Sam Worthington Says His 'Dad Bod' in Wrath of the Titans Caused 'Horrible Fight' with Director
Warner Bros Pictures/Kobal/Shutterstock Sam Worthington in Wrath of the Titans (2012)
Sam Worthington said his "arrogance" led to a clash with the studio and director Jonathan Liebesman on his 2012 film Wrath of the Titans.
In a new Variety cover story, Worthington, who returns as Jake Sully in James Cameron's Avatar: The Way of Water, expressed frustration with the major action movies he made after 2009's Avatar, particularly on the Clash of the Titans movies, which started with the 2010 remake.
When Worthington, now 46, returned for the 2012 sequel as Greek mythology hero Perseus, the actor decided to stop working out for the part to reflect that his character had become a single father in between movies.
"I looked at it as Perseus was half a god and half a dad, and he had decided that he didn't want the god part anymore," Worthington explained. "So I decided to develop a dad bod and that I wouldn't care what I looked like."
Worthington noted that his decision quickly proved "antithetical to what a studio wants when they pay X amount of dollars to make a movie about a chiseled hero."
"My arrogance clashed with the studio and the director's vision, and it turned into a horrible fight," he added.
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Warner Bros Pictures/Kobal/Shutterstock Sam Worthington in Clash of the Titans (2010)
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Worthington, who also opened up in the interview for the first time about his struggles with fame and drinking after Avatar's success, admitted to Variety that he should have checked in with Wrath of the Titans' director before altering his appearance.
"I could have handled things differently, instead of showing up on the first day with a big belly," the actor said.
A rep for director Liebesman did not respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.
Clash of the Titans, a remake of the 1981 film, was directed by Louis Leterrier and also starred Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton and Luke Evans. The sequel starred Rosamund Pike, Edgar Ramirez, Toby Kebbell, Bill Nighy and Lily James, plus Neeson and Fiennes.
Elsewhere in the cover story, Worthington noted that he "was boring myself with what I was doing" as he tried to fit a Hollywood action-star template on movies like Clash of the Titans without distinct backstories for his characters.
Greg Williams for Variety Sam Worthington
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Worthington told Variety he felt he could not "create a character if there's nothing there" during his post-Avatar run.
"On the Clash movies, that was the problem," he said. "You were getting new pages every day, and it's too complicated."
While Worthington acknowledged that his post-Avatar movies involved "great big spectacles," Worthington said he "should have been looking for movies that pried a little bit more into the human condition."
"I was boring myself with what I was doing," he told Variety. "And if I'm boring myself, then I'm sure as hell going to be boring an audience."
Avatar: The Way of Water is in theaters Friday.
