He’d been cast as the writer who interviewed Pi in the future and had even shot the scenes, but when watching it back, the director thought his stardom was taking attention away from the story: “I misjudged the situation,” says Lee. “I underestimated the power of stars.” “I love Tobey. But it’s a small part,” he adds. “So when it’s a movie star sitting there, it captures attention. It didn’t really work out.” They had to reshoot Tobey’s scenes with Rafe Spall instead (kind of a forehanded insult to Rafe, but I’m sure he was grateful nonetheless). Katherine shot a scene as the older version of Tony’s daughter after he’d snapped his fingers, in the metaphysical limbo that we’d seen before, but it never made it to the movie. Despite being an emotional and sentimental scene, the Russo brothers thought it didn’t really work with the ending, and it was eventually cut. Of course, fans got to see it in the deleted scenes, which Katherine was pleased about! Blake Lively, who Uma was supposed to be playing the mother of, had this to say about the cutting of Uma’s character: “It’s a shame that you will miss that, in the movie. It was really beautiful stuff with Uma Thurman, and I think it really told a lot more of how a girl could end up this way.” “I was a young gal, hadn’t even got my teeth fixed, and I played a bank teller that Maya Rudolph and her gang robbed. Even back then, I was like, ‘This movie is so long, I’m never going to make it in this.’” Amy’s hilarious cameo, and the whole subplot, luckily did have their own DVD release the same year the original came out, which consisted of the outtakes and cut scenes, it was called Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie. Director Paul Feig described cutting Rudd’s scenes from the movie as “that terrible moment when you have to kill your babies.” He also said that it was one of the funniest things he’d ever seen, but, due to the film running so long, and there already being a love triangle, the blind date had to go. We can only assume that the directors cut the scenes with Ellen because they wanted to change how we saw Joel, and they certainly succeeded! Film Rader produced a video essay with the deleted scenes added back in to show how they impact the movie as a whole, and it’s fascinating! It’s unfortunate for Ellen, but it probably was necessary to cut her in order to make the film what it became! But on him being cut, Robert said: “The casting director…felt so guilty…that she gave me first run at the part in Harry Potter, so I was quite glad I got cut, in the end.” So, perhaps it was for the best after all! It seems as though the actors half-expected this to happen, perhaps due to his reputation and their limited time on set. Weisz clearly wasn’t too bitter about it, saying “I had the experience of working with him [Malick] but I will not have the pleasure of seeing my work.” Due to his track record, It’s probably easier to handle when you get cut by Malick, but that wasn’t the case for Mickey Rourke, who was devastated to have been left out. Mickey believed it was some of the best work he ever did, and that it was his wild behaviour that contributed to him being cut. He was told he’d gotten a part in the movie after his audition, but not told what the part was. He still had no idea what he was supposed to be doing for the part by the time he arrived on set, where the scene was a huge party. Viggo explained what happened: “He goes, ‘Okay, let’s shoot.’ And I go, ‘Mr. Allen? Sir? What am I supposed to do?’ ‘You just follow his lead. You’ll be alright.’ And I’m freaking out. I have no idea what the story’s about.” Sadly, he didn’t appear in the film, despite telling his family beforehand. He’d go on to do just fine though, of course! Even though you can’t see his face in the scene, his iconic point and his voice are enough to know it’s Harrison. However, because it seemed rather out of place, the scene was eventually cut – a star as huge as Harrison was somewhat of a distraction from the narrative. Still, though, it was a great experience for Henry Thomas (Elliot) to meet one of his heroes! This “highbrow cameo” was due to the multiple endings that they filmed (because they couldn’t figure out how to end it). And it turns out the one they eventually landed on practically eradicated Andy’s character from the movie entirely. The screenwriter who’d been working on the movie for nearly 10 years said this: “Sticking this ending was one of the trickiest parts of the film. There was a version where we wandered around the aftermath of their lives a little bit longer and the viewpoint character who took us on that walk was the captain of the ship. That’s not what ended up on screen, what we have now is an extraordinary highbrow cameo.” He was cast as Michelle Pfeiffer’s character’s love interest, one that he didn’t think the story needed: “They wrote up a whole arc for this relationship and we played it out; I had a great time. We shot the whole relationship and then it was determined later on that it was really unnecessary in the storyline, which is what I said to begin with. But I did cash the cheque!” She’d been cast as the girlfriend of real-life gangster Whitey Bulger, but director Scott Cooper made a late decision to focus more on Bulger’s early life, which his girlfriend Catherine Greig wasn’t around for. Hopefully Sienna got good use out of the Southie accent that she didn’t end up getting to show off! Jeff Goldblum, who played Michael, said they’d filmed flashbacks of the whole group at college, Kevin included. It seems as though the scenes are lost for good, so we’ll have to take Jeff’s word for it that Kevin was “wonderful” as Alex.
What’s worse is that they then got Michelle back in so they could shoot her in some more scenes for the movie, only for those scenes to be cut too! The only bit that got in was the sprinkler scene, a scene that she really didn’t like, according to director Francis Lawrence, who said: “She hated that moment, and it ended up being the only moment of her in the movie after two attempts at various scenes.” There was talk of a four-hour version of the movie being available on Netflix, which would include Roth’s scenes (as well as many more), but we’re still waiting on that! It was a shame for Matthew, as his character –who was supposed to save the Lane family during the chaos – would most likely have been developed in future sequels, but his cutting from the original took that off the table.
