Famous Actors That Were Cut From Blockbuster Movies

After these actors shot their scenes in these popular films, they ended up getting cut out of the finished product! Some were replaced by other actors and had to endure a huge blow to their egos! Find out who got the boot.

Eric Stoltz was the original Marty McFly in Back to the Future! Unfortunately for Stoltz, when director Robert Zemeckis decided he wasn’t the right fit, Stolz was fired. His scenes were cut and reshot with Michael J. Fox instead.

Sarah Jessica Parker was supposed to play feminist icon Gloria Steinem in Lovelace, a film about the ‘adult’ star Linda Boreman, aka Linda Lovelace. Sadly, Parker’s part ended up not making the cut. Originally, the directors planned for the movie to showcase Linda Lovelace’s storyline all the way through her life in 1984. At the last minute, they decided to cut the film’s storyline to 1980. Unfortunately, Lovelace and Steinem did not team up against the porn industry until 1984, so SJP’s part was taken out completely.

Andy Garcia messed up his chance to play Michelle Pfeiffer’s love interest in Dangerous Minds when he told the film’s director that Pfeiffer’s character did not need one.He told BlogTalkRadio “I read the script and said, ‘You don’t really need one… but I’m there for you if you think you need me.” After he filmed a couple scenes with Pfeiffer, it was concluded that Garcia’s role was unnecessary in the storyline. Lucky for Garcia, he still got paid for his work!

Uma Thurman was supposed to play the mother of Blake Lively’s character in the 2012 Oliver Stone drama Savages but her scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. Thurman was one of the biggest names in the cast but in order to cut down everything the book included, Stone had to do a lot of editing. As a result, Thurman’s character was eventually eliminated from the film. Her character’s removal may not have been the best move considering the film received very mixed reviews.

Ang Lee, the director of Life of Pi, decided to cut Tobey Maguire from his film because the actor was “too famous” for the role and would not fit in with the rest of the cast. Maguire seemed to handle the news pretty well and even told Indie Wire, “I fully support Ang’s decision to go a different direction for this role in ‘Life of Pi.’ Ang shared a lot of the film with me, and what I saw was absolutely beautiful.”

Jena Malone’s entire role got cut from Batman v Superman when director Zack Snyder realized he needed to cut a chunk out of his already long two and a half hour superhero film. Unfortunately, only the people who purchase the extended, R-rated director’s cut version on DVD will find out what part Malone was supposed to play. The director said she was not Batgirl or Robin, so that narrows it down a little bit.

The Big Chill was about to be Kevin Costner’s big break until he was cut from all of his scenes. At the time the film was made, Costner was relatively unknown, so getting cut from the movie was a big let down. Originally, the actor was meant to play the film’s dead character, Alex. After Costner filmed all of his scenes as Alex, the director ended up making major cuts and Costner’s part never made it into the final version.

Years ago in 2004, Amy Poehler landed a spot in the first Anchorman but all of her parts ended up on the cutting room floor. In an interview with Vulture, she remembered, “I got cut out of the first Anchorman. I was a young gal, hadn’t even got my teeth fixed, and I played a bank teller. Even back then, I was like, ‘This movie is so long, I’m never going to make it in this’.” Fortunately for Poehler, she made it into the second Anchorman.

Way before Sarah Michelle Gellar’s big break with Buffy the Vampire in the late 90s, she was still struggling to land lead roles. In 1988, Gellar thought she was going to make it in Hollywood after she was cast in the popular 1988 comedy Funny Farm, starring Chevy Chase and Madolyn Smith. Unluckily, all of Gellar’s scenes were cut from the final draft. Obviously, that one setback did not stop her from succeeding in the entertainment business.

At first, the late James Gandolfini’s name was used on posters and trailers for the marketing of the film Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. In the film, the actor was meant to play Sandra Bullock’s love interest who she meets at a 9/11 victims’ support group. However, according to the Los Angeles Times, after a test audience did not feel the connection between Gandolfini and Bullock, The Sopranos star was taken out of all the footage.

