Most Expensive Actors That Didn't Make The Final Cut

In the cutthroat world of Hollywood, job security is one luxury even Oscar winners don't always have. The best laid plans of directors and producers often go awry, leading to script rewrites, cast overhauls and tough decisions that sometimes leave scenes with hugely expensive superstars on the editing room floor. Check out a few A-list stars who didn't make it into movies they signed on for.

British actress Sienna Miller worked hard to perfect a Boston accent and watched a ton of movies set in South Boston to prepare for her role in Johnny Depp's Black Mass. Miller was supposed to play the girlfriend of notorious gangster Whitey Bulger, but director Scott Cooper told the Boston Globe that "it came down to narrative choices" and that the time in Bulger's life involving her character was "less dramatic."

Three years after American Beauty, Chris Cooper was cut out of The Ring for being too good. In an early cut of the horror flick, Cooper appears in the opening scene as a child murderer interviewed by Naomi Watts' character. He reappears at the end when Watts knows the power of the cursed videotape and lends him a copy. But test audiences were distracted by Cooper's presence and wanted more of his superfluous storyline, prompting the axe.

The cast of 2011's Bridesmaids originally had a little more testosterone. In one deleted scene, Paul Rudd plays Kristen Wiig's quick-tempered date at an ice skating rink. But Wiig revealed to Entertainment Weekly that test audiences didn't like seeing Rudd in such an unlikeable role. "We had so much fun the days he was there and [cutting him] was so incredibly painful."

According to the Guiness Book of Records, perfectionist director Stanley Kubrick set the record for the longest continuous movie shoot with Eyes Wide Shut, and the 400 days of constant reshoots took its toll on Oscar winner Harvey Keitel, who bowed out due to schedule conflicts after filming several scenes in the role that Sydney Pollack plays in the finished film. Jennifer Jason Leigh also filmed her entire part as Marion Nathanson, but was busy filming eXistenz when Kubrick wanted to reshoot all of her scenes.

Director Ang Lee and Tobey Maguire go back all the way to 1997's The Ice Storm, but Lee said Spider-Man became too famous for his part in 2012's Life of Pi. Maguire was to play the interviewer who talks to the lead character during the movie's "wraparound" story, but Lee told USA Today he preferred a lesser known actor. "It's a small part," Lee said. "So when it's a movie star sitting there, it captures attention. It didn't really work out."

Uma Thurman filmed several scenes for Oliver Stone's Savages as the absentee mom of Blake Lively's hippie character, but it was all cut for time. Lively later said the scenes primarily served as backstory for her character. "It's a shame that you will miss that," she argued. "It was really beautiful stuff with Uma Thurman."