17 A-List Actors Whose Scenes Were Cut From Major Hollywood Films

It turns out Sydney Sweeney is in good company after her cameo from The Devil Wears Prada 2 was axed.

Not even the biggest names in Hollywood are safe from the cutting room floor – and once a director hits the editing suite, the most A-list of A-listers can still find their scenes have been axed from a major film.

Whether it’s a change in direction, contractual issues or a long runtime, there are many reasons why an actor might not make the cut, regardless of how they performed on set.

Here are just a handful of stars who gave their all, only to find their performances didn’t make it into the final edit…

The Devil Wears Prada 2 was a star-studded affair – but as Sydney Sweeney found out, not every cameo was included in the finished film

The Devil Wears Prada 2 was jam-packed with famous cameos, but some celebrities’ performances didn’t make the cut.

Last year, Sydney Sweeney was spotted on the set of the Meryl Streep sequel, but her appearance never made it into the film.

The Euphoria actor was supposed to play herself in a three-minute scene where she would be dressed by Emily Blunt’s character, but according to Entertainment Weekly, this cameo was cut for structural reasons.

At least she wasn’t the only star who didn’t make it into the film, though.

How to Get Away With Murder star Conrad Ricamora also filmed numerous scenes as Andy Sachs’ roommate, but this character was later removed from the film after test audiences raised questions about why he was there, according to Variety.

Conrad acknowledged this axing on social media, writing on Instagram that filming with Anne Hathaway had been “one of the best working experiences of my life.”

“In the end, my character didn’t make sense in the grand scheme of the film (something about me being too sexy and hot and my muscles being too big…story of my life),” he joked.

Lastly, Anna Wintour herself filmed “one take” for the sequel, in which Meryl plays a character who has repeatedly been compared to the formidable Vogue editor.

Director David Frankel told Entertainment Weekly that this sequence couldn’t be used as it was “a little out of focus,” and he didn’t want to ask her to do a second one.

“We actually explicitly didn’t want Anna to be in the movie because it’s a parallel world,” the director later explained in the April 2026 interview.

“It was like, well, what is Vogue and who is Anna Wintour, in a world where there’s a Runway and Miranda Priestly? It felt like it was too meta.”

Harrison Ford was supposed to play a school principal in E.T.

After the success Harrison Ford had working with Steven Spielberg in the Indiana Jones films, the Star Wars actor was happy to make a cameo in E.T.

Not only was he good friends with the director, but he was also dating the movie’s screenwriter, Melissa Mathison, at the time.

Harrison was set to play against his normal lovable rogue type, appearing as Elliot’s mean school principal, in a scene where the boy was sent to the principal’s office and told off, only for the mischievous E.T. to start messing around.

The scene was eventually removed by Spielberg, though, as he felt that it added nothing to the film, and instead chose to focus less on adults and more on the film’s kid characters.

Paul Rudd was a terrible blind date in Bridesmaids

Paul Rudd spent all day throwing himself around an ice-skating rink, only for it to be deleted from the final cut of Bridesmaids.

Screenwriters Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo specifically penned a part for the Ant-Man actor as a deranged man that Kristen’s character, Annie, goes on a blind date with.

However, while the scene was later included as a DVD extra, it wasn’t featured in the cinematic cut of the film.

“There is always that terrible moment when you have to kill your babies,” director Paul Feig told Entertainment Weekly, explaining that Paul’s scenes were axed due to runtime, and to focus more on the existing love triangle between Annie, Jon Hamm’s commitment-phobe and Chris O’Dowd’s police officer.

“It just didn’t ring true that in addition to Jon and Chris, she’d be also going out on other dates to try and find more love,” Feig explained, claiming that it made “more sense that she’d be caught between these two guys”.

Shailene Woodley’s Mary Jane never made it into The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Mary Jane “MJ” Watson is usually the main love interest for Peter Parker in his various incarnations, but Andrew........

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