Robert Pattinson was supposed to play Reese Witherspoon’s son in the 2004 drama, Vanity Fair, but all of the Twilight star’s scenes were cut out in the final product. Maybe the director realized that the mother/son combo didn’t make much sense considering Pattinson is only ten years younger than Witherspoon! The only thing more bizarre than their age difference as mother and son is that Pattinson and Witherspoon played each other’s lovers seven years later in Water for Elephants.

Steven Tyler’s gorgeous and talented daughter Liv spent some time on set for Woody Allen’s film Everyone Says I Love You, but she ended up having nothing to show for it. The actress was supposed to play Lucas Haas’s love interest. Tyler told The Times of London, “[Allen] wrote me a letter… saying that he was really sorry and it was nice to work with me and we would work again. But he’s never asked me again.”

Chris Cooper has won audiences over again and again with his incredible performances in American Beauty, The Bourne Identity, and Capote. No one can forget Cooper’s Academy Award-winning performance in Adaptation, so it is surprising that any director would choose to cut him from a film. Well, even the best actors are not immune to the cutting room floor. The actorfilmed the opening and closing scene for The Ring, but the scenes were never seen.

In 2015, Sienna Miller was supposed to star in the Black Mass, a film about Whitey Bulge, a Boston mob boss played by Johnny Depp. Originally in Black Mass, Sienna Miller was going to play the mob boss’s girlfriend, Catherine Greig. Unfortunately, after Miller filmed all her scenes with Depp, the director of the film, Scott Cooper decided to narrow the storyline and ended up completely cutting her role from the film. At least you can still see her in the deleted scenes on the DVD.

For years, we all loved watching James Van Der Beek grow up on the set of Dawson’s Creek, but in 2001, we were ready to see the actor make the move from television to film. Van Der Beek was supposed to star in the film Storytelling as a gay football player. At the last minute, the director decided to cut the actor’s scenes. Since then, the actor has been in a few other films like The Rules of Attraction and Labor Day. 

Over the years, you may have seen Michelle Monaghan in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Mission Impossible, and Made of Honor. The actress was also cast in the George Clooney film Syriana but somehow her part never made it into the final product. This was not the first time her footage was left on the cutting room floor. Monaghan knows the feeling of being cut a little too well. She was also edited out of the Richard Gere film Unfaithful and the horror film Constantine.

Mickey Rourke was not too happy when he found out his scenes were eliminated from The Thin Red Line. Even seven years later, Rourke was still bitter about the cut. He told Contact Music, “It was some of the best work I ever did. There were political reasons I was out of the movie. That really upset me.” He said his scenes were cut “just because of the temperature of me and the industry.”

Here’s some fun trivia about Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the famous set that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt fell in love on. Originally, Angela Bassett played the role of Brad Pitt’s boss in the film. Unfortunately, her scenes ended up being removed before they saw the light of day. Instead, the editors decided to leave Bassett’s voice in the final cut, so the audience can still hear Bassett instructing Mr. Smith for his next assignment.

Mick Jagger was supposed to be one of the main characters in the 1982 drama Fitzcarraldo but his scenes were completely eliminated from the film when production had to stop and start over from the beginning. Jagger was not the only man cut out of the final product! Jason Robards was also originally cast in Fitzcarraldo. Sadly for Jagger and Robards, the film went on to be very successful and even won a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.

Michael Jackson’s death in 2009 had a domino effect on many areas of the entertainment industry, even on Sasha Baron Cohen’s film Bruno. Out of respect for the late Michael Jackson who passed away right before the movie’s release, the director decided to remove a scene in Bruno that made a couple of jokes about the King of Pop. Consequently, Latoya Jackson was completely removed from the film. The cut scenes feature Bruno interviewingLaToya in an LA apartment.

