10 Times Actors Were Edited Out Of Movies

8. Various Actors - Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Mr and Mrs Smith Terrence Stamp Bisset
Summit Entertainment

The production of Mr. & Mrs. Smith was a bit of a mess, with director Doug Liman never fully sure how he wanted to conclude the film. One of his plans was to have the titular couple defeat a pair of sinister villains, before deciding against this and cutting the subplot out entirely.

And this meant that a lot of great actors were edited out of the film. Those two villains were initially played by Terence Stamp and Jacqueline Bisset, but when Liman decided that this version didn't work, he changed things up, reshooting their scenes with Keith David and Angela Bassett instead.

He then decided that this didn't work either, scrapping the ending and opting to remove these characters from the film altogether. When asked about this decision, Liman told EW that it was all about giving the story an appropriate conclusion:

"It was important to not give it that resolution. Because if you think about a relationship, there is no point at which you suddenly defeat the forces of antagonism. It’s not like, 'Oh, we got married, we’re finished having to fight for the relationship.' Or, 'We celebrated our fifth anniversary, now it’s easy.' It’s never easy."

Bassett and David weren't actually cast until the film had already wrapped principal photography, as if to demonstrate just how uncertain Liman was about this entire subplot.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!