12 Actors Who Spoiled Their Own Character's Death

You know what sucks? Watching a movie or TV show when you already know a major plot point that was supposed to be a secret. You can blame a fair number of day-ruining reveals on actors who spoiled their character deaths, but then, can you really blame the actor? Between talk shows, press tours, and social media, it's a shock any movie or show manages to keep a lid on spoilers. Especially when every interviewer and question seem intent on peeling away any and all mystery that an upcoming release may hold. Perhaps the real surprise is that there aren't more actors who ruined their character's death.

On top of the press blitzes, you've got the Sherlock Holmes-level of sleuthing that occurs online to analyze the slightest of details in interviews, trailers, publicity stills, and set photos no one was supposed to see before a movie came out. To be fair, most actors who spoil death scenes aren't doing so by revealing clues some obsessive blogger decodes; they just kind of spill the beans without really being prompted. But it's gotta be tiring to do multiple interviews every day for weeks or months, while traveling around the world. Something's bound to slip out at some point. Actors who spoiled their deaths need empathy more than ire. 

Hollywood legend Harrison Ford has played one of the most totemic characters in cinema since 1977 (Han Solo, in case you were wondering). For some time, he's been vocal about his desire to kill Han Solo in a manner that would provide a fitting send off.

In 2015, Ford appeared, along with JJ Abrams, on Conan to promote The Force Awakens. He reiterated his desire to kill the character in a meaningful way that would lend gravitas to his journey, and mentioned having harbored this wish since Return of the Jedi. Conan offered perhaps even more damning spoilers by leading into questions about Ford's wish by saying "Harrison, you've tried for years to get the character of Han Solo killed. You went out of your way to kill Han Solo."

Ian McShane is an HBO veteran, having played classic foul-mouthed antihero Al Swearengen in Deadwood. Fans of the charismatic actor were psyched to hear he would be appearing in Season 6 of Game of Thrones. As with most thing GoT, who he was playing and what he'd be doing were kept secret.

That is, until McShane stated in an interview he'd bring back a character thought dead, adding, "I wasn't sure whether I could commit, but then they said it would be only one episode, so I said 'So that means I must die at the end of it. Great, I'm in.'"

In response to the backlash of his disregard for the usually very secretive and spoiler-fearing show, McShane said, "I was accused of giving the plot away, but I just think get a f*cking life! It's only tits and dragons." 

The cliffhanger of The Walking Dead's Season 6 finale was an infamous point of contention set to be answered in the Season 7 premiere. Who Negan's victim would be was a well-guarded secret. At least until Michael Cudlitz, who played Abraham, let slip on Twitter that his time on the show was coming to an end. Interestingly, the wording of his tweet led many to assume it was another cast member who would be biting the dust. Before too much damage was done, he changed the tweet, but it's surprising a bigger deal wasn't made of the flub.

Actress Mischa Barton had been a major part of The OC for three seasons, resulting in a quick rise through Hollywood. Much to fans' disappointment, her character was killed in a car accident in the Season 3 finale. It would've been a shocking moment, had she not spilled the beans to Access Hollywood before the episode aired.

“It’s true, it’s true. My character dies," she said. "My character has been through so, so much and there's really nothing more left for her to do." 

Samuel L Jackson is one of the most successful actors of all time. Between the Marvel franchise and the Star Wars prequels, the man rakes in dough. When Jackson was asked, prior to Episode III's release, what fate awaited his character, he replied "Dying!" before adding that he made George Lucas promise his character wouldn't go out "like some bitch." Never change, Sam, never change.

In Jackson's defense, he didn't see his reveal as a spoiler. As Jackson explained, “Well, when number four starts there are only, what, four Jedi left. There’s Luke, Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Darth Vader, is it? Everybody else has been assassinated, killed, wiped out, something."

I Am Legend is one in a long line of film adaptations of a novel of the same name, released in 1954. Given the two high-profile direct film adaptations and many iterations on the same theme (28 Days Later, for example), Will Smith apparently assumed everyone already knew the fate of his character. That's the only reasonable explanation for why the Fresh Prince gave away the ending of the film at a press conference in Tokyo, resulting in the film's producer and co-screenwriter Akiva Goldsman pleading, "Don't give away the ending!"

Not that it mattered. The film made nearly $600 million worldwide anyway.

This is an interesting example of how spoiling a character's death, or at the very least hinting HARD at it, can actually improve a film by increasing audience anticipation and creating a narrative of completeness and closure. Hugh Jackman's 17-year tenure as Wolverine came to an end with Logan.  Since ol' Wolvie barely ages, it became clear during Jackman's press tour for the film the only way for the actor to walk away would be to kill the character.

After months of discussing the finality of Logan without explicitly spoiling anything, Jackman revealed Wolverine's fate in an interview with Entertainment Weekly conducted before the film's release and published a day after it arrive in theaters: “As soon as I saw the script, I got it. Logan is someone who is most scared of intimacy, and so he wants to be alone and do things for himself. The idea that, in the end, he must give his life to save someone else… I thought that was really powerful.”

An indirect spoiling, but a big one nonetheless. Sonequa Martin-Green's character Sasha was a major player on The Walking Dead. Prior to the Season 7 finale, many were rushing to figure out who would be the next major victim of the fatal series. That mystery was quickly answered when Green was cast in CBS's Star Trek: Discovery. Naturally, fans were quick to piece information together. When Sasha's sudden death finally arrived in the Season 7 finale, after the character had spent 5 seasons rising through the ranks, it wasn't met with the shock AMC may have been hoping for.

Before Season 6 began, Finn Jones, a Game of Thrones cast member since Season 1, revealed he would be playing the titular character of Netflix's Iron Fist. The casting news made it clear ol' Loras Tyrell wouldn't make it past the Season 6 finale, since playing the lead in a Marvel show is a tremendous commitment, given the appearances it requires in related Marvel shows. Poor guy got roasted by Cersei, then by critics for his performance in Iron Fist. 

Disney's acquisition of Star Wars means you're in for a lifetime spent in a galaxy far, far away. The anticipation for new films was seen clearly with The Force Awakens in 2015. As the release of Rogue One, the first standalone Star Wars story, loomed in 2016, many were curious as to just how things would connect; would these characters reappear in other films, as many Marvel characters do (Disney does, after all, own both universes)?

That mystery was answered before audiences even stepped into theaters to see the film. when actor Jiang Wen, who played Baze Malbus, gave away that Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen) wouldn't survive. This reveal led many to conclude that Rogue One's band of rebels wouldn't be back. Wen directly spoiled the death of another character and, in doing so, inadvertently revealed what would have been an otherwise shocking climax in which everybody gets killed.