This NCIS: Los Angeles Star Has A Strange History With Donald Trump
These days, it's pretty easy to tie former President Donald Trump to almost any celebrity, whether it's through his many appearances on the big and small screens or the comments that so many famous faces have made about his political views. Take the cast of "NCIS: Los Angeles," for example.
In 2017, former "NCIS: Los Angeles" star Renée Felice Smith called Trump "Dr. Evil" in an Instagram post criticizing his decision to remove the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement. And principal cast member LL Cool J told "Bevelations" host Bevy Smith that he was "not supportive of [Trump] on any level" in 2020. But not all actors who have appeared on the show are Trump detractors. Siaka Massaquoi, who had a small role in a 2019 episode, is an avid supporter of the former POTUS. In fact, Massaquoi's home was raided by the FBI after he attended the U.S. Capitol riot, according to The Mercury News, but he was not arrested.
Then there is late cast member Miguel Ferrer, who died the day before Trump's 2017 inauguration. Ferrer's cousin, George Clooney, referenced the event in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter: "Today history will mark giant changes in our world, and lost to most will be that on the same day Miguel Ferrer lost his battle to throat cancer." Clooney's "Batman Forever" co-star and "NCIS: Los Angeles" lead Chris O'Donnell also had something to say about Trump, but it had nothing to do with politics.
Chris O'Donnell and Donald Trump worked on a movie together
Before Chris O'Donnell was cast as Special Agent Grisha "G." Callen on "NCIS: Los Angeles" in the late aughts, the actor was known best for his movie career. He played the Robin to George Clooney's Dark Knight in the campy '90s superhero flick "Batman & Robin." But, while Donald Trump once declared that he is Batman, it was the set of the 1992 drama "Scent of a Woman" where O'Donnell encountered Trump.
In a 2017 appearance on "Conan," O'Donnell recalled that part of the movie was filmed at The Plaza Hotel, a property "Trump owned at the time." According to O'Donnell, he and his co-stars were told "that in order for us to film at The Plaza, we had a little walk-on part for Donald and Marla [Maples]." Trump and his ex-wife were filmed exiting a car and entering the hotel, but their cameo was ultimately left on the cutting room floor. After hearing O'Donnell's anecdote, Conan O'Brien quipped that "[the filmmakers] were throwing that footage away as [Trump] was leaving."
When O'Donnell didn't join O'Brien in speculating about why the footage was cut, the talk show host joked that the actor was "afraid of being audited." However, O'Donnell's "Scent of a Woman" co-star Matt Damon didn't tread so carefully when discussing the same topic with The Hollywood Reporter. "You have to waste an hour of your day with a bulls*** shot," Damon said of the Trump scene.
Donald Trump has filmed other movie cameos
While Chris O'Donnell revealed on "Conan" that Donald Trump and Marla Maples didn't speak in their unused cameo, Matt Damon claimed that their presence had to be verbally acknowledged. "Donald Trump walks in and Al Pacino's like, 'Hello, Mr. Trump!' — you had to call him by name — and then he exits," he recalled to The Hollywood Reporter. "You waste a little time so that you can get the permit, and then you can cut the scene out."
Trump has filmed similar cameos for "Zoolander" and "Home Alone 2," the latter of which director Chris Columbus decided to leave in after test-screening audiences reacted positively to his presence. However, he noted that Trump "did bully his way into the movie" by insisting that he appear in another scene shot at The Plaza Hotel, per Insider. As for the star of the 1992 film, Macaulay Culkin has tweeted in support of cutting the Trump cameo.
Trump filmed another unused cameo for "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps," according to Newsweek, but he surprisingly did not finagle his way in front of a camera when "The Dark Knight Rises" was being filmed at Trump Tower. He did, however, get to meet actor Christian Bale, who later told Variety, "I think he thought I was Bruce Wayne ... he talked to me like I was Bruce Wayne and I just went along with it." There's no word on whether Trump thinks that O'Donnell is actually Robin.