I have mixed feelings about the firing of actor Neal McDonough, who was replaced on the set of ABC’s Scoundrels. The married actor was let go for refusing to do a love scene. Seems fair enough, really, but as this Salon piece points out, female actors have been refusing racy/nude scenes for years, without much harm to their careers:
“McDonough’s case is unusual because, well, he’s a guy. Granted, there isn’t as much male nudity as female nudity on film, and it’s not clear how raunchy the “Scoundrels” scenes were actually going to be — one assumes ABC isn’t exactly delving into HBO territory. But for whatever reason, there are fewer headlines about the pressure for male actors to bare it all on screen, and what kind of effect the steamy scenes have on relationships outside of TV-land.”
