10 Actors Who Didn't Know They'd Been Cut

10. Adrien Brody - The Thin Red Line

In what's surely one of the most infamous instances of an actor having their role "revised" in post-production, Adrien Brody was hired to play protagonist Cpl. Geoffrey Fife in Terrence Malick's war epic The Thin Red Line.

Brody does indeed appear in the final film, though his part is better described as an extended cameo, amounting to little more than a few lines of dialogue.

This is despite Brody spending roughly six months filming a lead actor's role, which Malick ultimately decided to cut the overwhelming majority of during the film's laboured editing process.

But Malick's worst sin? He never told Brody, and so when the actor attended the film's premiere, he finally discovered the truth, that he was only a small fixture due to Malick shifting the focus to the larger ensemble. Brody said of the experience:

"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. Terry obviously changed the entire concept of the film. I had never experienced anything like that... You know the expression 'Don't believe the hype?' Well, you shouldn't."

Brody clearly resents the experience, and who can blame him? He thought this would be his big Hollywood break, and he instead had to wait another four years until The Pianist made him the youngest Best Actor Oscar winner in history.

Malick has repeated this fast-and-loose treatment of his cast members ever since, but at least nowadays actors are well aware what they're signing up for on a Malick shoot - you might make the cut, you might not.