15 Celebrities Who, for Some Reason, Were Cut From a Movie

Sometimes, in Hollywood, it doesn’t matter how great of an actor you are, you can always get cut out of a film. Making a movie is a very challenging process. It involves putting together the work of many creative people and the results can be very surprising. That’s why it can happen that when editing the movie after the shooting, some scenes have to be cut out. Of course, this is a common thing, but every now and then actors have noticed that not only are some of the scenes missing that they appeared in, but that all of them have completely disappeared from the movie! And we’re not talking about just the extras here... Actors like Andy García, Rachel Weisz, or Paul Rudd have been left completely out of films too.

So without further ado, Bright Side wants to introduce you to 15 celebrities whose characters disappeared from some of your favorite movies.

1. Shailene Woodley

Shailene Woodley is a very versatile actress who is best known for her leading roles in The Divergent Series franchise and for appearing in the film The Fault in Our Stars. In 2014, when both films were released, Woodley also played a role that could have possibly opened a new chapter in her career: superhero movies. She was chosen to bring Peter Parker’s second love interest, Mary Jane Watson, to life in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. But during the editing and postproduction stages, Marc Webb, the film’s director, decided to cut all of Woodley’s scenes. In his opinion, the scenes were a distraction from the relationship that really makes the plot tick: Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy, played by Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone respectively.

And while there was a vague agreement for Woodley to formally join the franchise in the third installment, this never happened and her role as the spidey hero’s love partner was completely dismissed. Too bad! In any case, Woodley declared that she was not holding any grudge for it.

2. Terence Stamp

Terence Stamp, the immortal General Zod of Christopher Reeve’s Superman saga, has had a very successful career, and he was so close to adding Mr. and Mrs. Smith to his CV. Stamp was supposed to share the stage with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, but as it turns out, he wasn’t the only one cut out of the final version of the movie. Originally, at the end of the script, both Jolie’s and Pitt’s characters were supposed to work together to face the true villains. These were meant to be played by Stamp and Jacqueline Bisset. But eventually, the team decided to change this ending and their roles completely disappeared.

3. Andy García

Andy García came very close to getting a somewhat important role in the film Dangerous Minds, released in 1995. His character was supposed to be Michelle Pfeiffer’s crush. He even went so far as to act in some of the planned scenes. However, by the time the final cut was released, his character had simply disappeared.

4. Jessica Chastain

The Death and Life of John F. Donovan is one of young director Xavier Dolan’s most controversial films. In addition to receiving mixed reviews, this film caused a lot of hype when the scenes of actress Jessica Chastain, who was at the height of her fame at the time, were completely cut out. According to the director, Chastain’s participation simply didn’t match with the film’s narrative.

5. Rachel Weisz

Rachel Weisz is, without a doubt, an amazing actress. The Oscar winner, however, also had to experience having to be cut out of a film. Weisz worked for 3 months on director Terrence Malick’s film To the Wonder, only to find that the director decided to completely cut her character out of the film after the editing stage. Weisz is far from being the only actor who has seen their performance for Malick’s films disappear. Many actors and actresses have been known to have been cut out of Malick’s final edits, including big shots like Viggo Mortensen, Mickey Rourke, and even Christian Bale.

6. Sienna Miller

In the words of Black Mass’ director, actress Sienna Miller delivered an extraordinary performance for his movie. But not even that spared her from being taken out of the final cut, according to him, for narrative reasons. He felt that Miller’s character didn’t really add much to the plot. This remains a very peculiar move, mainly because she played the part of Johnny Depp’s partner, who was actually the main character... The movie is based on a book, which in turn is based on real-life events. And in real life, Miller’s character helped the protagonist to get away and kept him from being captured for about 16 years.

7. Sterling K. Brown

Split turned out to be a great hit, and for many, a perfect example of just how talented M. Night Shyamalan can be, despite his many previous box-office flops. The original film was about 3 hours long, which the director later had to cut down to 2. That meant that some of the subplots had to be cut, of course. Among them, there was a scene with a doctor who gave more information about the protagonist’s syndrome. This part, which ended up being completely cut out of the film, was played by Sterling K. Brown before he rose to fame for his performance in American Crime Story: All Against O. J. Simpson and People Like Us.

