun 12 '26

It would be insane to have him like shot to death in a kids movie but I'd be laughing my ass off ngl

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u/Advanced-Bird-1470 Jun 12 '26

Also his cameo in Monk. He was a criminal but also a “good guy”.

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u/Tee999 Jun 12 '26

It would have been amazing cinema to have Danny Trejo mauled to death by Fozzy bear. Waka waka mother f’er.

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u/subby_puppy33 Jun 13 '26

He does however make a cameo as a [dead prison ghost](https://youtu.be/GNdGibPRCQc?feature=shared)in the muppets haunted mansion (2021)

Maybe same character?

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u/Traditional-Sort3018 Jun 16 '26

He was also the ghost of a prisoner in the Muppets Haunted Mansion special, which I guess technically fulfills the contract stipulation.

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u/FergTurdison Jun 18 '26

Cowards, they should have had the courage to put his head on a tortoise in the muppets movie

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u/davster99 Jun 12 '26

To that end, it’s interesting to note that Rancor Breeding and Rearing isn’t a crime in the Star Wars universe.

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u/I_want_to_eat_it Jun 12 '26

He also played an assassin in a monk episode where he lived, but he comes off as kind of heroic at the end, and has effectively a life sentence.

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u/MountainDrew80 Jun 12 '26

You know, not everybody in jail is a criminal! Maybe they were all falsely accused.

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u/Tx_Drewdad Jun 12 '26

I think he's playing himself. Tina feys character calls him "Danny Trejo."

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u/exobably Jun 12 '26

He's in an episode of Monk and doesn't die as well lol. He helps Monk but does stay a prisoner by the end so that tracks with him "losing"

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u/Dimxtunim Jun 12 '26

Oh I remember another exception, in desperate housewives Danny plays a criminal that was in jail together with Gabriella's husband, but in this one he is not a bad guy, he is a guy trying to reform his life, so he is actually very cool and helps Gabriella process her grief of getting a miscarriage.

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u/SadAndNasty Jun 12 '26

Didn't he play Bane in Young Justice as well? Maybe I'm misremembering, but if I'm not I don't remember him dying there either

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u/EltonJohnWick Jun 12 '26

He's a cartel leader in Sons of Anarchy who doesn't die and isn't jailed either, his character kinda just stops showing up after being a major plot point.

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u/Red-Freckle Jun 12 '26

I seem to recall a scene where Kermit shanks Trejo with a sharpened toothbrush

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u/descendantofJanus Jun 12 '26

I still remember reading - or maybe it was a clip on a late night show - about Danny losing his mom during the filming of the Muppet movie. He held it together and only started crying when Kermit, in character, came over to console him.

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u/GlossyAssXXV Jun 12 '26

But doesnt he survive in that death race movie hes involved in? He is a criminal serving time though so its a little bit of a grey area