Rob McElhenney may have been cut out of last year’s Deadpool & Wolverine, but a previous acting experience of his blotted out from another film stung more.
Appearing on Sean Evans’ Hot Ones interview program, the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star and co-creator addressed a particular core memory from the industry that isn’t as bright and cheery: his vanishing from the 1997 Columbia Pictures’ The Devil’s Own, centering on an Irish American policeman (Harrison Ford) and IRA extremist (Brad Pitt).
“Not even close, by a country mile: getting cut out of The Devil’s Own,” McElhenney said. “That was one of the most humiliating and terrible experiences of my life because it was my first acting job in a movie. I got to do a scene with Harrison Ford, I got to do a scene with Brad Pitt, I got to do a scene with Julia Stiles, Rubén Blades — all these incredible actors.”
Watch on Deadline
He continued, “Then the movie’s coming out, and I notice I don’t get an invite to the premiere or the friends and family screening, but I’m still just starting out — I’m like 19 or something, 18, I’m thinking, ‘Oh, it’ll be fine.’ Of course, for a year, I’m telling everybody I got this movie; nobody believes me because I hadn’t worked at all doing anything else. And then, we go to the movie — all my friends, everybody, my family buys tickets — and I’m just not in it at all. They cut me completely out of the movie, didn’t give me a heads up, nothing. They were all A-players and I was a D-player on the ground. I wasn’t even a player, I was on the editing room floor.”
McElhenney would then go on to make his feature debut the following year, in 1998’s Oscar-nominated John Travolta vehicle A Civil Action, from director Steve Zaillian.
And, all’s well that ends well, given that It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, soon to return for its 17th season, remains the longest-running live-action U.S. sitcom. McElhenney is also the showrunner and star of Apple TV+’s video game workplace comedy Mythic Quest, currently airing its fourth season.