If you’re a fan of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies, you know Charlie Wright, who played Rodrick in the film franchise’s fourth installment, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul.
I’m going to be totally honest with you: The Long Haul — which was the fourth and, as of this writing, final live-action installment in the Wimpy Kid film franchise — was not a success. Critics didn’t like it, and it made $40 million worldwide off of a reported $20 million budget, which is not great by Hollywood’s standards.
To make matters worse, it sounds like the film had a pretty negative impact on Charlie’s career as well.
In a recent YouTube video titled “Life as #notmyrodrick,” Charlie revealed that the backlash to his being cast as Rodrick turned into a meme that made pursuing a career in acting much, much harder. “Let’s just say that when the world found out I was playing Rodrick, they weren’t very happy,” he said.
View this video on YouTube
Charlie Wright / Via youtube.com
Along with memes came hurtful messages and death threats, as well as the #NotMyRodrick hashtag. Charlie also revealed that he still receives death threats to this day.
“Do I have any hatred or anger towards people who participated in the #NotMyRodrick thing? No, I don’t,” he said. “I did go through a depressive episode for almost three years afterwards and it kind of ruined my acting career, but I’m still alive. I’m still here.”
Charlie also said that the most difficult part of all the hate he received for playing Rodrick was “that I felt like I hadn’t really done anything to deserve it.”
“I just had to suck it up and deal with it. I had to kind of figure it out on my own and, you know, it took me three years to finally let go and move on.”
You can watch Charlie’s entire video here.