Sometimes, a so-called "role of a lifetime" can be a bittersweet thing. Of course, getting the opportunity to play an iconic character seems like a guaranteed trip to stardom, but such wishes don't always come true in the way we dream.

Lon Chaney Jr. made a name for himself in horror movies, but his elation quickly turned to distress when he realized that he was in a trap of his own making.

Chaney appeared in iconic films like The Wolf Man and The Ghost of Frankenstein, both films in which the actor played a horrific monster, the source of terror throughout the film.

But despite Chaney's talent for playing terrifying creatures, he wasn't content with acting in horror movies for the rest of his career. But the genre was like quicksand, and Chaney discovered that he couldn't escape.

"I can't understand it," said Chaney during an interview with the Santa Cruz Sentinel. "Won't people ever forget I was a monster?"

Chaney frequently appeared in Universal horror films, which were generally profitable, though the actor found the later films lacking in substance.

"It got pretty ridiculous after a while," said Chaney. "They would figure out some tricky way to kill me in one film, then have to think of something even more elaborate to bring me back to life in the next."

Chaney was finally able to break free of his own personal horror movie in the 1950s, when he appeared in films like High Noon and The Defiant Ones, effectively ending his bad luck.