It turns out that Ghostface Killah, one of the members of Wu-Tang Clan, is a huge comic book fan. Sometimes, the rapper even goes by his alter ego “Iron Man.” Ghostface Killah’s adoration for the character earned him a cameo in the film Iron Man. The scene with the rapper was meant to fill a plot hole and give a reason for Tony Stark’s work in the Middle East. Sadly, the scene was not executed well enough for the final work and was eventually taken out.

You probably recognize Michael Biehn from his work in science fiction movies like The Terminator as Sergent Kyle Reese and Aliens as Corporal Dwayne Nicks.  When it was time to create Terminator 2, Biehn was recruited again to reprise his role as Sergent in a dream sequence. For some reason in the eleventh hour, Biehn’s scene was removed from Terminator 2. However, if you are a huge fan of Biehn’s work, you can still check out his deleted scene in the director’s cut.

Originally, Paul Rudd was meant to be in a scene in Bridesmaids with Kristen Wiig’s character Annie as she tries to get back into dating. She goes on a date with Dave, Rudd’s character and the date does not go well. Wiig told Entertainment Weekly, “we had so much fun the days he was there and [cutting him] was so incredibly painful. Our first cut was so long. It’s the hardest thing to have to cut stuff.”

It seems that director Terrence Malick has a habit of cutting out large portions of footage at the end. Rachel Weisz worked for three months shooting her part in the film To The Wonder just for it to be completely edited out at the end. The actress told The Guardian, “It seems that my part has been cut. So I had the experience of working with him but I will not have the pleasure of seeing my work.”

Most people probably know Jamie Dornan from his mesmerizing role as Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades films with actress Dakota Johnson.  The same year Fifty Shades of Grey came out, Dornan was also supposed to star as Bradley Cooper’s rival in the movie Burnt. After Dornan’s scenes were taken out, a movie spokesperson said, “Jamie’s role was a small cameo that was part of a back story and following the editing process is no longer part of the film.”

When actress Shailene Woodley was cast as Mary Jane Watson in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the film garnered a lot of media attention. After filming several scenes, her part was completely taken out. Apparently, the decision to cut Woodley was not an easy one. The director told The Times, “Shailene is a brilliant actress, and she did a great couple days of work. But it was very difficult to introduce someone as a competing love interest.”

When Wes Craven released Cursed, his first horror film in five years, horror fans everywhere were screaming with joy! Craven had not released a film since Scream 3 in 2000. Unfortunately, because the film’s production was delayed for over a year, Mandy Moore was unable to finish filming her role in the horror flick. Moore was not the only actor to miss out on the much-anticipated film. Skeet Ulrich, Heather Langenkamp, and Corey Feldman were also replaced in Cursed.

Stanley Kubrick’s 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for having the longest ever continuous movie shoot. According to the record book, the production of Eyes Wide Shut was done in 400 consecutive days. This long style of shooting did not fare well for some actors. Jennifer Jason Leigh was originally cast as Marion Nathanson, one of the supporting actors, but after Kubrick decided to reshoot all of her scenes, the actress had to drop out of production.

The director of Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick, was known for reshooting many scenes in long and great detail which did not work well for actor Harvey Keitel. Keitel was supposed to play Victor Ziegler in Eyes Wide Shut, but because there were so many scheduling conflicts, the director, Stanley Kubrick decided to recast Keitel’s part. Sadly, Kubrick never got to see the success of his long and hard work. He passed away four days after showing his final cut to Warner Bros.

After Sterling K. Brown filmed his scenes in M. Night Shyamalan’s 2016 horror film Split, his footage never saw the light of day. Some of the movies deleted scenes revealed the actor played Dr. Fletcher’s neighbor, Professor Shaw. Clearly, Brown did not need Split on his resume, as he has gone on to see great success on television as Randall Pearson on This Is Us and as Christopher Darden on The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story.

