13 Actors Who Got Cut Or Recast From Films But Weren't Ever Told About It

Imagine finding out your role was recast during a sequel announcement

Kylin

• Published in Film & TV
• May 29, 2022

Once an actor is cast for a role in a movie, they have a lot to do aside from learning their lines. There are the obvious things like costume fittings, makeup, rehearsals, being on set, and filming.

But there’s more to it besides the actual filming part. Actors have to prepare for and attend press junkets to promote the film, and then also attend the film premiere itself.

If the movie seems like it will be a hit, or if it’s part of an already planned multi-movie series, there’s the added bit of stress and aspirations of appearing in a sequel. Basically, an actor does a LOT of work for a single role.

But sometimes, in spite of all the work put into the part by the actor, their screen time gets cut significantly in post-production, or even cut completely. Or in the instance of a sequel, their role is recast.

One would think that there would be someone involved with the film production that would pass along this sort of information to the actor's management, if not the actor themself. However, that’s not always the case.

We’ve collected 13 different stories about actors whose roles were either dramatically reduced, cut completely, or recast without their knowledge. Keep scrolling to read more.

1. Kimberly J. Brown

She played Marnie Piper in the Disney Channel Halloweentown series.

Halloweentown, Halloweentown II: Kalabar's Revenge, and Halloweentown High.

However, in Return to Halloweentown, Sara Paxton played Marnie.

Brown shared in a 2013 YouTube video that she was "not really sure" why she was recast, dismissing rumors that she didn't return due to scheduling conflicts. "I was available and ready to do it and had talked to them about possibly doing it, but Disney decided to go in a different direction," she said.

Sara Paxton

Paxton told Hollywood.com that she didn't know why the role was recast either. "They asked me if I was interested in playing Marnie, and I said I was. It sounded like a lot of fun," she said.

2. Harry Holland

Tom Holland's little brother was cast to play a robber that gets caught by Spider-Man in Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Harry had told Tom to "suck it up" when he complained about filming upside down, so Tom asked the stunt coordinator to "make it so he's upside-down."

Tom found out that the scene was cut and didn't tell him

He revealed on The Graham Norton Show that learned the scene was cut when he got to watch a cut of the movie before Harry did.

Tom said, "[It's] the icing on the cake...I don't think he actually knows this."

3. Emma Fuhrmann

She played Cassie Lang after the five-year time-jump in Avengers: Endgame

She found out her role was recast during Disney's Investor Day announcements

Along with the rest of the Internet, Furhman learned that Kathryn Newton would be playing Cassie in the upcoming film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Ouch.

She took to Twitter to express her gratitude for the support from her fans. "I was as sad as you all were to hear the news Thursday. I can only hope that this means there is something else for me in the future of the MCU."

She continued, in a following Tweet: "I will always be grateful to have been a part of the MCU [and] the biggest movie of all time."

4. Robert Pattinson

In 2004, Pattinson was cast in his first movie role

He played the adult version of Rawdon Crawley in Vanity Fair.

At the screening he found out all his scenes were cut.

"I’m sitting there going, ‘Ummm . . . really?’ No one had told me that I had been cut out." He told Vanity Fair magazine. Apparently, the casting director felt bad enough about not mentioning to him that his scenes were cut that she set him up for an audition for another movie she was working on: Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

5. Mickey Rourke

He played Whiplash in Iron Man 2

He put in a lot of work with the writers and director to try to add some complexity and depth to his character, but "most of the performance ended up [on] the floor."

"Unfortunately, the [people] at Marvel just wanted a one-dimensional bad guy,"

"If they want to make mindless comic book movies, then I don’t want to be a part of that. I don’t want to have to care so much and work so hard, and then fight them for intelligent reasoning," he told Crave Online.

6. Terry Crews

Crews was cast as Captain Jericho in Terminator Salvation

Originally, he played Lieutenant Barnes's brother, who was part of John Connor's resistance army, as they raided Skynet.

All of his scenes were cut in post-production

Except for one shot where his character is already dead.

He didn't know his character was essentially cut until the first time watching the finished film

7. Peter Serafinowicz

Serafinowicz voiced Darth Maul in Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.

And he went on to reprise his role in Solo: A Star Wars Story.

He found out about the premiere the day after on Twitter

They never told him or invited him to the premiere.

Later he was informed via email that he was recast.

He was replaced by Sam Witwer, who voiced Darth Maul in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Lego Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out, and Star Wars Rebels.

8. Jack Whitehall

Whitehall voiced Gothi the troll priest in Frozen.

While on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, he shared that he only had one line: "I trollfully pronounce you man and wife."

It was when he went to see the movie in theaters that he discovered his line was cut.

Right before Gothi was supposed to deliver his line, the scene cut away to Elsa.

At least he got a good story out of it

After the movie, he called his agent and they apologized for failing to mention that Disney did call to say his part was reduced to a "non-speaking role." In spite of it all, Whitehall took advantage of the absurdity and made the story a part of his stand-up routine.

You can watch his bit about it here

9. Eva Mendes

Mendes played Trish in Exit Wounds.

While at a screening for the film, Mendes noticed something was right about her character. It wasn't her voice.

Afterwards, she confronted the producers about her voice being dubbed

They told her that they did so because, in their opinion, she "didn’t sound intelligent enough."

10. Sam Benjamin

Benjamin had a significant role as a military policeman in Justice League.

Benjamin and director Zack Snyder worked on "a 20-30 minute story" for his character until Joss Whedon took over as director.

"That whole arc [he] was in was completely gone."

"The story just kind of skipped, and I think some people who are really tuned in to Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon's work would probably watch the film and go, 'Oh that's where Snyder would have done this,'" Sam told Flashback Filmmaking.

Benjamin's role was restored in Zack Snyder's Justice League.

11. Timothée Chalamet

Chalamet played Tom in Interstellar

At the screening he discovered his role was a lot smaller than he expected

He was so disappointed that he "wept for an hour." He told Variety that he felt like a "fraud" because he "really had no career at this point."

12. David Prowse

Prowse played the body of Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy.

He naturally assumed that he was going to provide the character's voice, too. But apparently, his voice wasn't good enough to portray Vader, as he was nicknamed "Darth Farmer".

George Lucas cast James Earl Jones to dub Darth Vader's lines

Prowse stopped learning his lines in retaliation. He improvised all his lines while filming The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, forcing his costars to react as if he'd said the correct line.

Bob Anderson, the movie's fight scene choreographer, took over the Darth Vader role for several fight scenes. And in Return of the Jedi, Sebastian Shaw replaced Prowse as Darth Vader's ghost.

For the 2004 DVD release, Sebastian was replaced with Hayden Christensen who was edited in.

13. Adrien Brody

Brody played Corporal Geoffrey Fife in The Thin Red Line

Initially, his role was supposed to be one of the main characters. So in order to prepare for the role, he did boot camp and then spent six months filming in the Australian outback.

After all that, he discovered upon returning to the U.S. that his role was greatly reduced

"It was extremely unpleasant because I'd already begun the press for a film that I wasn't really in," he told the Independent. "[Writer/director Terrence Malick] obviously changed the entire concept of the film. I had never experienced anything like that."

Imagine finding out that your role was completely cut while at the movie premiere, or that it was recast during a sequel announcement. What a gut punch that must be.

Do you know of any stories where an actor didn’t find out their role was changed or dropped until much later? Let us know who we might’ve missed in the comments section below.

And don’t forget to share this with your fellow movie buffs!

Kylin