8. Paul Rudd

Paul Rudd is probably known as one of the most charismatic actors in Hollywood today. However, regardless of the fact that the movie’s director claims that Rudd’s appearance in Bridesmaids is one of the funniest scenes he has ever seen, his role was eventually cut out from the final version of the movie. Rudd played a man with whom the protagonist went on a blind date, and who ends up being a sociopath. The reasons behind the director’s choice were once again, issues with the length of the film. Rudd’s part wasn’t the only one cut out. All of the blind date scenes that the protagonist took part in were left out as well.

9. Jena Malone

When it was first announced that Jena Malone, the actress with whom director Zack Snyder had already worked with in Sucker Punch, would take part in Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, there was an impressive amount of speculation about what kind of character she would play. It was even suggested that she could bring Batgirl to the big screen or maybe a sort of female version of Robin. However, because the director had to limit the length of the film, the scenes in which the actress appeared eventually had to be cut.

Sometime later, with the film’s release for the small screen, it was discovered that Malone only had a minor role. She played a forensic examiner supporting Lois Lane in her investigation.

10. James Gandolfini

James Gandolfini is best known for his performance in HBO’s modern classic The Sopranos. This very same actor was supposed to play Sandra’s Bullock lover in the movie Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. However, the production team felt it was inappropriate for her character to have an affair, especially considering that her husband had recently died in a rather tragic way. For that reason, Gandolfini’s appearance was simply cut out, even though he had already shot most of his scenes.

11. Matt Smith

Matt Smith became internationally known for his performance as the eleventh Doctor in the legendary Doctor Who series. A few years ago, the actor had the opportunity to play a young version of Colin Farrell in the film In Bruges. However, because the movie’s director felt that the scene that he was supposed to take part in was too violent, he ended up being completely cut from the film. Still, the scene made it into the extra footage included in the small screen version of the movie and is pretty popular among the fans of the British science fiction series.

12. Ethan Hawke

Here’s another example of an actor who could have played Colin Farrell’s character. While Matt Smith was supposed to play a younger version of him, Ethan Hawke had secured a role in the remake of Total Recall, as the real version of the main character, before he got a new face. So Hawke filmed a number of scenes, but the director decided to not include them to avoid confusion. This was because the romantic relationship that the character develops with Jessica Biel’s character would have to be built in a credible way, with 2 different actors and getting that kind of chemistry right on stage is not an easy thing to do. That said, Hawke’s scenes do appear in extended versions of the film.

13. La Toya Jackson

La Toya Jackson had a small role in Sacha Baron Cohen’s comedy Brüno. Brüno, the main character, was supposed to be looking all over the actress’s phone for the phone number of her famous brother, Michael Jackson. Once he found it and said it out loud in front of the camera, La Toya was supposed to get angry and quit the interview with Brüno. In the end, the scene was cut at the last minute, out of respect for the memory of the singer, who died only a few days before the movie premiered.

14. Harvey Keitel

Harvey Keitel was about to be part of what is known today as the last film of one of the best directors in the history of cinema. The actor had a role in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. However, the overwhelmingly long shooting schedule meant that he had major overlaps with other projects. Keitel eventually had to drop out of the film. His role would then later be taken over by Sydney Pollack.

15. Viggo Mortensen

After playing Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings saga, Viggo Mortensen became an internationally renowned actor. However, before having the successful career he has managed to build up so far, the actor had to face some of the most bitter challenges in the industry. One of these was during his time working on Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo. There, he had a role that he never really understood. It seems that Woody Allen simply asked him to improvise all of his part. As if that wasn’t enough, the worst part happened when he took his family to finally watch the movie. It turns out that it wasn’t until they watched the movie that they all noticed Viggo Mortensen’s scenes were completely left out. And not only that, but his name wasn’t even mentioned in the credits. Fortunately, he got over that pretty quickly and continued with a career that led him to becoming a very successful actor.

Would you have liked to see any of these actors in their respective films? Do you know of any other cases where an actor has been cut out of a film? Let us know in the comments!