Initially, actress Katharine Towne was cast as Reese Witherspoon’s personal assistant named Erin. Her character was supposed to have a huge crush on Witherspoon’s fiance who was played by Patrick Dempsey. Unfortunately for Towne, the test screening audience did not respond well to her character’s crush on Dempsey. As a result, the actress got the ax. Director Andy Tennant showed some remorse for his decision to eliminate Towne’s role because he still included her scenes in the DVD release.

Many fans may recognize Orlando Jones as one of the cast members on MADtv and he was the 7 Up spokesman for three years. In 1999, Jones scored a role in the popular drama Magnolia, starring Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and William H. Macy. Even though Jones performance was mesmerizing, the film was a little too long and Jones ended up on the chopping block. The actor told the Sunday Express,” Paul called me and said: “You’re great in the movie but we’re four hours.”

Janeane Garofalo, known for her roles in Wet Hot American Summer, Reality Bites, and Saturday Night Live, was cast in Richard Kelly’s film Southland Tales in 2006. Even though her performance as Teena MacArthur did not make it to the final version of the film, it seems that Garofalo did not miss out on much. The film was not seen by many people. It was poorly received and only released in the United States and Canada in 63 theaters!

Before Jon Stewart made it to the big leagues as the host of The Daily Show, he was cast as Goldie Hawn’s boy toy in The First Wives Club. His performance only stayed in the previews, and Hawn explained the reason why to USA Today. She said, “As much as I love Jon, before it was even cast I said to Scott [Rudin, the film’s producer], ‘Let’s get rid of this. It’s not pertinent to the plot. You are going to cut this.'”

Even though Lara Flynn Boyle’s scene was ultimately cut from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the actress credits the film for igniting her passion for acting. She was only 16 years old at the time the movie was made. Boyle went on to star in The Practice, Wayne’s World, Happiness, and Men in Black II. Despite the deletion of her small part in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, her role still earned Boyle a SAG card.

In 2002, before Adrien Brody won an Oscar for Best Actor for The Pianist, he was edited out of the Terrence Malick film, The Thin Red Line. Brody thought it would be his big break. He told Indie Wire,  “I was so focused and professional, I gave everything to it, and then to not receive everything…in terms of witnessing my own work. It was extremely unpleasant because I’d already begun the press for a film that I wasn’t really in.”

Before becoming the star of Grey’s Anatomy, Ellen Pompeo acted as Jim Carrey’s one-night-stand in Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. Even though her scenes never made the final cut, the actress told Allure magazine that simply getting cast in the movie gave her “so much affirmation to be hired”. Lucky for Pompeo, she did not need that film as a breakout role. Just one year later she became known to the world as Meredith Grey.

The hilariously funny Maya Rudolph was originally meant to be in Anchorman with Amy Poehler. Unfortunately, both comedians were cut from the original film. Apparently, the movie was way too long, and as a result, both funny ladies got the axe. It doesn’t seem like the cut affected Rudolph too badly. Since the actress left Saturday Night Live, her career has continued to skyrocket with starring roles in Bridemaids, Grown Ups, and Sisters. Right now, there are no signs that the comedian’s success is slowing down.

When Steven Spielberg chose to direct E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, he decided to include his friend Harrison Ford in the production. Spielberg was using a script from Melissa Mathison, Ford’s wife at the time. Ford filmed his scenes in E.T. as Elliot’s principal, but they sadly never saw the light of day. It wasn’t such a loss for Ford who starred in Blade Runner that same year. Still, it would have been exciting for Ford to say he was in the highest grossing film of all time!

Originally, Ashley Judd was cast in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 crime film Natural Born Killer. She played one of the victims of the psychotic leads. Even though her scene was only nine minutes, her performance never made it to the final version of the film. Her performance is known as one of the most interesting deleted scenes. In her scene, Judd’s character her story on the witness stand and is then stabbed in the heart with a pencil!