14 Actors Who Were Reportedly Excluded, Shunned, Or Just Disliked By Costars On Their Major TV Shows And Movies
We love hearing about close-knit casts on our favorite TV shows and movies, but unfortunately, that's not always the case.
Sometimes, there's a feud between costars — and sometimes, there's one star who just does not get along with their castmates or feels excluded.
Here are 14 actors who didn't quite fit in with their castmates:
1.Oliva Munn felt she was "shunned" by the director of The Predator, Shane Black, and her costars after asking that actor Steven Wilder Striegel be removed from the film due to his status as a registered sex offender.
In 2010, Striegel, a friend of Black's who had appeared in some of his other films, pleaded guilty to trying to entice a 14-year-old girl online to have sex with him. Munn said she complained, and that action wasn't immediately taken, so she had to complain again, saying "I wouldn’t be able to morally stand behind this movie with this guy in there.”
Striegel's scene was taken out, but when Munn attended a cast interview with the Hollywood Reporter at the Toronto Film Festival to promote the film, only one of her costars showed up — 11-year-old Jacob Tremblay — despite the fact that other costars were supposed to be there.
Munn said she hadn't heard from Black since the news broke. Costar Keegan-Michael Key claimed to not be free for the interview because of family obligations.
“It’s a very lonely feeling to be sitting here by myself when I should be sitting here with the rest of the cast," she said. "We’re making movies. We’re not in the mafia. I haven’t spoken against the family. This guy isn’t in our movie anymore. I try to do the right thing and that’s all I can do." She also told Vanity Fair, “I kind of feel like I’m the one going to jail. I didn’t go to jail, I didn’t put this guy on our set. I had this scene deleted.”
2.One actor who didn't necessarily feel actively shunned or left out by his castmates, but still felt like an outsider, was Keanu Reeves in the film 47 Ronin.
As the only non-Japanese cast member and the only one who couldn't speak Japanese, Keanu said he felt similar to his character, Kai, who was also an outcast. "Even though everyone was really nice to me and we got along great and it developed great, I still couldn't hang out and speak Japanese, so in a way I was always Kai. I could say 'Good morning' and 'Nice to meet you' and all that, but I couldn't hang out."
3.In contrast, Matt Damon in Saving Private Ryan was intentionally excluded from his costars. Director Steven Spielberg wanted to build a sense of camaraderie among the other cast members, and even had them attend a grueling boot camp together — all except for Damon.
“These guys are lying face down in the mud, and I’m, you know, in a bubble bath in America," Damon said. "When I showed up on set, a lot of that resentment just translated right onto the screen.”
4.Fans were devastated when female lead Marissa Cooper died in the Season 3 finale of 2000s teen drama The O.C.
Fox
Well, last year, Mischa Barton — who played Marissa — revealed what went down behind the scenes that made her want to leave. She said that bullying from the men on set felt "really shitty" and that things got worse when costar Rachel Bilson was promoted to the main cast in Season 2. Barton was later given the option to have her character leave the show or be killed off, and she chose the latter.
"I look back on it pretty fondly, but there's stuff I think people did wrong and the way they handled it," Barton said of her time on the show. "So, I just didn't feel I could keep going. ... It just felt like it was the best thing for me and my health and just in terms of not really feeling protected by my cast and crew at that point."
She didn't name any specific men bullying her, and costars Rachel Bilson and Melinda Clarke expressed confusion after her statements, calling her statements "perplexing" but acknowledging Barton was under "an enormous amount of pressure" and saying they were open to having a conversation and learning more.
5.Not exactly a star, but a recurring costar who didn't feel like she fit in on set was Kathleen Turner, who played Chandler's father on Friends.
"I didn’t feel very welcomed by the cast," she told Vulture. "The Friends actors were such a clique — but I don’t think my experience with them was unique. I think it was simply that they were such a tight little group that nobody from the outside mattered."
"I remember I was wearing this difficult sequined gown — and my high heels were absolutely killing me. I found it odd that none of the actors thought to offer me a seat," she added.
6.Another guest star who didn't feel welcomed was Samantha Ware in Glee — especially when it came to star Lea Michele. “I knew from day one when I attempted to introduce myself. There was nothing gradual about it. As soon as she decided that she didn’t like me, it was very evident,” Ware told Variety. "It was after I did my first performance, that’s when it started — the silent treatment, the stare-downs, the looks, the comments under her breath, the weird passive aggressiveness. It all built up.”
Michele also allegedly threatened her job and committed microaggressions against Ware. Ware said it seemed like Lea's actions were nothing new, which is why they were brushed aside.
This claim was supported by costars Alex Newell and Heather Morris. Costar Amber Riley said she was glad Ware had spoken up and that Glee was "not the most comfortable environment" to work in.
Costar Naya Rivera had issues with Michele too, according to her book. Actor Dabier Snell also said that Michele told him he "didn't belong there" when he tried to sit with her while guest-starring on the show.
7.There have been reports that Judy Garland felt shunned by cast members on the set of The Wizard of Oz. According to ex-husband Sid Luft's posthumous memoir, she was consistently harassed by the actors playing the munchkins. Suft said the actors would put their hands under Garland's dress.
There have also been reports that only Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch, was kind to her. Neither of these claims carry official quotes, but it is clear that the two had a good relationship at least after the film.
Garland was also the lowest paid out of the main cast members — she made $500 a week, while the actors playing the tin man, the scarecrow, and the lion made $2500–3000.
