Last month, ABC announced that actor Neal McDonough was leaving after only three days of filming the upcoming show “Scoundrels.” Could there be something more behind the release? Well, you know there must be or I would not blog about it!
Word on the street is that McDonough was fired for refusing to have television sex with co-star Virginia Madsen. And, here is the really crazy part, at least by Hollywood standards – it is because he felt the scenes were in conflict with his Catholic beliefs.
Now, if you are thinking this is not true or just a publicity stunt, consider that McDonough also refused to do love scenes when he was on “Desperate Housewives” or “Boomtown,” and films like “Minority Report” and “Walking Tall.”
Neither ABC nor McDonough will comment on his release from the show, but he stands to lose $1 million because of it. McDonough was replaced by David James Elliott.
I don’t know, I think it is rather refreshing to hear a story like this.
I was hoping the rumor about Charlie Sheen wanting to leave “Two and a Half Men” was false, but it appears it may be true. Today, Sheen rep Stan Rosenberg said, “Charlie has done this for seven years. There are new things to do, new challenges. He wants to do more movies, and doesn’t always get the opportunities during the hiatus [of the show].”
Sources say that CBS hopes to replace Sheen’s character. As much as I love Jon Cryer and the show, I just don’t think it can survive without Sheen, just as I don’t think it could survive if Cryer decided to leave. It’s like “M.A.S.H.” and “The Golden Girls” before it – once the original chemistry is gone, the show just dies.
Right now, Sheen makes $825,000 per episode. I cannot imagine leaving a job like that. Plus, it has been a number of years since Sheen saw success on the big screen and it seems that on “Two and a Half Men,” he is basically playing himself, so I don’t know if this is a smart move on Sheen’s part or not.