‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ Actor Says His Career Was ‘Ruined’ By Becoming a Meme

Charlie Wright is best known for playing Rodrick Heffley in the movie Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul and he’s opening up about how the role essentially ruined his acting career.

In a new video posted to his YouTube channel, Charlie explained how he became a viral meme because of his role as Rodrick and the response ended up hurting his career.

“Let’s just say that when the world found out I was playing Rodrick, they weren’t very happy,” he said in the video.

Charlie said that memes included messages like “Name me a bigger downgrade” and he also received death threats.

“Now, I’ll be honest, some of the memes were funny… [but] the random death threats were a little disturbing,” he said, adding that he’s still receiving them seven years later.

“Do I have any hatred or anger towards people who participated in the #NotMyRodrick thing? No, I don’t. 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,” he said.

Charlie added, “The hardest part about dealing with the hate was that I felt like I hadn’t really done anything to deserve it. Granted, the movie wasn’t great and maybe some people hated my performance, but I acted my little ass off in that movie, okay? And to have people saying that they wished I was dead just for doing my job and being in a movie was kind of crazy. You know, being a teenager at the time, and no one was really there to guide me through it or like help me, really. 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 my three years to finally let go and move on.”

Watch the full video below.