8.Janet Hubert, who played Aunt Viv on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, was infamously replaced in the show's fourth season — which Hubert had long blamed costar Will Smith for. The two finally reunited in 2020, with Smith admitting he "made the set very difficult" during the show's third season, during which Hubert was pregnant.
For her part, Hubert acknowledged she wasn't in a good place then, which caused friction on set, but said she wasn't unprofessional. "I just stopped talking to everybody because I didn't know who to trust because I had been banished, and they said it was you who banished me. … It was hard."
However, the two have since resolved their differences with apologies and hugs.
9.James Spader came into the very end of the third to last season of The Office as the new Dunder Mifflin CEO, but left before the ninth and final season.
While it wasn't like his costars disliked him, Spader reportedly did not fit in with the cast and their acting styles. He wanted to rehearse the script, which the cast hadn't done in seasons. He was also thrown off by improvisation, and Rainn Wilson, who played Dwight, said he was a great character actor, but that his energy just "didn't fit."
10.Now, we can't confirm that Jay Mohr was talking about Jennifer Aniston, but when Elle magazine asked him about his most awkward encounter with a female celebrity, he replied, "Being on the set of a movie where the leading woman was unhappy with my presence and made it clear from day one. I hadn't done many movies, and even though they screen-tested some pretty famous guys, I somehow snaked into the leading role."
When the interviewer suggested "the only film that could possibly fit this description is 1997's Picture Perfect, with Jennifer Aniston," Mohr replied "I will never, ever answer that." So...you decide who he was talking about.
11.It's unclear whether Shannen Doherty was "shunned" by the cast of Beverly Hills, 90210, but she definitely wasn't happy there, according to former executive producer Charles Rosin. “Her lateness was appalling, and she had a callous attitude and an indifference. She was clearly not very happy on this show anymore.” Doherty denied that she was late excessively, but did admit she was unhappy.
Producer Aaron Spelling said, “It wasn’t like she ruined the show or anything. It just upset the cast members tremendously,” he said. “I remember them calling me and saying, ‘Please, can’t you get her here on time?’” One day, her lateness caused costar Jason Priestley, who played Brandon Walsh, her character's brother, to say "I've had it."
He wasn't the only costar frustrated with Doherty. According to Tori Spelling, Doherty and costar Jennie Garth physically fought. Doherty admitted there was "a lot of petty jealousies on that show," and Spelling added that Doherty "thought it was time to go. And the cast did too." Ultimately, the cast united to get her fired, with Tori calling her father, who did end up firing Doherty.
12.Doherty was also at the center of a different show's on-set drama — Charmed. However, this time she wasn't the "outcast." When the show began, Doherty and another of the three stars, Holly Marie Combs, were already good friends. The third star, Alyssa Milano, appeared to get along with them at first — but there were rumors of on-set tension and Doherty ended up leaving the show after the third season.
Milano addressed the drama on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen. "I don't know if she got fired; we never really found out what happened. I can tell you that we were on the air with her for three years and there were definitely some rough days. Holly and Shannen were best friends for like 10 years before the show started, so it was very much sort of like high school. I would hope that in our 30s it wouldn't feel like that anymore," she said, which suggested that she didn't exactly feel included or like she fit in.
Combs and Doherty refuted this, saying the set was nothing like high school. Combs said, "We were all friends and at times we weren’t,” and Doherty noted, “when you work that closely together, there’s always going to be times that are rough.” Two years later, Milano said they'd made amends and she was now cordial with Doherty and took "responsibility for a lot of our tension that we had."
This wasn't the only drama with Milano — Rose McGowan, who replaced Doherty when she left, later accused Milano of making the Charmed set "toxic."
13.It seemed clear Kim Cattrall wasn't a fan of the Sex and the City cast, and in particular Sarah Jessica Parker, when she didn't join the reboot, but there had been rumors of feuds long before that. After Parker got a higher salary for being an executive producer in Season 2 of the original show, Cattrall negotiated for a higher salary. Crew members and her main castmates were reportedly unhappy about this and "wouldn't even sit with [Cattrall] at mealtimes."
Cattrall also sat apart from the other main cast members at the 2004 Emmys, saying they weren't "best friends." By the time the second film was shooting, Cattrall and Parker's feud seemed to have escalated and they apparently weren't speaking. They continued to deny rumors of a feud, but in 2017, Cattrall said she was never friends with her costars and that Parker "could've been nicer." An article that year claimed the other cast members had formed a friend group and left out Cattrall years earlier.
14.And finally, Isaiah Washington made headlines when he was fired from Grey's Anatomy after using an anti-gay slur. However, he claimed his firing “was an agenda to cover up for the toxic and bad behavior of many of my former castmates on that show." He alleged that he wasn't wanted on the show from the start and was offered money not to audition.
Washington claims he said to Patrick Demsey during a fight, "'You're not going to punk me, you're not going to treat me like a B-word and you're not going to treat me like an F-word," and that he "was speaking to [him]self as we refer to as a schoolyard taunt and weakness." However, he claims the narrative was twisted so that people claimed he was using the slur to refer to a gay costar, leading to his ousting.
At the table read, Washington claimed that producer and director Peter Horton said, "I thought we got rid of you" and that Dempsey threw "up his hands, like, 'What is he doing here?'" He claimed Dempsey later said, "Isaiah, do you know that white men are the masters of the universe?" This, according to Washington, led to a lot of on-set fighting between the two.
Washington also claimed that star Ellen Pompeo was given millions of dollars to stay silent about Dempsey's on-set behavior in the #MeToo era, and alleged that she was racist, saying, “She really thinks that she’s cool with Black people like that, but she’s not.”
