Actors Hollywood Won't Cast In 2020

We're in an age of reckoning for celebrities. The rich and powerful, who used to get away with saying and doing nearly anything, are now being held to a much higher standard. Their very public lives mean that their words and their deeds are broadcast far and wide. If they do or say the wrong thing, the consequences can be monumental. 

Now, Hollywood has always been a hotbed for controversy. It's just that the studios aren't quite as lenient as they once were. With social media carrying news faster and further than ever before, and the cancel culture sweeping the nation, if actors wade too far into controversial waters, they may get swept away entirely — becoming too hot for the studios to handle.

During the late 2010s, we've witnessed the downfall of countless celebrity careers. Some lost favor with their audience, whereas others became uninsurable by the industry. Though many of the following actors are dead-set on surviving their career turbulence and making a comeback, you likely won't be seeing these names in any cast announcements in the coming year. Here are the actors Hollywood won't cast in 2020.

Though Roseanne Barr was long known for being unfiltered and unpredictable, this ended up being her undoing in a less forgiving climate. Shortly after the revival of Roseanne — the show that made her a star — premiered in 2018, the comedian sent out a since-deleted tweet that seemed to imply that Valerie Jarrett, who served as a senior advisor to President Barack Obama, was the child of the "Muslim Brotherhood & Planet of the Apes." 

The backlash response was swift. According to The Washington Post, ABC officials immediately called an emergency meeting. Then-President of the ABC Entertainment Group, Channing Dungey, released a statement, calling the tweet "abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values." And just hours later, Roseanne was cancelled and the titular star was axed. While the series was later rebranded as The Conners, Barr's character was famously killed off, leaving the actress, who hasn't appeared in anything since, vocal about the fallout.

Still, Barr's planning a comeback tour of sorts. Now, don't go expecting her to appear on national television in 2020. According to Deadline, she'll start on the stage first, joining forces with Andrew Dice Clay in a live show called the Mr. and Mrs. America Tour. Speaking to Fox News, Clay defended his longtime friend: "She's a comic because she's wacky. I've known her since we were kids. When people ask about what she said, I say, 'She's a comic!' We gotta stop policing comedians. This is America!"

Much of the 2019 news stream was dominated by the college admissions scandal. Lori Loughlin and fellow actress Felicity Huffman headed a slew of parents accused of paying large sums of money to have their children's applications to elite colleges altered. While the nationwide scheme has made it unlikely for either Loughlin or Huffman to appear in any Hollywood productions in 2020, the way that they've gone about dealing with their individual charges may have changed their paths slightly. 

After pleading guilty to paying a $15,000 bribe to boost her daughter's SAT scores, Huffman served a 14-day prison sentence and committed herself to supporting imprisoned women. At least for the time being, it's not hard to imagine her making a comeback in the not-so-distant future. Loughlin, however, has taken a different route. Accused of paying $500,000 to have their daughters accepted at USC as crew team recruits, the Full House alum and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, have pleaded not guilty to their charges, which, according to Vanity Fair, resulted in a six-month sentence in a related case. 

While Loughlin's case is her own and may end much differently, she was previously fired from The Hallmark Channel and would not go on to appear in the final season of Netflix's Fuller House – making it unlikely she'll return to any screens anytime soon.

In May 2018, Clayne Crawford, one of the stars of Fox's Lethal Weapon, was fired. According to The Hollywood Reporter, it was Crawford's "bad behavior" on set that led to his dismissal, suggesting that "many connected with the series have said they would rather not work with the actor." Reports later leaked about on-set conflicts between Crawford and the cast and crew, with Variety releasing video clips of two incidents: One in which Crawford appeared to yell at an assistant director, and one which seemed to show a profanity-laced exchange with co-star Damon Wayans. 

Despite apologizing for his behavior, Crawford later criticized Fox and Warner Bros. for their handling of the situation. On the Drinkin' Bros podcast, Crawford called the narrative a "lie," claiming the showrunners had "been blackmailing [him] with [the tapes] for months" amid ongoing friction with Wayans, and that he'd "set up to fail." He added, "I won't watch Fox for the simple fact that they made a statement that, 'We didn't have anything to do with this' ... I sent emails going, 'This s**t's about to come down, we need to get in a room and ... have a conversation,' and nobody f**kin' returned my emails [or] called me."

While he does have a role in the independent film, The Killing of Two Lovers, coming out in 2020, Crawford isn't necessarily taking a shortcut into any 2020 Hollywood productions by taking aim at studios of this size.

Eliza Dushku joined the cast of Bull for a short three-episode stint in 2017, but was supposed to stay on longer, according to The New York Times in 2018. Reportedly made to feel uncomfortable by Michael Weatherly, the star of the show, Dushku was eventually written off after she complained. However, she then sought mediation with CBS and received a confidential settlement of $9.5 million.

Addressing the conflict, Weatherly stated in part: "I made some jokes mocking some lines in the script. When Eliza told me that she wasn't comfortable with my language and attempt at humor, I was mortified to have offended her and immediately apologized." But that explanation didn't fly with Dusku, who fired back in a Boston Globe op-ed. "I do not want to hear that I have a 'humor deficit' or can't take a joke. I did not overreact," she wrote. "I took a job and, because I did not want to be harassed, I was fired." In the piece, she detailed Weatherly's alleged on-set behavior, claiming that he made "rape van" jokes, leered at her, smelled her provocatively, and made audible groans.

While CBS chose to renew the show after these disturbing allegations came to light, Steven Spielberg and his Amblin TV production company have since pulled out of the series. The network might still be backing their guy, but at the time of this writing, it remains to be seen how much industry support Weatherly will receive following this scandal.