Midler Laments Film Choices, Lohan

Bette Midler says she regrets turning down lead roles in the films Sister Act and Misery and admits to watching Lindsay Lohan go off the deep end, in an interview with British newspaperMetro.

While promoting her latest film, Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, for which she provides the voice of Kitty, an Egyptian Sphynx cat, Midler reflects on her career mistakes. She says she tries to forget them, but her husband won't let her. On declining to star in the 1992 hit Sister Act, Midler says the film "was written for me, but I said, 'My fans don't want to see me in a wimple.' I don't know where I got that from. Why would I say such a thing? So Whoopi [Goldberg] did it instead and, of course, she made a fortune."

"I also didn't do Misery and Kathy Bates won an Oscar for it," Midler says. "That's not to say I would have. It was so violent and I had no relation to it. I was afraid."

Midler says she has stopped reading her press, whether good or bad, and advises young actors to do the same. "It's meant to injure and hurt and destroy. It's cruel, unsurvivable," Midler says of negative press. "I've watched some of these young people go off the deep end. You know, like Lindsay [Lohan] and Britney [Spears]. And now because of the cameras and the ubiquity of the Internet, you can't have your failures or your meltdowns in private any more."

Lohan, currently in rehab in Los Angeles after serving 13 days in jail for violating probation, was cast as Midler's daughter in the pilot for the sitcom Bette. She was replaced by actress Marina Malota for the remaining episodes of the series, which ran for one season in 2000.