Shortly after LaBeouf’s departure, two women accused the actor of physical, mental, and emotional abuse, and he told The New York Times, “I have no excuses for my alcoholism or aggression, only rationalizations. I have been abusive to myself and everyone around me for years.… I’m ashamed of that history and am sorry to those I hurt.” But ahead of the film’s 2022 release, LaBeouf denied being fired, sharing emails with Variety in which he told Wilde, “I quit your film”; he alleged that he left Don’t Worry Darling due to inadequate rehearsal time. Later, while appearing on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Wilde said, “We had to replace Shia. He is a fantastic actor, but it wasn’t going to work. When he gave the ultimatum—him or Florence—I chose Florence. That was him feeling he was stepping away and me feeling like we were moving on without him,” adding, “It’s a question of semantics.”
Blake Jenner
Fresh off his best-actor Oscar nomination for Aftersun, Paul Mescal is seizing the role of Broadway composer Franklin Shepard in Richard Linklater’s Merrily We Roll Along, taking the part over from Jenner, who previously worked with the filmmaker on Everybody Wants Some!! While no official reason has been cited for Jenner’s departure, his ex-wife, Melissa Benoist, revealed in 2019 that she was a survivor of domestic abuse, though she did not name the perpetrator. Jenner, whom Benoist married after they played love interests on Glee, later confirmed the allegations and apologized, but he also claimed he had been abused as well prior to their divorce in 2017.
Using the multiyear filming approach that he took with 2014’s Boyhood, Linklater will shoot Merrily over a 20-year period, with Mescal, Ben Platt, and Beanie Feldstein starring as the main trio. Last April, Platt said that Linklater had shot “the first sequence” of the film, but it’s unclear if or how any of Jenner’s footage was reconfigured.
Louis C.K.
The disgraced comedian admitted to sexual misconduct with multiple women in 2017, releasing a statement in which he admitted, “These stories are true. At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my dick without asking first, which is also true.” The professional fallout for C.K. was swift, as a deal between FX Productions and his production company, Pig Newton, was canceled, and wide-release plans for his film I Love You, Daddy were scrapped.
Amidst the rubble were two of the star’s voice-over roles. Reruns of Disney Channel’s Gravity Falls, on which C.K. voiced a character named “the Horrifying Sweaty One-Armed Monstrosity,” were redubbed by series creator Alex Hirsch. And he didn’t reprise his role as Jack Russell terrier Max in 2019’s Secret Life of Pets 2, a part that instead went to Patton Oswalt. “I did have some hesitations, but it was more about the story rather than the voice, so I just said, ‘All right,’” Oswalt told The Hollywood Reporter about taking on the job. Since the fallout, C.K. has won a Grammy, embarked on a nationwide comedy tour, and directed another movie.
Johnny Depp
Before his defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard, Depp resigned from his role as Gellert Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, the third film in the Harry Potter prequel series. The exit followed his loss in a 2020 libel case against the publisher of British tabloid The Sun. He was replaced by Mads Mikkelsen, although Depp reportedly still received his full $16 million salary for the project. “I’m a big fan of Johnny,” Mikkelsen said last August. “I think he’s an amazing actor; I think he did a fantastic job. Having said that, I could not copy it. There was no way I could just copy it, because it’s so much him. It would be creative suicide. So we had to come up with something else, something that was mine, and build a bridge between him and me.”
Chris D’Elia
After the stand-up was accused of sexually harassing and grooming underage girls in 2020, which D’Elia denies, he was erased from Zack Snyder’s Netflix zombie film, Army of the Dead. When asked about the decision to reshoot D’Elia’s scenes using Tig Notaro, Snyder told Vanity Fair: “I think it was a fairly easy one.” Producer Deborah Snyder added, “It was an expensive one, that’s for sure,” with Zack estimating that production poured “a few million” into scrubbing D’Elia’s frames and staging reshoots.
Ed Westwick
In fall 2017, the Gossip Girl alum was accused of sexual assault by three separate women. The actor denied all allegations in a since-deleted tweet, writing, “I have never forced myself in any manner, on any woman. I certainly have never committed rape.” Ordeal by Innocence, the BBC adaptation of an Agatha Christie classic, in which Westwick played the black sheep son of a wealthy family, had its Christmastime release date delayed. His role was reshot with British actor Christian Cooke, who had starred alongside Westwick in 2013’s Romeo & Juliet adaptation, and the miniseries premiered in April 2018.
Frank Langella
When the Oscar-nominated actor was fired from Mike Flanagan’s Netflix adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher last April, the then 84-year-old blamed his ouster on “cancel culture” in a column for Deadline. In the piece, Langella said that his costar accused him of touching her leg, a move that was not scripted by the project’s intimacy coordinator. The actor, who wrote that the project was meant to be his “last hurrah,” also said that he had been accused of telling “an off-color joke,” sometimes calling his costar “baby” or “honey,” and hugging his coworker or touching her on the shoulder. Langella was subsequently replaced by actor Bruce Greenwood, who stars alongside Carla Gugino, Mary McDonnell, and Mark Hamill.
Savannah Walsh
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